Seventeen MDP students worked with WUSC and CECI last summer to evaluate a number of their overseas development initiatives, from girls' clubs in northern Ghana to public health campaigns in Botswana, to youth skills training programs in Vietnam.
Working in teams, the students gained experience consulting with multiple stakeholders in an unfamiliar intercultural setting, preparing professional reports, and offering practical recommendations, all within a short timeframe of three months.
Morgan Dierickx, one of six MDP students in Vietnam, told the Forum:
We really had an amazing experience in Vietnam, we learned so much about the country and history, about living and working in a different cultural environment, about conducting a monitoring and evaluation project from scratch and...how to cross the street [in Hanoi].
The WUSC CECI Forum brought MDP students together with emerging development researchers, practitioners, WUSC alumni and local WUSC committee members from university campuses across Canada, including University of Waterloo.