CUSO

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CUSO, founded 6 June 1961 as Canadian University Students Overseas, is a Canadian non-profit organization that aids in the development of third-world countries.

CUSO was founded as a university-based organization recruiting recently graduated students for volunteer service around the world. Soon, however, non-students were also being recruited and the original name altered to Canadian University Service Overseas. Ultimately, with an increasing focus on trades as well as professions and indeed a longstanding policy of attempting to move from volunteerism to project aid, the word "university" was dropped altogether in 1979 and "CUSO" ceased to be an acronym.

It was in its first decades roughly analogous to the Peace Corps of the United States and Voluntary Service Overseas of the UK and was established at roughly the same time. However, unlike the Peace Corps, it was never a government agency although it began receiving federal government funding in 1965 and since 1968 the Canadian International Development Agency has provided most of CUSO's core funding.

Today, CUSO is one of Canada's largest volunteer sending organization, committed to promoting social justice in approximately 25 countries in Africa, Latin America, South-east Asia and the Pacific. CUSO volunteers, called cooperants, are professionals recruited from both Canada and developing countries. Cooperants build capacity of local partner organizations (usually NGO's, networks and governments), by sharing information, human and material resources, and promoting policies for developing global sustainability. Areas of CUSO programming are AIDS, environmental protection, community economic development and inclusive governance.