Olga Abizaid is Director of the Democracies that Deliver program, which includes health, education and labour mobility. She holds an MA in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and a Licenciatura in International Relations from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. She has extensive experience working on different themes including regional integration, Canadian foreign policy, the Mexican oil industry, and Mexican foreign and domestic politics.
Lesley Burns, Project Manager, joined FOCAL to manage the governance and civil society portfolio. Prior to joining FOCAL she conducted research throughout Latin America on democratic stability, democratic institutions, elections, Canadian-Latin American relations, international trade and peace agreements and taught international relations. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in International Development, a Masters in Political Science and recently completed a Doctorate in Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral research focused on the rule of law and democratic stability and focused on Venezuela.
Carlo Dade, Executive Director,
manages programmes in Remittances/Diasporas, Corporate Social Responsibility and Canadian Engagement in Haiti. Prior to joining FOCAL, Carlo was Representative for the Dominican Republic, Haïti and the English speaking Caribbean at the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), a U.S. government foreign aid agency where he managed a US$3 million community grant and business co-financing portfolio for community, economic and social development projects. Carlo was a founding member of the Enterprise Research Institute and Foundation for Latin America (ERI), a Washington D.C. think tank specializing in Private Sector Development and Corporate Social Responsibility issues. Prior to joining ERI, Carlo worked for five years in the Latin American and Caribbean Region Technical Department of the World Bank. Carlo holds a BA in International Affairs from the University of Virginia with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. He was an MA candidate at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University and also attended Yarmouk University, in Irbid, Jordan.
Madeleine Bélanger Dumontier, Director of Communications and Editor,worked as a researcher on global governance issues in the Department of Political Science at Université de Montréal, prior to joining our team in October 2009. Previously, she participated in NGO projects in Honduras, mostly with women’s groups in the markets of Tegucigalpa. She was also a trainee in the Civil Society Unit of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, as well as in two Canadian missions abroad: the Embassy of Canada in Washington and the Mission of Canada to the EU in Brussels. Madeleine holds a BA in international studies and an honours MA in political science from Université de Montréal. She also studied journalism at Concordia University.
Fatima Gardaad, Development and Project Coordinator, holds a BA in Communications and Cultural Studies from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec and a master's degree in Environmental Studies with a specialization in International Development from York University in Toronto, Ontario, where she wrote her thesis on sustainable livelihoods and community development in squatter settlements in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining FOCAL, she worked as the Director of Program Development for a startup NGO focused on improving health care infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. She hopes to further research and explore issues of community development and sustainable livelihoods, as well as popular education frameworks for low income communities in a Latin American and Caribbean context.
Ruth Mestechkin, Project Coordinator and Assistant Editor, holds a combined honours bachelor degree in journalism and political science from the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Previously, she worked as an editorial intern at Where Toronto magazine and also served as a news editor at The Dalhousie Gazette for several years. Ruth did freelance reporting for various city newspapers in Halifax and Toronto. She hopes that through her work at FOCAL, she will begin to pick up some of the basics of the Spanish language.
Naume Mutambo, Manager of Finance and Administration, joined FOCAL in March 2009. She graduated with honours from Herzing College and is currently studying at the University of Ottawa. Naume has strong experience in the financial field and has experience working with CIDA, DFID and other organisations in relation to International Development in such countries as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria. Naume provides financial analysis, planning and reporting as well as administrative support; liaises with FOCAL’s Board of Directors in meeting preparation; and oversees human resources such as payroll, insurance administration, and internal personnel management.
Ronald Rojas, Project Manager, Health and Education is an economist interested in Economic Development, International Trade and Agricultural Economics. Ronald has worked as a projects specialist, preparing and evaluating development projects. As a researcher he conducted several documents in the agricultural economics area, and used in a variety of ways the production chain methodology for his analysis. As an economic policy advisor he worked for the Bolivian Private Sector as International Trade Director, where he analyzed trade agreements and their impact in the economy and studied national legislation and state programs related to economic affairs. He was the Bolivian private sector’s responsible for the negotiations of the Free Trade Area between the Andean Countries and the U.S. He holds an MA in Economics from Carleton University and has worked for international organizations and NGOs, such as the Inter–American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and the Center for International Studies and Cooperation, in La Paz, Ottawa, Montreal and Conakry.
Tandy Shephard, Project Manager, joined FOCAL to manage the Mapping the Media in the Americas project. She has previously worked on micro-credit projects in Bolivia and recently finished a two-year GIS mapping project on Easter Island, Chile. She has also worked on community development projects in Salvador, Brazil. She holds a master’s degree in Geography from the University of Victoria and completed a degree in Sociology and Latin American Studies at the University College of the Fraser Valley.
FOCAL Fellows
Paul A. Haslam is an Assistant Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. His current research focuses on the international regulation of foreign direct investment, corporate social responsibility, and the political economy of institutional reform in Latin America. He has co-edited Introduction to International Development: Approaches, Actors and Issues, 2009, and Governing the Americas: Assessing Multilateral Institutions, 2007, as well as published in journals such as Global Society, The European Journal of Development Research, Third World Quarterly and Études internationales. He received his Ph.D. from Queen’s University.
Thomas Legler is a Professor of International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Dr. Legler has an ongoing research interest in the international promotion and defense of democracy as well as comparative democratization in the Americas. Dr. Legler has observed elections with the Carter Center, the OAS, and civil society organizations in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela. He is also a Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen’s University. A specialist on Latin American politics and development, he holds a doctorate in Political Science from York University. He has taught at Mount Allison University, the University of Victoria, and the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers (SNI), Level 1. He is the co-author of Intervention without Intervening? The OAS Defense and Promotion of Democracy in the Americas, 2006. His co-edited volume Promoting Democracy in the Americas, 2007, was nominated for the Georgetown University Lepgold Book Prize and the APSA Comparative Democratization Award. His refereed publications have appeared in Global Governance, Journal of Democracy, Latin American Politics and Society, Canadian Foreign Policy, and Hemisphere, as well as multiple edited volumes.
Yasmine Shamsie is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the Associate Director of the PhD in Global Governance Program at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Her research focuses on the peacebuilding efforts of bilateral and multilateral actors in Haiti and Guatemala, with particular attention to democratic development programs. She is a Fellow at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University and the co-editor with Andrew Thompson of Haiti: Hope for a Fragile State published by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Wilfrid Laurier University. She also co-edited with Ricardo Grinspun, Whose Canada? Continental Integration, Fortress North America and the Corporate Agenda in 2007. Her research has appeared in Comparative Politics journals such as Third World Quarterly and the Journal of Haitian Studies as well International Relations journals such as Global Governance, Civil Wars, Canadian Foreign Policy and the Review of International Political Economy.
FOCAL Research Associates and Interns
Kaylee Cameron is a high school student from Lisgar Collegiate Institute working with FOCAL through her co-op program to assist the Director of Communications on FOCALPoint, event organization, and administration. She takes a strong interest in gender studies and globalization, and is planning on entering a BA program related to policy, trade, and development
in the near future. Kaylee enjoys playing rugby and is the co-editor and club head of her school's arts magazine, The Wandering Phonograph.
Juan Camilo Sanchez came to Canada from Colombia seven years ago and is currently finishing an Economics and Political Science undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Having witnessed firsthand the numerous social problems which detrimentally affect Latin American societies and the region as whole, Juan has sought to increase his understanding of those problems. He will be working on the CanAFRO project to better understand the realities of Afro Latinos and to understand how social actors interact in the political sphere. His future plans include further studies and making a contribution toward resolving social problems with a focus on Latin America.
Kathryn Dingle, Intern, Health Inequalities, in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. Kathryn has a Masters degree in International Development (Development Management) from the University of Manchester, England, and a Bachelors degree in International Development and Spanish from Dalhousie University, Halifax. She has studied in Campeche, Mexico; worked in Managua, Nicaragua, and traveled in Uganda. Previously she worked with World Literacy of Canada in Toronto on public engagement events and community development projects in Toronto and India. For her work on health at FOCAL, she brings experience from running an HIV/AIDS prevention and education campaign for youth in Nicaragua, and research from a dissertation on health care delivery in Uganda.
Ryan Dubé holds a BA with distinction in Latin American Studies and Anthropology from the University of Alberta, and has studied at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Ryan has worked with AIESEC in the Dominican Republic, interned with the Peruvian Press Council and reported for the Peruvian Times, which included writing on the human rights trial of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, among other topics. He is currently the editor of policy papers and op-eds for the Washington D.C.-based Hispanic Community for Policy. He speaks English and Spanish, and has a basic understanding of French and Portuguese.
Sarah Carpenter, Intern, Education Policy, focuses on early childhood development and educational inequities in Bolivia, Columbia and Peru. She holds a B.Sc in Physiology from McGill University and intends to pursue a Masters degree in Public Policy in September 2010. She declined an acceptance to medical school to promote change through policy and advocacy. Prior to interning with FOCAL, Sarah was a research intern with the Institute of Public Administration of Canada in Toronto.
Adriana Escobar, Intern, Labour Mobility, came to Canada from Colombia ten years ago. She is currently finishing her Masters Degree in Economics at the University of Ottawa. Adriana’s education and professional activities have allowed her to develop expertise studying socio-economic conditions for different socio demographic groups. She also worked in a major research project about Immigrants and Wage Differences. She is working in the labour mobility project identifying and collecting data, research and information on migrant workers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) coming to Canada. Adriana’s professional goals are to continue exploring socio-economic interactions among different ethnic groups and its socio-economic implications.
Juliana Ramirez holds a MA in Political Science from the University of Calgary specializing in comparative politics. She conducted qualitative research in Colombia for her MA thesis "Rethinking the Link between Civil Society and Civil War: the case of Colombia". Her research was granted with a one-year MA/CGS award from SSHRC, a Graduate Student Scholarship from the Government of Alberta and a Graduate Research Award from the Human Security and Cities Project. She completed her BA in Government and International Relations at Externado de Colombia University and two semester-programs in Peace and Conflict Resolution and U.S. Foreign Policy at American University in Washington D.C. Juliana has worked for Human Rights Watch - Americas Division, the Armed Groups Project and is currently working as research associate for the Peacebuilding, Development and Security Program.
Emily Wilson holds a MA in English from the University of Toronto, where her studies were funded by a SHHRC graduate award, and a BA in English and Global Studies from the University of Ottawa. She is currently based in Jerusalem, interning with ACTED and working on agricultural and social development projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She has volunteered for NGOs such as the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Amnesty International, WUSC and Action Aid. Her international experience includes an internship in Ghana researching socio-cultural barriers to girls' education. She has volunteered for FOCAL since 2007, contributing news briefs on current events in Latin America. |
