50th anniversary
50th Anniversary Events
Whether you completed your overseas placement months ago or decades ago, you are part of our community. We hope you can be part of our regional 50th Anniversary celebrations, and attend our international conference in Ottawa in June, 2011. We have some inspiring events and celebrations planned - stay tuned for details.
On June 6, 2011, CUSO-VSO will turn 50...
Our story actually began in 1960, when Canadian Overseas Volunteers (COV) and other university-based initiatives such as Canadian Voluntary Commonwealth Service (CVCS) and Le Mouvement Universitaire National pour le Developpement Outre-Mer begin. This new volunteer movement spreads quickly to other Canadian universities, and on June 6, 1961, CUSO was officially established at a meeting of the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges at McGill University in Montreal.
Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO, and in French, SUCO – Service universitaire canadien outre-mer) emerged as a non-profit organization that sent young Canadians abroad. In August 1961, the first group of 15 COV volunteers left for one year’s service in India, Ceylon and Sarawak. The first CVCS short-term volunteers leave for Jamaica that same year. Most worked as teachers for foreign governments or educational institutions. Their motto was “serve and learn,” and their aim was to help the new nations reach self-sufficiency while increasing their own knowledge of the world.
In 1963, nearly 100 volunteers under the banner of CUSO departed for placements in 15 countries. By 1964, COV and CVCS were fully merged with CUSO/SUCO.
VSO’s story began in 1958 when the UK’s Alec and Moira Dickson set up a program in Ghana. In 1995, VSO Canada became the North American member of the VSO Federation, an alliance of international development organizations that work through volunteering. Both Canadians and Americans served with VSO.
CUSO and VSO Canada merged in 2008 and volunteerism has evolved, but we still believe that volunteers serve people and communities. And, just as important, they learn about the world and about themselves through the transformative act of volunteering. Collectively our history is written in the people we have sent overseas, and the people we worked with at the grassroots of change. We want to gather, celebrate and learn from this history.
