Partners for International Development (PfID) is a charity registered in Canada that funds and operates poverty alleviation projects in Kenya, Peru, and Tanzania, with a focus on cost-effective education and health programs. We are a small volunteer-run organization. In Canada, our leadership team is comprised of young professionals who have all worked in the communities we serve. Internationally, our field teams include foreign and local volunteers, local employees, and stakeholders from carefully selected local NGOs with whom we partner to foster long-term local ownership and support for our projects.
History
Over the summer of 2008, seven students from the University of Toronto traveled to Western Kenya to work on service projects that they had organized with local community contacts. The students had given themselves just 14 weeks (and far too little money) to build a maternity ward, equip and open a government dispensary, dig a 60 foot well, and establish a tree nursery. Through 80-hour unpaid workweeks, the students completed all projects. The well is still pumping, and the dispensary serves over 12,000 patients per year.
One of the students (Michael Beeler) had been quite skeptical of the ability of student volunteers to organize meaningful, effective projects in developing countries. His experience opening the Inyali Dispensary changed everything. "I went from being an arch-cynic of the volunteer abroad sector (maybe I still am...) to a huge proponent." Michael reasoned that if projects are well-designed, evidence-based, and have government buy-in, and if volunteers receive the right pre-departure training, then it's possible for a young person with a couple thousand dollars in philanthropic capital to make quite substantial contributions, while learning more, professionally and academically, than one might learn through coursework or typical summer internships.
The following year, Michael led a larger student volunteer team in Kenya, and incorporated a non-profit called Students for International Development (SID). SID has organized 15-30 three-month internships per year ever since. In 2013, SID's founding team incorporated PfID as a collaborating charity to take over the long-term management of SID's health and education projects, while letting SID focus on training and professional development for the student volunteers who support these initiatives.
History
Over the summer of 2008, seven students from the University of Toronto traveled to Western Kenya to work on service projects that they had organized with local community contacts. The students had given themselves just 14 weeks (and far too little money) to build a maternity ward, equip and open a government dispensary, dig a 60 foot well, and establish a tree nursery. Through 80-hour unpaid workweeks, the students completed all projects. The well is still pumping, and the dispensary serves over 12,000 patients per year.
One of the students (Michael Beeler) had been quite skeptical of the ability of student volunteers to organize meaningful, effective projects in developing countries. His experience opening the Inyali Dispensary changed everything. "I went from being an arch-cynic of the volunteer abroad sector (maybe I still am...) to a huge proponent." Michael reasoned that if projects are well-designed, evidence-based, and have government buy-in, and if volunteers receive the right pre-departure training, then it's possible for a young person with a couple thousand dollars in philanthropic capital to make quite substantial contributions, while learning more, professionally and academically, than one might learn through coursework or typical summer internships.
The following year, Michael led a larger student volunteer team in Kenya, and incorporated a non-profit called Students for International Development (SID). SID has organized 15-30 three-month internships per year ever since. In 2013, SID's founding team incorporated PfID as a collaborating charity to take over the long-term management of SID's health and education projects, while letting SID focus on training and professional development for the student volunteers who support these initiatives.
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