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1. Call for applications: Applications are invited for two internships positions in Costa Rica in 2007-2008:

 

a) Internship in Ecosystem Sustainability and Health - Volcán de Buenos Aires, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

b) Internship in Ecosystem Sustainability and Health - San Isidro De El General, Perez Zeledon, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

 

Internship funding is provided by CIDA as part of the International Youth Internship Program (IYIP). These positions are associated with a partnership between York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health in Canada, and CoopeAgri R.L. and RioArte in Costa Rica (web links are provided at the end of this document).  Project and internship job descriptions are provided below. Intern training will occur during May 2007. Placements in Costa Rica will begin in June 2007 for a duration of seven months. The internship involves a stipend of CAD$1200 per month while in Costa Rica, plus expenses.  (Training expenses, international travel, insurance, vaccinations and visa costs will be covered by the program).

 

2. Eligibility: Interns must meet the eligibility requirements of the IYIP (http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/iyip).  Interns must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents between the ages of 19 and 30, with at least seven months free to devote to an internship.  An intern must be:

 

However, you are not eligible if you have had a previous paid, career-related, international work experience, or if you have participated in a Youth Employment Strategy (YES) international internship program in the past.

 

3. About the program: The International Youth Internship Program (IYIP) is an employment program for young Canadians between the ages of 19-30. If you’re a post-secondary graduate, you could be eligible for this chance of a lifetime to work in a developing country and contribute to Canada’s international development goals. Not only will this experience contribute to your personal and professional growth, your sponsor organization will lend a helping hand in your search for employment once your internship ends.

 

4. Applications and Selection Process: Applications should include a resume or curriculum vitae, a statement of interest in the project that speaks to the applicant’s suitability to the position, and contact information of two referees (including phone numbers and email addresses).  Applications must also address the eligibility requirements of the International Youth Internship Program. Send applications by April 15, 2007 to,

 

 

Martin J. Bunch, PhD

Associate Professor

Faculty of Environmental Studies

York University

4700 Keele Street

Toronto ON, M3J 1P3

bunchmj@yorku.ca

 

Short-listed candidates will be interviewed by project partners in Canada and Costa Rica by phone in mid-to-late April, and notified of the employment decision by the end of April 2007.

 

This project addresses changes taking place in rivers and wetlands in Costa Rica's vital Rio Penas Blancas watershed and Térraba Basin, in the south of the country.  In the winter rivers are flooding, and in the summer, drying.  This is the poorest area of the country; it is also where much of Costa Rica's wealth of biodiversity is found.

 

Local residents are looking to understand why these rivers, and the ecosystems they support, are changing, and to restore both land and water in their area. They also want to foster alternative, sustainable industries, and to promote open dialogue about water among diverse individuals and groups.  A focus on the relationships between health and well-being and the complex local environmental situation will guide the development of such alternatives.

 

The interns will be associated with two ongoing projects in the Las Nubes-Los Cusingos biological corridor (Rio Penas Blancas watershed) and the lower Rio Terraba basin. Both areas are characterized by a growing "water crisis" characterized by increasing contamination, decreased flow, increased seasonality of flow. These characteristics are becoming more critical as the demands for water for sustainability are intensifying.  Monitoring of water quality and quantity began in 2004 with three interns from Spain who spent eight months in the region. The three also began a survey of domestic household use and disposal, and initiated an outreach program to teach local women about human health and sanitation related to nearby water resources. The IYIP interns will extend this monitoring and outreach throughout the Rio Penas Blancas watershed and to critical portions of the lower Rio Terraba watershed (including the adjacent mountain streams that drain the Volcan de Buenos Aires region).

 

Two internships are associated with this project.  One intern will be located in Volcán de Buenos Aires.  The town is situated twenty kilometres from the buffer zone of Parque Internacional La Amistad, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and fifty kilometres from the Térraba-Sierpe Wetland, the largest wetland in Costa Rica.  The other intern will be located in San Isidro De El General, Perez Zeledon, Puntarenas, with easy access to the Las Nubes-Los Cusingos Biological Corridor. San Isidro de El General, with a population of about 100,000, is the regional agricultural, industrial and commercial centre of southern Costa Rica. It is located on the Rio General; many of the small rivers from the adjacent highlands, including Las Nubes, flow into this river.

 

In Costa Rica

1.  Support activities and strengthening the institutional capacity of CoopeAgri and RioArte to design and implement action-oriented programs at the local level that encompass the relationships between changing ecological and hydrological conditions and human health, in the context of sustainable development.  In this role intern tasks will include (but are not limited

to): organizing and facilitating participatory workshops; interviewing local actors and documenting local knowledge; and collating and disseminating information generated by project activities.

 

2. Organizing and networking among local NGOs and community groups to strengthen their capacity to conduct outreach in human health and ecosystem change.

 

3. Training of mid-level managers of CoopeAgri in the importance of human health and ecosystem change in the sustainability of their development activities.

 

4. Training of key NGO personnel and community leaders in participatory formulation of action plans to create awareness and to improve human health as part of rural sustainability.

 

5. Imparting leadership skills and analytical abilities to key personnel and community members

 

6. Maintaining communication among Overseas and Canadian host organizations

 

1. Undertake training in participatory methodologies to development activities targeted to environment and health.

 

2. Disseminate (via outreach) internship experiences

 

3. Through debriefing, contribute to evaluation and improvement of intern roles and management of the internship program.

 

Interns must possess a post-secondary education in a field pertinent to the project and internship job description above (e.g., Environmental Studies, Geography, and Public Health) and must be functionally literate in the Spanish Language. Interns must also meet the age, citizenship and other eligibility requirements of the International Youth Internship Program.

 

(Cost of travel, accommodation, etc., to attend training activities will be covered).

1. CIL BRIEFING: Interns will be required to attend a 3-day country briefing by Centre for Intercultural Learning (CIL) (unless the intern has already attended that briefing in the past three years, or can demonstrate significant experience in Costa Rica).  CIL briefings are scheduled for May 28-30. 

 

2. TRAINING IN METHODOLOGY: Participants will attend a 1-week intensive course on 'Action Learning' at York University in Toronto (Daily May 7-11, 2007 from 9:30am to 5:30pm). Through the Action Learning course interns will be trained in participatory methodology for the creation of learning settings in which people representing all interests associated with a complex problem have the opportunity to respond collectively to critical issues in their shared environments. Action Learning particularly emphasizes the use of local/indigenous knowledge that is already present in such settings, but which is often not used. In this respect, action learning provides an explicit means of involving disempowered and marginalized groups in decisions relating to their futures. Action learning is a generic activity that can be applied in a range of settings (from single organizations to multi-organizational domains) to assist in the development of collective change strategies in response to complex and intractable problems.

 

3. TRAINING IN ECOHEALTH: Interns will undertake a one-day workshop provided by the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health. The workshop will build on the Action Learning training to address the application of the methodologies and techniques presented in that course to the inter-relationships among local environments and human health. (NESH has past experience in such training, usually as workshops associated with conferences and for agencies such as IDRC).

 

University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies: http://www.yorku.ca/fes

Network for Ecosystem Health and Sustainability: http://www.nesh.ca

CoopeAgri: http://www.coopeagri.co.cr

RioArte http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/isherman/rioarte/volcan.html

News 38 of 121