Dear Concordia community—and especially current and future students,

It is with pure joy that we welcome students to a new academic year! CEED Concordia, a student levy group, is happy to further the educational journey of students by offering exciting cross-cultural internship opportunities throughout the year.

While CEED Concordia’s internships offer a great learning opportunity for students who participate in our projects, it is also an excellent opportunity to apply the concepts you learn in the classroom with others in your community, as well as communities abroad!

If you are interested in international development with a particular skill set or academic background in sustainability, the empowerment of women, entrepreneurship, or computer science, you can subscribe to our newsletter and follow our Instagram account, to stay in the loop of all our upcoming opportunities!

Currently, we are seeking applicants for a video documentary project in collaboration with women entrepreneurs in Colombia and Quebec. Learn more about this creative internship opportunity with the possibility to gain university credit by reading more here.

CEED’s History

Many of our internships operate in Gulu, the second largest town in Uganda, where CEED Concordia owns a compound led by nationals from Uganda. Our strong ties with Uganda dates back to CEED’s conception back in 2005. The founding members Peter Schiefke and Awel Uwihanganye established CEED (named CVAP at the time) as a response to the civil war in Northern Uganda and the presence of the Lord’s Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony.

Online Internships

CEED has adapted many of its internships to the reality of the global pandemic. Until recently, many of our projects took place in the Gulu community, and our qualified interns conducted their projects in person. For safety reasons, CEED internships no longer require travel. Past projects such as Tech Ed that teaches computer and coding skills to Ugandan High School students using online teaching methods with the support of national staff and interns based in Uganda. You can learn more about how CEED adapted its flagship Tech Ed internship here!

Past Projects

Video Documentary Project

This project resulted in the creation of many short documentaries that highlight critical issues that affect youth in Gulu, Uganda. We also had a Video Doc project in 2020 where interns made a documentary about a Montreal African Art Gallery, Espace Mushagalusa, that explores the cultural and African heritage in Canada through storytelling.

Youth Entrepreneurship Project

This project started in response to the extreme poverty and high rates of unemployment among youth in Northern Uganda. It was designed to empower young entrepreneurs with soft & hard skills training, help them gain start-up capital, and provide workshops to enable them to tackle challenges they might face. We reproduced this project in Canada to give a chance to Concordia students to transform their social or environmental business idea into reality! They participated in a pitch competition, and the selected student entrepreneurs are now undergoing a capacity building training program.

Environmental Sustainability Project

This project focuses on two environmental challenges facing northern Uganda; waste management and deforestation. We support local communities by increasing awareness of these two issues while leveraging local solutions and sustainable alternatives.

Tech Education Internship (Tech-Ed)

This project started in 2017 where interns set up a resource centre and reading space to foster a reading culture in Gulu and improve literacy levels. Computer literacy workshops and hands-on experience with computers became the next goal. CEED hosted a new online edition of this project last winter, where Ugandan and Canadian interns worked together for two months to deliver basic ICT workshops with a focus on processing software such as Word and Excel as well as basic coding skills. The second edition  of this online workshop is currently underway. Keep an eye out for the 2022 winter cohort!

Women’s Solidarity: Entrepreneurship between Quebec and Colombia

This project, in partnership with Nuestro Flow, offers entrepreneurial training to women entrepreneurs in Quebec and Colombia. The selected entrepreneurs also participate in a research project on women entrepreneurship. The research component is led by a team of Research Interns, mostly compromised of undergraduate University students recruited by CEED, who are researching the potential gender and racial barriers that disproportionately affect women entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 outbreak. This research will result in a Policy Report that will be published in December.