The University of Victoria (Geography Department) and the Kesho Trust have been working together for a number of years, beginning with the Protected Areas and Poverty Reduction Research Alliance (PAPR) in 2009. Shared interests in conservation and community development have stimulated further participation in other large collaborative projects such as I-CAN and the CCRN.
Together we have also tried to develop funding support for our own initiatives. Although a major proposal to CIDA in partnership with the EFT failed, we were successful with a SSHRC Connections Grant which funded a study tour by representatives of the EFT to visit Canadian First Nations in BC and Yukon in 2019. Our second stage of SSHRC funding, the Partnership Development grant, was approved in April 2021. The Indigenous Knowledge Bridging of Land and Water Governance project was implemented under that funding.
In 2019 we implemented the first UVic / Kesho Trust Field School in Tanzania. It is our hope that this program will continue in future years although the COVID-19 situation interrupted our scheduled 2020 event and has put the program on hold.
Links to information on our previous and current initiatives with UVic are provided here:
- PAPR
- I-CAN
- CCRN
- Maasai Study Tour
- UVic / Kesho Trust Field School
- Indigenous Knowledge Bridging of Land and Water Governance