Alioune Danfa
Alioune Danfa is a teacher and inspector. He is also the Coordinator of the Programme africain des volontaires de l'éducation (African Program of Education Volunteers) and Executive Secretary of the Association pour le développement de l'éducation et de la formation en Afrique (Association for the Development of Education and Training in Africa). His responsibilities include research on issues involving educational reform, experiments in alternative education and training models, the involvement of local groups in the development of grassroots community education, as well as training and research.

Macaulay A. Olagoke
Macaulay A. Olagoke has a Ph.D. in rural management and production and is Executive Director of NIRADO. His responsibilities include rural development and agricultural economy, the development of training programs, research, as well as project development and management.

Affoué K. Sangaré
Affoué Kouassi Sangaré is a medical doctor and holds a Ph.D. in microbiology. She is head of the Retrovirus Laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Côte d'Ivoire, a founding member of the Association of African Women against AIDS, and President of the Côte d'Ivoire section of the Association. In addition to her medical qualifications, Dr. Sangaré is very active in grassroots communication with women in the STD-AIDS area.

Emmanuel Noumossie
Emmanuel Noumossie is a tropical agronomic engineer and the Director of Inadès-Formation Cameroon. His responsibilities include adult education, development communication, rural leadership programs, as well as project management and evaluation.

Alioune Camara
Alioune Camara has a postgraduate degree in public law (international relations option) and has specialized in the area of information sciences. Following three years of teaching documentation studies at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, he has dedicated approximately a decade to setting up information networks and systems on the development of Sahelian countries to support the programs of the Permanent Inter-State Committee on Drought Control in the Sahel, an organization that brings together nine countries of the subregion. In this capacity, he has been involved in the development of a number of national and regional sectoral information systems, with particular emphasis on the fields of agriculture and natural resource management. His main area of interest has focused on grassroots information and communication approaches as these relate to the policies of decentralization and the attempts to introduce democracy to the region.

Guy Bessette
Guy Bessette is a Senior Program Officer at IDRC and responsible for a research program in development communication. The program is targeted towards Sub-Saharan Africa and stresses participatory and grassroots communication processes. Concurrent with these activities, the program aims to facilitate the development of partnerships between, and with, Canadian and international researchers, practitioners and organizations, and to promote joint activities for advocacy with decision-makers at all levels. Guy Bessette has a Ph.D. in education technology from the University of Montreal.

2. Participants

Robert S. Anderson
Robert S. Anderson currently heads the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU), after having served as the first Director of the Community Economic Development Centre at the same university. An anthropologist by training and a holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1970), he has been involved in development communication projects in India, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Thailand, and China.

Henry-Paul Bolap
Henry-Paul Bolap is a program director at the nongovernmental organization ARBOR VITAE, and a private adviser in the ARBORESCENCE company. With a diploma from the International College of Journalism at Yaoundé (ESUY), from which he graduated in the mid-1970s, he has practiced his profession in France and Cameroon. He has taught several communication courses at the University of Montreal and at UQAM.

Sylvie I. Cohen
Sylvie I. Cohen joined the staff of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) in 1990 as a technical officer in the Education, Communication and Youth Branch (Technical and Evaluation Division), after having spent six years at UNICEF in the same area of activities. Over the past twenty years, she has specialized in development communication. Her contributions were instrumental in the establishment, in 1994, of the first regional training program for francophone Africa, funded by the UNPF through the IEC, in cooperation with the University of Côte d'Ivoire.

Edna Einsiedel
Edna Einsiedel is a professor and the Director of the Graduate program in Communication Sciences at the University of Calgary. She also coordinates the Undergraduate and Master's program in development studies. She has participated in development projects in the Philippines and Nigeria as well as in Canada, particularly in the area of strategic communication planning. Edna has also directed intercultural training seminars and conducted research work in participatory development.

Evelyne Foy
Evelyne Foy has collaborated in the design, development, and evaluation of community media projects in a number of urban and rural communities as well as in the Aboriginal community, on behalf of American Indian and Inuit peoples. She has worked on development projects in the Ministère des Communications du Québec and in various nongovernmental organizations (OXFAM, Development and Peace) in the areas of education and development communication. She is one of the founders of AMARC and has held the position of Secretary-General since the organization obtained international NGO status.

Victoria Freeman
Victoria Freeman is an author, community leader, and the Coordinator of the International Communication Group (ICG) at Ryerson Polytechnic University. She has actively promoted many participatory communication and research projects at Ryerson, and was involved in the development of multimedia databases on the controversy in which the Crees and ecologists mounted opposition to Hydro-Québec in relation to the Grande-Baleine dam construction project. She is a cofounder of the projet Écrivains de Baffin (Baffin Authors project).

Donald J. Gilles
Donald J. Gilles is a Professor of Communication Sciences at the Department of Cinematography and Photography of Ryerson Polytechnic University and is a former Department Head. He cochairs the External Affairs section of the International Communication Group. He was the founder and Chairman of Telecommunications Executive Management Institute of Canada (TEMAC). He has degrees from the universities of Edinburgh, Toronto, and London, as well as from the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine.

Olga Gladkikh
Olga Gladkikh is the Communications Coordinator and a lecturer at the Coady International Institute Saint Francis Xavier University. Her professional background in the communications area includes a long association with CBC-TV News and Current Affairs in the Atlantic provinces. She is responsible for training in her field both in Canada and abroad.

Elayne M. Harris
Over the past twenty years, Elayne M. Harris, Ph.D., has participated in the practice, research and teaching of community learning and education in developing regions. From the start of her career with the Continuing Education Services at Newfoundland's Memorial University in the early 1970s, her outlook has always been influenced by the concept of informal learning as the organizing theme for activities in development, communication, media, community education, and Native participation. During the 1980s she headed the Continuing Education Department at Memorial University for six years, before undertaking her doctoral studies in development communication and community life skills. She has conducted important research in community radio and television broadcasting in Newfoundland.

Paul Idahosa
Paul Idahosa is a professor and a member of the Political Science Department and the School of Public Administration at Ryerson Polytechnic University, where he teaches Third World politics and comparative political studies. He also teaches African politics at the University of Toronto. He has lived in both North Africa (Algeria) and West Africa (Nigeria), where he recently served as a senior lecturer and conducted research work.

Abdul W. Khan
Abdul W. Khan, PhD, is a Senior Program Officer at the Commonwealth of Learning and is responsible for developing strategic initiatives related to the use of communication techniques and television instruction technologies in member countries. He has worked as a development communication specialist for many organizations including, among others, the FAO, UNDP, UNPF, UNESCO and the United Nations Social and Economic Commission for Asia Pacific, the Asiatic Productivity Organization, and the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development.

Bernard Kouassi
Bernard Kouassi acted, until recently, as Secretary General of the Pan African Institute for Development. Prior to this function, he worked as program management specialist for US AID (American Aid Agency). He has also worked as technical advisor for economic development programs at the Ministry of Women's Promotion in Côte d'Ivoire as a research scientist and consultant, and as a cadre in industry and a bank. Dr. Kouassi obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Jane Knight
Jane Knight, Ph.D., has worked in cooperation with Ryerson International over the past six years on many development projects in Asia, including the Asia Pacific Broadcasting project. One of her current priorities is the Partnership Program with China, which is involved with training activities and the establishment of institutional, research, communication network, and exchange connections. In addition, she takes an interest in research on intercultural communication and the international dimension of higher education.

Emil Kolompar
Emil Kolompar is a head cameraman and teacher of cinema, video, and computer graphics at Ryerson Polytechnic University. He has been a director and head cameraman for the past twenty years. The première of Finest Kind, a documentary directed by Emil and coproduced with the NFB, took place at Toronto's Festival of Festivals. The film, which describes life in a small Newfoundland fishing village, is being shown to large audiences in this province as part of its community development activities.

Eva Kupidura
Eva Kupidura is currently a librarian and a community development officer with the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). A former teacher and adviser, Eva has also worked in libraries and documentation centres in Poland and France. She is the co-author of the 1968-1992 Annotated Catalogue, relating 25 years of publication of the journal Convergence.

Basanti Majumdar
Basanti Majumdar is an associate professor at McMaster University. She played a decisive role in the establishment of linkages between university ethnocultural committees and in the creation of a course, "Culture and Health," for the benefit of students of multidisciplinary faculties. As a founder of the Ethnocultural Research Division, Basanti published the first Canadian manual on raising awareness of diverse cultures (including Canadian multicultural policies) for training people working in the health and social service sector. Her experience includes community mobilization, intercultural awareness-raising programs and the implementation of participatory and experiential learning. Her fields of research include transcultural communication and learning methods (consultation groups and research through action).

Erma Wright Manoncourt
Erna Wright Manoncourt, Ph.D., has recently joined UNICEF as Head of the Social Planning and Program Communication Section. She obtained her doctorate in health behaviour and education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986. She has worked as a university professor for four years, and as an international health adviser for more than ten years. Her fields of specialization include the design of community interventions, the development of communication strategies and the evaluation of the incidence of behaviour modifications in infant survival programs, family planning, and communication on diarrhea and nutritional ailments.

Lavina Mohr
Lavina Mohr is the Secretary-General of Videazimut, an international coalition of organizations and individuals involved in development communication and democracy. The coalition consists of a network for the exchange and analysis of information and experiences in various regions of the world. Lavina has acquired extensive experience in the field of community broadcasting and has collaborated with several Canadian NGOs, including the Canadian Save the Children Fund.

Viola Morgan
Viola Morgan is the Coordinator of Gender Role and Development, Political and Regional Program Analysis Division, Regional Office for Africa, UNDP. She is also the contact person for regional education and health issues. From 1987 to 1989 Viola also acted as a communication adviser on behalf of various UNDP services, including the Global and Interregional Projects Division and the Non-governmental Liaison Services. Before joining UNDP, she worked at the Information Department of the United Nations Secretariat.

Luc Morin
Luc Morin, President of CAC International, has been working as a development communication consultant since 1985. Luc has worked in the health, population, and agriculture sectors. He lived for two years in Niger, where he was involved in ILO/UNPF health and population projects, and more recently, in the establishment of a human rights training program. His experience extends to the use of communication at the community level in the context of studying structural and social processes. In addition, he has successfully directed evaluation and training projects on behalf of the World Bank.

Charles Morrow
Charles Morrow, Senior Adviser, World Television Service-WETV, is a former Director of Information for the Canadian International Development Agency and the World Health Organization. He established a development communication sector in CIDA in 1983, which has made it possible for this component to be successfully integrated into many of the organization's projects in the fields of water purification, health and agriculture.

Ruth Nesbitt
Ruth Nesbitt is the Acting Director of Ryerson International. She is also a professor at the School of Nursing. Her field of interest is health communication. She chaired the Organization Committee of the Conference on Health and Communication in the Americas, which took place at Ryerson Polytechnic University from 27 to 29 March 1995. She is also the director of a project to establish university links in Bolivia, in which development communication is a major component.

Caroline Newton
Caroline Newton has worked in several African countries in the field of gender and communication. Her current job as Coordinator of Community Development for Vision TV includes the design and implementation of programs and policies for community participation in a multidenominational and multicultural television network.

Thérèse Paquet-Sévigny
Thérèse Paquet-Sévigny is head of the UNESCO chair in International Development and Communication at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Prior to this assignment, she has been Director of Communication at the United Nations Secretariat. In her position as UNESCO chairperson, she is working to establish a network of Canadian intervenors who are active in the field of international communication, and most particularly in development communication.

Alain Péricard
Alain Péricard is a former journalist based in West Africa and Latin America. He is presently a consultant and university lecturer in development communication. He has also founded an association of African researchers specializing in this field. In his position as a consultant and lecturer, he teaches communication and international development at UQAM.

Lila Pine
Lila Pine has worked as a director, editor and scriptwriter over the past six years. Her documentary on street children, Easy Marks, was nominated for the Golden Sheaf of Saskatoon award. Lila also teaches video production and postproduction workshops, works as a video technique consultant and coproduces a radio show on cinema and video.

C.V. Rajasunderam
C.V. Rajasunderam works for the International Communication Group at Ryerson Polytechnic University. His professional interest and experience involve research and training in development communication. Before arriving in Canada, he was a senior communicator at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, and later a senior research officer and media director at the Centre for Development Studies (Marga Institute), Sri Lanka. He has worked as a consultant on behalf of the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, Ryerson International (former Ryerson International Development Centre), the Netherlands Radio Training Centre, the Worldview International Foundation, and the Department of Information of the United Nations.

Dale Ratcliffe
Dale Ratcliffe teaches broadcasting at the Ryerson School of Journalism. Before joining Ryerson a year and a half ago, she worked as a radio and television reporter, editor, and producer at the CBC. In her last position, she was a senior producer of the CBC radio program "The World at Six." Dale has also worked with radio broadcasters in developing countries, most recently in Namibia, Africa.

Don Richardson
Don Richardson is a sociologist specializing in the development communication field. His special activity and interest areas are participatory communication (video, radio and print), community electronic networks, and access to the Internet in developing countries (including Africa). He has worked on various participatory development communication projects in Cameroon, Egypt, Bolivia, Pakistan, and Canada.

Heida Schaeffer
Heida Schaeffer currently holds the position of curriculum adviser at the Technology and Communication Branch, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. Her areas of specialization at the Ministry are organizational training and development, particularly work with native groups. At Ryerson Polytechnic University (1988-1993), she was involved in the production of a training kit on development broadcasting and established a participatory evaluation process for the Asia Pacific Development Broadcasting project.

Robert B. Scott
Robert B. Scott is currently the Program Director, Media Arts, and Co-Chairman of the International Communication Group at Ryerson Polytechnic University. He started to become involved in participatory communication activities through the Challenge for Change-Société Nouvelle program of the National Film Board in the late 1960s. As one of the main organizers of the Saint-John Project (New Brunswick), he helped to establish a rental association for low-income people in this city. The project was one of the first program initiatives to use small-format video in a process of social change.

J. Mark Stiles
J. Mark Stiles, President of Stiles Associates Inc., has more than twenty years' experience in the development communication and training fields, in Canada and abroad. From 1990 to 1993, he was a senior communication adviser at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he headed a national health promotion unit funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.

Cheryl Teelucksingh
Cheryl Teelucksingh is currently working as a researcher in the Graduate Program in Communication at the University of Calgary.

Jennifer Welsh
Jennifer Welsh has taught the introductory course in consumerism and family education at Ryerson's School of Nutrition since 1970, holding the position of director from 1980 to 1987, From 1988 to 1993, she was the Dean of the Faculty of Community Services. Food safety and health promotion continue to be her central interests.

Darryl Williams
Darryl Williams is Director of Studies, Rogers Communication Centre at Ryerson Polytechnic University, and Director of the New Media Research Group, which is involved in a three-year project on the use of broad-band networks for multimedia information sharing. He is a former Chairman of the Department of Cinematography and Photography at Ryerson Polytechnic University. Darryl is a member of the Management Board of the Intercom Consortium in Ontario.

Tony Williamson
Tony Williamson is the Director of the Don Snowden Centre for Development Communication, and international liaison officer at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has twenty-five years of experience in community development and participatory research among Aboriginal communities in the Canadian North. He was the first Administrator of the Labrador Institute of Nordic Studies at Memorial University, and was the Associate Administrator of the Adult Education Division of Memorial from 1977 to 1985.

Elizabeth Wilson
Elizabeth Wilson has been the General Director of the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network since 1989. Between 1985 and 1988, she worked for the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. During this time, she taught communication workshops in seven Asian and African countries, and acted as a communication consultant and organizer of funding campaigns for the President of the University of the Philippines. Elizabeth has been the Director of Information Services at the University of Toronto for nine years.

Chin Saik Yoon
Chin Saik Yoon works in development communication. He has worked in various Asian countries on development activities organized at the community, subnational, and national levels. He is also an editor at Southbound, a small office which publishes works specializing in development communication.