The South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship Project:

The Mosaic Institute believes that the best Canadian citizens are also global citizens, and that many of the world’s best global citizens are Canadian. With generous funding support from Multiculturalism Canada and the RBC Foundation, the Mosaic Institute is developing and delivering a two-year program for 150 young Canadians of South Asian origin, all ages 15 to 24, that will use a series of workshops, dialogues and community service projects to increase their attachment to Canada and encourage them to become move involved in helping to define and enhance Canada’s contribution to peace and development in the world. This initiative will run until early 2012.

Canadian Young People’s Peace Dialogue on Sri Lanka:

Under the auspices of its “South Asian-Canadian Global Citizenship Project”, described above, the Mosaic Institute has initiated a “peace dialogue” between young members of Canada’s Tamil and Sinhalese communities. A committed group of young Canadians with a personal attachment to Sri Lanka is serving as the Steering Committee for this ambitious and timely initiative. After a several months of building a relationship of trust with one another, and after drafting a common Statement of Values borne of their shared passion for core Canadian values such as peace, good government, the rule of law, and minority rights, this Steering Committee is working with the leadership of the Institute and with the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre to present a series of timely, large-group dialogue sessions that will start in September 2010. Those sessions will focus on the economic, humanitarian and institutional challenges facing the people of Sri Lanka, and ways in which Canada and Canadians can work constructively to help democracy achieve its full promise there. Professional mediators will moderate smaller forums where participants will develop concrete policy recommendations for Canada and identify shared opportunities for grassroots peacebuilding in Sri Lanka.

Research Initiative with the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation:

The Mosaic Institute and the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation have embarked on a joint research project to review the means and mechanisms whereby diaspora communities in Canada are able to influence Canada’s global contribution to peacebuilding and development. A review of several case studies and “best practices” will be distilled into a list of policy recommendations to be shared with decision-makers in the Government of Canada. The lead author of the paper will be Natalie Brender, formerly of the Conference Board of Canada, and the members of the project’s Advisory Committee include such notable public policy experts as Yuen Pau Woo, the CEO of the Asia-Pacific Foundation; Rima Berns-McGowan, Editor of the Canadian International Council’s International Journal; and Arif Lalani, former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan and DFAIT’s Director-General of Policy Planning, among others. This paper will be released and presented in a public forum towards the end of 2010.

A Foreign Policy Consultation with the Sudanese-Canadian Diaspora:

The Sudan Task Force at Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) has invited the Mosaic Institute to convene a national foreign policy conference and consultation involving the core leadership of the various Sudanese communities represented in Canada, including northerners, southerners, and Darfuris. This conference, to be held at the University of Winnipeg in early September 2010, builds upon the Institute’s 2009 Report for the Sudan Task Force, entitled “Profile of a Community: A ‘Smart Map’ of the Sudanese Diaspora in Canada”. The conference is designed to tap into the “citizen expertise” of Canadians of Sudanese background and to review Canada’s policies towards Sudan, where the Government of Canada has spent almost $700-million on diplomatic, humanitarian and security-related initiatives since 2006.

World Religions Summit 2010:

The Mosaic Institute is the only non-faith-based organization on the Steering Committee of the World Religions Summit being held in Winnipeg in June 2010. The World Religions Summit is timed to coincide with Canada’s hosting of the G8 and G20 political summits. Mosaic was invited to help develop a public engagement strategy to encourage individuals from all major faith traditions in Canada to make personal commitments to raising awareness about and advancing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (“MDGs”), including those related to peacebuilding and poverty reduction. The interfaith partnership organizing the summit issued a draft statement in October 2009 calling upon the governments and citizens of the G8 to redouble their commitment to achieving the MDGs by 2015. The Mosaic Institute represented the World Religions Summit at meetings of the “Civil G8” – an assembly of leading civil society organizations from around the world – that was convened in April 2010 by the organizers of the G8 political meetings, and chaired by Canada’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

UofMosaic:

The Mosaic Institute is seeking a major donor to finance the expansion of its “UofMosaic” program to promote inter-community dialogue and a commitment to peacebuilding on university campuses across Canada. A successful “test” chapter was established at the University of Toronto’s St. George campus in September 2009. The UofMosaic approach encourages students from a wide variety of ethnocultural backgrounds to engage in the practice of constructive, respectful “citizen diplomacy” on campus to confront inter-ethnic conflicts and explore and recommend strategies for advancing the cause of peace both in Canada and abroad. Under strong student leadership in its first year of operation, the “UofMosaic @ UofT” chapter hosted “regional roundtables” on the Middle East and Armenia-Turkey, convened a multi-disciplinary panel entitled “Peace and How to Make It”, and organized an event on “Religion and Peacebuilding” in partnership with the UofT’s Multi-Faith Centre.

"Legacy" Peacebuilding Projects in the Middle East:

The Mosaic Institute is consulting with members of Canada’s Arab and Jewish communities concerning a number of peacebuilding projects in the Middle East. The Institute is looking for a project be undertaken in that region to create a tangible “legacy” of Mosaic’s successful 2009 speakers’ series on the Middle East entitled, “Building Bridges in Canada: New Perspectives on People and Peace.” Already, Mosaic has produced a DVD outlining the approach and the achievements of the “Building Bridges” series that has been shared with officials of DFAIT and CIDA, and with members of the Foreign Affairs committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate. The Mosaic Institute is also involved as an informal advisor to a project being led by the Environics Institute to undertake a comparative social values survey of Palestinians and Israelis. Survey results could be used to assist both governmental and non-governmental negotiators to better understand their traditional adversaries and enhance the quality success rate of their interactions.

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