A chance visit with some young farmers from Mali visiting Sainte-Élisabeth, Quebec, as part of a Canada World Youth program forever changed the life of Claude Giles. The teacher-turned-farmer started working in a field he had not anticipated: international development.

This initial encounter led to Sainte-Élisabeth, just north of Montréal, being twinned with the rural community of Sanankoroba, about 30 km south of Bamako, capital of Mali. A twinning committee was established: the Quebec group named it Des mains pour demain ("hands for tomorrow"’) while the Malians called it Benkadi ("good will" in Bambara, a language spoken in Mali).

The first mutual aid project took shape under the direction of Claude; his wife, Joan Brown; and Moussa Konaté, a teacher in Sanankoroba. This project fulfilled a long-held dream for the farmers of Mali: switching from hoes to teams of oxen.

After a good first trip to Mali, Claude spent four productive years in Bamako. In that time, Claude managed the Mali program of SUCO (Service universitaire canadien outre-mer) (French link). He strengthened ties with the people of Sanankoroba, especially Moussa Konaté. And several projects designed to meet villagers’ needs saw the light of day. For instance, women normally used to spend nearly a third of their time crushing millet. They had the idea of establishing a community mill, which was done. With extra time on their hands, they began to clean up the village and make lucrative products such as dye, soap, and other items they could sell easily at the market in Bamako.

Encouraged by this wave of prosperity, other groups and villages followed suit, achieving unexpectedly good results in unforeseen areas. The number of children enrolled at Sanankoroba’s school tripled from less than 400 in 1989 to more than 1200 in 1996 without the involvement of any education project.

For Claude, the success of this development work came about mainly because of the genuine involvement of the Malian people every step of the way and from the efforts of true leaders such as Moussa Konaté, held in high esteem by his community. This development model, based on accountability and mutual trust, and established over time and with projects between the people of Sainte-Élisabeth and Sanankoroba, has gained widespread acceptance: 90 villages in Mali have adopted it. There is even talk of exporting the model to other countries: Claude just got back from Haiti, where plans are afoot to apply it there.

In the spirit of reciprocity, during the 1998 ice storm in Canada, concerned citizens of Sanankoroba raised funds and sent a donation of $100 to Sainte-Élisabeth, to help the community get through the tough times.