The CanWaCH Academy is here! Join us from October 5 to 7 for practical, accessible and action-oriented sessions designed to help you grow and strengthen your work. 

Inspired by the theme Clarity, Capacity and Connection, this year’s edition of the Academy features a mix of workshops, tutorials and training sessions you won’t want to miss.

There’s something for everyone. Programming will cover a range of topics across the global health, international development and gender equality landscape. Whatever your role, you’ll leave with clear takeaways, practical examples, curated resources and tangible next steps you can easily apply.

Sessions will be hosted between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. EDT each day.

All sessions will feature opportunities to ask questions, share experiences and interact through various digital activities. The CanWaCH Academy is designed to be an engaging and participatory learning experience for all.

10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. EDT – Who gives? How to appeal to Canadians in a tougher fundraising world

11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT – Valuing Care: Applying a Gender Lens to Paid and Unpaid Care Work

12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EDT – Exhibiting change: Art as a vehicle for storytelling and public engagement

1:45 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT – From pilot to practice: How global innovations in women’s health scale and succeed

10 a.m. to 11 a.m. EDT – Inside the response: SRHR tools for humanitarian crises

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT – When the money gets complicated: Values, partners and trade-offs

12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EDT – Leader to leader: What’s shifting, what matters and what’s next

1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT – Reading the room, shaping the narrative: Global health in the fall political landscape

10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. EDT – Be Found, be chosen: Modernizing your digital presence in the age of AI search

11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT – Built to last: Staying secure, accessible and online

12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EDT – Who is included, who is missed? Building inclusion into global health research, programming and advocacy

1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. EDT – GAC’s GCTI: International Assistance is Complex. Navigating the Systems Behind It Shouldn’t Be

10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. EDT – Who gives? How to appeal to Canadians in a tougher fundraising world

For the first time at the CanWaCH Academy, we’re putting public fundraising on the agenda! As organizations look to diversify their funding in a more competitive environment, this session will explore the latest data on who is giving, what motivates Canadians and what messages and approaches have the strongest resonance.

Drawing on donor trends, sector expertise and public engagement insights, participants will come away with practical ideas for reaching Canadians more effectively and making a compelling case for global health, gender equality and international development.

Speaker:

• Julie Fiorini, General Manager, Charity and Donor Services, Canada Helps
• Allen Davidov, SVP and Practice Leader, Environics Canada

11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT – Valuing Care: Applying a Gender Lens to Paid and Unpaid Care Work

This session explores how investments in paid and unpaid care work can advance gender equality by improving working conditions, recognizing the value of care labour, and addressing the structural inequalities that shape who provides care and under what conditions. 

Through examples from organizations implementing care-focused programming, participants will explore practical approaches to integrating gender equality considerations into care workforce initiatives, including labour rights, collective voice and agency decent work, policy engagement, private sector engagement and measuring results. 

The session will highlight lessons learned and tangible outcomes from Canadian-supported initiatives while providing participants with tools to strengthen their own programming, advocacy and systems-level efforts that promote both gender equality and sustainable economic development.

Speakers:

• Dimitri Rousseau, Program Officer, Oxfam Canada
• Nicolette Matthijsen, Program Manager, CARE Honduras
• Sara Nikol, Program Manager, Plan International Canada
• Ruth Muendo, Project Director/ Alma Saidi, Project Coordinator Malawi/ Cynthia Ouma, Project Coordinator Kenya (WUSC)

12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EDT – Exhibiting change: Art as a vehicle for storytelling and public engagement

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much could we say through an entire room of art? This session explores the power of creative and interactive works to support community-grounded storytelling and shed light on global challenges. 

It examines how photographs, paintings, sculptures and other art forms can engage the Canadian public in ways that inspire, educate and challenge misconceptions about international development, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and inequality. 

Featuring case studies of two exciting travel exhibitions, you’ll leave the session with insights and principles you can easily apply in your projects, campaigns and storytelling approach.

1:45 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT – From pilot to practice: How global innovations in women’s health scale and succeed

Women’s health innovations are emerging across Canada and around the world, with promising approaches increasingly adapted to address shared challenges in access, quality and equity of care.

This session will share concrete examples of women’s health innovations that have moved across contexts, highlighting how and why they were adapted, what enabled their uptake and what challenges arose in the process. Participants will explore the conditions that enable scaling and adaptation, including partnerships, systems readiness and contextual fit.

Through practical case studies and discussion, the session will focus on key questions such as how innovations travel, what changes when they are applied in new settings, and what is required to ensure they remain effective and relevant across diverse health systems.

Speakers:

• Aparna Kamath – Grand Challenges Canada
• Francine Sinzinkayo – IDRC GT4Africa
• Chaitali Sinha – IDRC Women Rise
• Dr. Karen Yeates – Queen’s University

10 a.m. to 11 a.m. EDT – Inside the response: SRHR tools for humanitarian crises

What comes next when disaster strikes? In this session, you’ll chart a response to a humanitarian crisis, with a unique focus on sexual health and rights (SRHR). Through role-play, experts will guide participants through several humanitarian scenarios and highlight key resources that can be used to solve emerging problems. 

At the end of the session, we will ask participants to build their own toolkits, including three to five resources to bookmark for future reference. Participants will also get a preview of the IAWG Implementation Dashboard (Help Desk)! 

No prior experience working in the humanitarian sector required. Participation from colleagues working in development and global health is encouraged. 

Get your gears turning with these sample scenarios: 

1. You’re a new sexual and reproductive health (SRH) coordinator and you’ve just been deployed. Where do you start? What do you need to prioritize?
2. You’re faced with an infectious disease outbreak. What are the impacts on SRH?
3. You’re an SRH program officer with a development organization in a country that has cyclical natural disasters. How do you prepare?

Speakers:

• Sarah Knaster, Coordinator for the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on Reproductive Health in Crises

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT – When the money gets complicated: Values, partners and trade-offs

As traditional funding becomes more competitive, many organizations are being encouraged to diversify their funding and explore new philanthropic, private sector and non-traditional partnerships. But new sources of funding can also bring new expectations, trade-offs and questions about fit.

This practical session will unpack what a more diversified funding landscape can mean for organizations, including what different funders may be looking for, and what government may mean when it encourages private sector engagement. Participants will explore practical ways to assess opportunities through the lenses of organizational fit, effort, risk and potential return.

The session will help participants make more confident decisions about which opportunities and partnerships make sense for their organization — and which ones may not.

Speakers:

• Kristina Mena, Senior Project Manager, Stephen Lewis Foundation
• Adiba Karim, Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Advisor, CARE Canada
• Melani O’Leary, Director of Partnerships, Grand Challenges Canada
• Roselyne Yao, Private Sector Engagement Officer, International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EDT – Leader to leader: What’s shifting, what matters and what’s next

This Academy session will bring together CEOs, Executive Directors and organizational leads for a focused peer exchange on the issues shaping leadership across the global health and gender equality sector.

Through a facilitated conversation, participants will share sector intelligence, compare emerging challenges, discuss opportunities and reflect on what they are watching as they guide their organizations through a changing environment.

Participation will be limited to CEOs, Executive Directors and equivalent organizational leads.

This session is by invitation only and registration is non-transferrable.

Facilitated by:

• Caitlin Goggin, CEO, CanWaCH

1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT – Reading the room, shaping the narrative: Global health in the fall political landscape

Part Hill briefing, part message lab, this session takes you behind the headlines. Explore the critical conversations shaping the fall political agenda and where global health fits in. We’ll share timely insights from Parliament Hill, identify upcoming opportunities for engagement and work through how to talk about global health and SRHR in ways that resonate with the current government without losing the principles at the heart of our work. Come ready for a candid conversation, practical advice and a clearer sense of what to watch in the months ahead.

Speaker: 

• Graham Milner, Lead Public Affairs Counsellor, Compass Rose

10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. EDT – Be Found, be chosen: Modernizing your digital presence in the age of AI search

AI tools — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude — are now a primary way donors, partners, journalists and program participants first encounter an organization, and increasingly the way they decide whether to engage further. 

Many organizations and communications teams have never checked what AI is actually saying about them, and most have no way of knowing when it gets it wrong. This session walks participants through a live, repeatable method for auditing their own AI visibility across four platforms and shows what a consistent versus fragmented organizational story looks like in practice. 

Participants will leave with two concrete actions — no budget, no technical skill required — they can run before the session ends. 

Speakers: 

• Darren Roberts, Integrated Communications & Crisis Management Consultant, Strebor Consulting
• Courtney Henry, Founder & Principal Strategist, Growth Minded Strategy

11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT – Built to last: Staying secure, accessible and online

Organizations are navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape marked by content restrictions, reduced visibility, platform dependency, shifting policies, and threats to the accessibility and security of their websites. 

Drawing on Canadian expertise and home-grown solutions, this webinar will share practical resources, support services, hosting options and creative strategies to help organizations strengthen their digital resilience and stay online.

Speakers: 

• Venny Ala-Siurua, Executive Director, Women on Web
• Hannes-Jeremia Jaacks, Digital Strategist, Women on Web
• Mallory Knodel, Board Member, eQualitie

12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EDT – Who is included, who is missed? Building inclusion into global health research, programming and advocacy

Whose voices shape the questions we ask, the programs we design, the evidence we generate and the policies we advocate for? When marginalized voices are excluded, even well-intentioned research, programs and advocacy can fail to reflect the realities and priorities of the people they aim to serve.

Through this session, participants will explore what meaningful inclusion looks like in different contexts, consider common barriers to inclusive participation, and learn practical approaches for engaging people and communities in ways that are relevant, respectful and meaningful.

Participants will gain practical guidance to strengthen inclusion in their own work and determine concrete changes they can make to their approaches, partnerships and decision-making processes. The session will emphasize moving beyond tokenistic or one-time consultation toward meaningful participation, shared decision-making and more equitable outcomes.

1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. EDT – GAC’s GCTI: International Assistance is Complex. Navigating the Systems Behind It Shouldn’t Be

The Grants and Contributions Transformation Initiative (GCTI) is transforming how Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and its partner organizations connect, collaborate, and deliver results. By bringing together people, services, information, and digital tools into a more integrated ecosystem, GCTI is creating a grants and contributions experience that is simpler, more intuitive, and more transparent.

Through streamlined processes and modern digital tools, GCTI aims to reduce administrative burden, strengthen accountability, and enhance the experience for both employees and partners. Discover what’s changing, what’s coming next, and how a more connected ecosystem can help drive results and impact around the world.

Join Claude Désilets, Transformation Architect (Deputy Director), for an inside look at how GCTI is modernizing grants and contributions management at GAC. Additional GCTI subject matter experts may also join to share their perspectives.[SE1.1] Through demonstrations, practical examples, and project highlights, participants will learn how GCTI is modernizing the way grants and contributions are managed and delivered.

Speaker:

• Claude Désilets, Deputy Director, GCTI at Global Affairs Canada