Hurricane Devastation - Appeal for Support

#Giving Tuesday 2020

In mid-November, two powerful, contiguous hurricanes battered Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Eta and Iota generated mudslides and flooding, burying villages, flooding homes, and destroying crops. Government responses have been woefully inadequate and many of our Partners have been seriously affected.

CoDev is raising funds for these partners: Artesana, a Guatemalan organization supporting imprisoned women and their families, and the Honduran Women’s Collective, CODEMUH which accompanies workers in the country’s maquila (sweatshop) zones.

Artesana has borrowed a truck and is delivering donations of food, clothing and sanitary supplies (masks, hand sanitizer, basic medicines) to affected families of imprisoned women. Artesana’s share of the donations sent by CoDev will support the truck’s fuel costs and purchase additional emergency supplies.

Seventy homes of CODEMUH’s shop floor advocates have been submerged by the hurricanes. These women received little warning to evacuate and lost most of their belongings to the floods. CODEMUH will use donations to provide them with clothing, bedding, new mattresses, cooking materials, food, sanitary supplies, and tools for cleaning the mud and debris from their homes once the waters recede.

Join CoDev in calling for an independent human rights Ombudsperson for Canada’s international extractive sector

Take action today to call on the Canadian government to ensure communities affected by Canadian oil, mineral and gas corporations have access to justice. Write your MP and the Minister of International Trade to let them know you want Canada to be a leader in protecting human and environmental rights by creating an independent human rights Ombudsperson.For too long Canada’s extractive industry has not been held accountable for its actions overseas. Human rights violations by Canadian mining corporations are widespread and well-documented. Canada needs an independent human rights Ombudsperson with full investigatory powers and the ability to make recommendations for remedies.Almost 10 years ago, industry and civil society leaders recommended creating an independent human rights Ombudsperson to address serious violations of human rights or environmental damage. The Canadian Network for Corporate Responsibility recently proposed draft legislation to create just such an office. During the 2015 election, most parties, including the Liberal party, committed to creating an independent ombudsperson’s office. Such an office is long overdue.As it stands, the offices in Canada responsible for overseeing corporate social responsibility (the Office of the Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor and the National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines) lack independence, investigatory powers, and are not mandated to make recommendations for remedies. Communities whose human rights have been violated by Canadian corporations operating in their territory deserve more. It’s time the Government of Canada to take action and make Canada Open for Justice.