Education Programs
Learning at Coady
Coady Institute offers educational programming for emerging and established community leaders with a passion for social change. Coady’s approach to adult education is practice-focused and participatory, informed by learner-centered and asset-based methods that hold the potential for both personal growth and societal transformation. Courses are hosted on-campus at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada, off-campus in communities around the globe, and online using various communications platforms.
Registration for the following programs is now open!
Asset-Based and Community-Led Development Principles
ONLINE OFFERING You will learn tools to support communities to organize themselves to discover, connect and mobilize their strengths for change.
Participatory Project Planning and Management
ONLINE OFFERING This course will examine the key concepts of designing a project or program of action that cultivates positive social change.
Grassroots Peacebuilding
ONLINE OFFERING This online course is an introduction to peace and conflict while examining the nature, effectiveness, and challenges of grassroots peacebuilding.
Leadership for Young Professionals
ONLINE OFFERING. This course will offer participants the chance to explore their own personal strengths as leaders, learn new skills, and begin to think through how they can apply their leadership in the workplace.
Applications for the courses below have closed. We encourage you to check back regularly for future course offerings; we would be delighted to have you as a part of our upcoming programs.
Stay connected with us for updates on future courses, application openings, and other announcements.
On-Site Programs
Introduction to Community Peacebuilding
LOCATION: COADY INSTITUTE, ANTIGONISH, CANADA. This learning opportunity will open space for community members to explore together the structural and political causes of conflict at the local level, and the necessity of peacebuilding to address the underlying root causes of conflict within their communities.
Asset-Based and Community-Led Development: Theory and Practice
This course is a global space for sharing and learning about the principles, practices and tools that put local assets and action at the centre any development initiative. It offers a “time-out” for you to question conventional community development practices and beliefs and to re-evaluate the role of institutions in stimulating and supporting genuine asset-based and citizen-led development (ABCD).
Community Led Solutions for Climate Change
Human-induced climate change is the most pressing global issue of our time. How humans have historically lived, played, and dreamed is changing. The course will use case studies from different regions of the world and draw on the experiences of participants, facilitators, and local practitioners, activists, and community members.
Diploma in Development Leadership
The program goal is to strengthen individuals and organizations involved in sustainable, asset-based, and equitable development by providing leadership development opportunities for emergent and established leaders.
Feminist Advocacy for Agency, Equity, and Justice
With pillars on feminism and advocacy, this three-week Certificate course will help participants deepen their understanding of feminism(s) and address issues of power, gender, and intersecting inequalities to plan and implement effective advocacy that strengthens community agency, participation, and voice.
Indigenous Women in Community Leadership
This program is grounded in relational practices and mentorship opportunities that will build upon your already trusted leadership capacities for community-led, community-driven development.
Livelihoods and Markets
This three-week certificate course will explore approaches that involve understanding the complexity of people’s livelihoods and the ‘market systems’ as well as solutions ranging from creating a more conducive and enabling environment, to an emphasis on trade and market access, small and micro-enterprise development, and innovations in climate smart/green technologies, and the application of various financial instruments.
Towards Decolonial Feminist Leadership
LOCATION: JRCT CAMPUS, DHARMSHALA, INDIA
This course aims to unpack both the concept and practice of leadership from the standpoint of power, intersectionality, patriarchy and inequalities.
Redevabilité sociale Stratégies et pratiques
Ce cours est conçu pour les praticiens provenant d’organisations de la société civile et de mouvements sociaux, ainsi que le personnel de gouvernements, des agences de développement ou du secteur privé, qui sont engagés dans les enjeux de gouvernance, de services publics, des droits de l’homme, de plaidoyer et/ou de la redevabilité.
Action Research for Citizen-led Change
This course will accompany you in identifying and undertaking research that engages citizens more fully from the outset in a spirit of co-learning.
Global Change Leaders program
This program enables participants identifying as women from developing countries to strengthen their leadership capacities in order to contribute towards a feminist and just world. Program participants engage in at the conceptual, policy level and praxis of understanding development, justice and feminism.
Women’s Leadership for Community Development
This program will focus on recognizing and celebrating women’s strengths and gifts, assessing leadership models and approaches, exploring feminist movement building in solidarity with others, and include the sharing of tools and frameworks that prioritize justice, equity and inclusion.
Advancing Women’s Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding for Community Development
This course is ideal for women who want to work collaboratively to transform conflicts and create an enabling environment for peace and development.
Online Programs
Leading with Abundance: Indigenous Women’s Leadership
ONLINE OFFERING This course will allow you to learn and explore the abundance of strengths and gifts that live within you and your community.
Building on Abundance in Indigenous Communities
ONLINE OFFERING By the end of the course, you will identify changes you want to see in your community or organization and create an engagement plan to begin putting your plan into practice.
Feminist Leadership for capabilities, ecology and transformation
ONLINE OFFERING This course aims to inspire and empower people of all genders across the world to engage in purposeful and justice-oriented leadership, and to design ways to inculcate processes, systems, and structures in the communities you are engaged with.
Adult Education and Learning for Community Development
Online Offering.You will have opportunities to reflect on your role and practice as an educator, explore theories and practices of adult learning, consider gender, power and learning for social change, and develop skills for designing adult education, including online learning.
Future of Work and Workers
ONLINE OFFERING This course is designed for anyone who is interested in work and workers including government staff at the local, provincial and national levels who have responsibilities regarding labour, employment, skills, entrepreneurship, or women and gender; employment services providers; labour unions and workers’ organizations; and private sector, community-based organizations, NGOs and academic institutions, and think tanks.
Developmental Evaluation for Social Impact
Online Offering. Developmental Evaluation is an exciting approach to evaluation that enables social innovators, policy and program managers, and community leaders to design, monitor, and adapt social change initiatives in complex and uncertain environments.
Introduction to Social Enterprise
Online Offering.This course is ideal for development leaders and change makers who are grappling with questions of how to balance the social mission with the issue of sustainability of their organizations and are seeking creative solutions.
Citizen-Led Accountability: Strategies and Practices
Online Offering.This course helps equip you to understand the underlying principles of citizen-led accountability, and craft context-appropriate proposals to build accountability into your work.
Research Methods for Social Impact
Online Offering.Research Methods for Social Impact is designed to enhance participants’ capacity in developing the data gathering and analysis tools for research and evaluation for social impact.
Resources and Tools for Working with Young Women Leaders
Online Offering. This seven-week course is designed for community workers and program implementers working with young women to enhance their active citizenship.
Please Note
Please note that Coady Institute does not accept third party applications. Individuals need to submit their application via Coady’s website and should use caution when approached by those offering services to complete the application and admissions process.