Red Deer Polytechnic recently welcomed training program representatives from the Caribbean and Kenya to see what the institution has to offer for possible partnership opportunities.
Representatives from Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Guyana, and Kenya visited RDP on April 26 who were in Calgary for the Colleges and Institutes Canada's annual conference held April 29 and May 1.
Attendees visited post-secondaries in Alberta and British Columbia during their stay.
Chad Flinn, RDP's associate vice president academic, said it was a chance to build relationships and to find out if there may be ways RDP can help them and how they can help RDP.
"It definitely is a two-way relationship. It's not just them coming to us. We learn a lot from them as well," Flinn said.
He said RDP's guests were particularly interested in Colleges and Institutes Canada's Skills to Access the Green Economy initiative which leverages the expertise of Canadian post secondaries to help institutions in Caribbean countries develop gender-sensitive training programs that meet their economic and environmental needs.
Sustainability is something RDP takes very seriously and embraces UNESCO's Sustainable Development Goals, he added.
"RDP has been working on a project greening the trades. We've developed faculty training modules for teaching faculty on why it's important to teach our students, our apprentices, about green initiatives and climate action."
He said one of the delegates was very interested in how that training could be applied to waste management training.
Flinn said RDP has a lot to offer, and it's exciting to work collaboratively on an international level.
"As a polytechnic, for a lot of people, that means just focusing on trades and technology, but it's not. It focuses on industry. Arts and humanities are very much industries and it's something we're focused on as well. RDP stands out in that regard as being one at the forefront of polytechnics in Alberta."
He said Alberta's post-secondary sector also works well together. People may think there's a lot of competition, but there's actually a lot of teamwork.