TORONTO, March 6, 1998 -- International Trade Minister Sergio Marchi will announce today that York University's Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) has been chosen to administer a youth internship project that will provide recent Canadian university graduates with valuable work experience and knowledge of international issues affecting the Americas.

The $225,000 Youth International Internship Program will provide 15 young Canadians from across the country with training and experience in the hemisphere's main political forum, the Organization of American States. Most of the interns will be placed in a variety of departments at the OAS' headquarters in Washington, with a small number of interns posted at other OAS offices in Uruguay, Brazil and Costa Rica.

"This program is an ideal way for young Canadians to learn more about the international political, environmental, economic and social issues affecting our hemisphere," said CERLAC's Director Professor Ricardo Grinspun. CERLAC's two decades of work at the forefront of research and education in this area means that we are well equipped, and excited, to administer this internship program.

The internship program will last six months, with a two week pre-internship training program and a two-week post-internship debriefing to be organized by CERLAC and held at York. CERLAC will also administer the recruitment and selection of interns, although the final selection will be approved by the OAS.

"Canada views Latin America as a priority for further economic, political and social links," said Marchi. "Through this project we can offer young Canadians the opportunity to become familiar with issues of the Americas. This initiative is particularly important as Canada prepares to host for the first time the General Assembly of the OAS in the year 2000." Marchi will announce the Youth International Internship Program in a 4:30 p.m. address to the International Graduate Business Conference, organized by York's Schulich School of Business and held Friday, March 6 in the High Park Ballroom of the Radisson Hotel, 90 Bloor Street East, Toronto.

During his speech, Marchi will make a presentation to Grinspun and York University President Lorna Marsden. Marchi's announcement is being held in conjunction with a similar announcement by Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy in his closing keynote address at the Organization of American States Washington Conference of the Americas.

CERLAC is an interdisciplinary research unit at York University which over the past 20 years has led in the training of Canadian scholars on Latin America and the Caribbean. CERLAC's educational, research and community activities are concerned with the economic development, political and social organization, and cultural contributions of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Centre works to build academic and cultural links between these regions and Canada, and to inform researchers, policy advisors and the public about these regions.

For more information, please contact:

Sine MacKinnon
Senior Advisor for Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22087
email: sinem@yorku.ca

Alison Masemann
Media Relations Officer
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
email: masemann@yorku.ca

Leslie Swartman
Office of the Minister for International Trade
(613) 992-7332
YU/021/98