A 10-day seminar at Trent in August will give university students a chance to explore a multifaceted approach to international aid projects.

Called Roots of Our Future, A Learning Circle in Global Equity, the seminar for as many as 65 undergraduates will feature workshops, speakers, films and videos Aug. 18-28. Participants will use environmental sustainability projects as the starting point for discussions on how such projects also affect social, economic and political relations in a community. Speakers are expected from groups advocating fair trade, fair labor practices and other global equity concerns.

The seminar will draw upon the experience of those involved in the Trent-based, federally funded INSTRUCT program which is co-ordinating environmental rehabilitation projects in Ecuador and Mexico. INSTRUCT, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, is sponsoring the 10-day seminar.

Participants will also take part in a two-day workshop, Practical Ways of Sharing Equity: Teaching Community-Based Ecological Knowledge, featuring national and international indigenous leaders and elders. INSTRUCT's Mexican and Ecuadorian partners are also expected to attend this workshop as well as the Roots seminar.

INSTRUCT project manager Linda Slavin expects mostly Canadian and some Latin American students enrolled in Canadian universities to register for the $250 seminar.

Slavin hopes students walk away with a "concrete sense of what happens to theory when you apply it."

April 17 is the deadline to apply. For more information and registration forms, call 748-1314, e-mail tip@trentu.ca or see INSTRUCT's Web page at http://www.trentu.ca/tip/instruct.