In spite of the ongoing restrictions and realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, including inability to send project teams abroad, EMI Canada is experiencing a sustained, if not increased, demand for our services, and has been hard at work serving ministry partners worldwide. By leveraging technology, modifying project scopes, and capitalizing on collaboration across EMI offices, we've been able to continue designing a world of hope throughout 2021.
Thus far in 2021, EMI Canada has:
- Delivered a needs assessment for the development of a new, expanded inner-city campus for the International School of Theology and Leadership in Albania.
- Collaborated with EMI offices in MENA and the US to undertake a visioning effort for Galmi Hospital (SIM) in Niger. This included interviews with medical, administrative, and facility staff as a continuation of EMI's services rendered in previous phases (2007, 2011, and 2016).
- Served Faith Baptist Church in Uganda by providing masterplanning and conceptual design for a mixed-use facility, including a church, apartments, and small retail shops.
- Provided renderings for a kindergarten building and an agricultural training centre building to HOPEthiopia for their ministry campus in Ethiopia.
- Finalized the conceptual campus design for a church, soccer academy, medical clinic, and missionary housing for Magic Soccer Academy Verrettes (MSAV) in Haiti.
- Worked towards offering visioning and programming services for projects on Canadian soil. Much discussion and due diligence has gone into this process, and we're happy to report that we've recently engaged with our first in-Canada ministry partner. EMI Canada will serve LINK (Love in Nations Kind) in an advisory role as they pursue their vision for LINK Village. This phased project would see development of a small community, including homes and a central community centre, which serves at-risk women and vulnerable children in British Columbia.
While providing design services remotely has allowed us to continue fulfilling our mission throughout the pandemic, we do miss the value added when we're able to serve ministry partners with our full scope of services onsite. As we're able to do so responsibly, we anticipate deploying project teams in the near future, including potential projects in Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Liberia, and Malawi.