About

Participatory and community-based approaches are at the heart of Civic Mundo, that focus on finding solutions for community development and more sustainable livelihoods, while respecting environmental integrity. Civic Mundo provides timely and appropriate solutions that add value to and increase the prospects of success of this important work.

The Team

Dr Jutta Gutberlet

Dr. Jutta Gutberlet is a Professor in Geography with a long-standing experience in international and trans-disciplinary, participatory, action oriented research and education on livelihoods and resource management. She is a community-engaged researcher committed to understanding the complex political, social, economic, and environmental realities and finding appropriate solutions to address these challenges, from a local to a global scale. She completed her PhD at the University of Tübingen in Germany and has since worked in international organizations (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Ethiopia, Ecuador, and Djibouti), in research centers (CEDEC, São Paulo; NERU, Cuiabá), universities (University of TübingenUniversity of Newcastle in Australia, the University of São Paulo in Brazil, the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and the University of Victoria in Canada) and as a consultant. Dr. Gutberlet has coordinated several large international, multilateral, and interdisciplinary research projects. She is the director of the Community-based Research Lab (CBRL), a research hub at the University of Victoria for participatory and action research on development challenges, including: resource management, co-production and co-management, poverty reduction, food security, sustainable livelihoods, waste governance, and research methodology. By involving communities and local stakeholders in her research she creates momentum for the research process itself to lead towards a clearer understanding of everyday political, economic, and environmental realities, and for communities to become empowered to achieve the goals of social and environmental justice and equity. Today Dr. Gutberlet is considered one of the foremost international experts on recycling cooperatives in the global South and one of the world’s leading scholars on participatory sustainable waste management and waste governance.

For more information please visit: www.JuttaGutberlet.com


Crystal Tremblay

Dr. Crystal Tremblay is an Assistant Professor in Geography and Special Advisor on Community Engaged Scholarship at the University of Victoria. She is a community-based scholar with over a decade of international experience in the field of environmental sustainability, participatory governance and livelihood enhancement. She specializes in using participatory video and arts-based methods for community engagement, capacity building and program evaluation working across the public, private and non-profit sectors. Strongly rooted in the investigation of innovation in community-based development, she is passionate about cultivating new spaces for creative citizen engagement and the co-creation of knowledge leading to environmental and social equity. She was the Research Director for the UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, and Co-PI of the SSHRC funded “Training the Next Generation’, an interdisciplinary research program on exemplar CBR training practices (2013-15). She recently completed a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship with the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at the University of British Columbia, exploring shifting water governance structures in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa.  She is the recipient of several national fellowships including the SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship (2013-15) Joseph-Armand Bombardier Doctoral Scholarship (2009-2012), the Centre for Community and Cooperative-based Economy Doctoral Fellowship (2011-2012), the Social Economy Research Hub of Canada Doctoral Fellowship (2010-2011) and the Andy Farquharson Award for Teaching Excellence for Graduate Students at the University of Victoria (2011).  Her work has been published in over 20 peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Community DevelopmentGeoforum; Resources, Conservation and Recycling and Local Environment; and has co-produced over ten community documentaries. She is an Associate Editor with the international journal Research For All and an Associate Faculty with the School of Leadership Studies at Royal Roads University.  

For more information please visit: www.crystaltremblay.com


Jonas Hunter

Jonas Hunter is an Organizational Development Advisor, and works with mission based businesses and NGOs to build leadership, successful teams and organizations. He has run several companies in the field of enterprise technology including one that he sold in 2010 in Macedonia where he lived for 3 years. 

From 2014 to 2016, Jonas was the Executive Director for Kiss the Ground, developing the organization from a small team to one with strong operations, board of directors, and trained the new Executive Director from within the team. In addition to his work with Civic Mundo, he is a Senior Strategic Advisor for Kiss the Ground (Los Angeles) and Sacred Capital (Mumbai). 

As a passionate global citizen, Jonas looks for ways to remove boundaries to realize greater collaboration, empowerment and results. 

For more information please visit: www.jonasdhunter.com


Our Values

  • we value solidarity, cooperation and reciprocity
  • we strive for equity and social environmental justice
  • we use appropriate technology
  • we value diversity, creativity and sustainability

Our Strengths

  • In-country expertise
  • Full cycle project management
  • Customized solutions
  • Strong transdisciplinary capacity
  • Excellent multilingual communication skills