The Board of Directors of Partners is comprised of Community and Business Leaders, Counselling Professionals and are well supported by our Administrative team.

Our current Board members are:

Mark Granfar - Board Chair

A development professional in his own right, Mark Granfar is CEO of MGV, Inc., the founder of Partners for Prosperity, and it's biggest supporter. Mark's community service activities are well known to the communities he operates in. He is respected for his honesty, his creativeness, and his encouraging approach.

Adrienne Carter - Treasurer 

Adrienne Carter is a dedicated mental health and trauma specialist who works with victims as well as recruiting and training other mental health professionals around the world.

Her most recent assignment was 9 months in Kenya working in trauma counselling and as a visiting lecturer to various other countries. She has been responsible for setting up community based mental health services in areas of disaster or war conflict ( Kosovo, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the tsunami effected areas of South India, the earthquake affected areas of Northern Pakistan, cyclone in Myanmar; Chechnya, South Africa and most recently earthquake ravaged Haiti.) In addition, she recruited, trained and supervised professionals and bare-foot counselors in each of these countries. Read More...

Barb Imlach - Former Treasurer

Barb is a health and wellness professional and community development specialist.

She has been serving the local community in various capacities including her role on the Board of Partners for Prosperity since 2006 and as a promoter of women's, cultural and arts events around the Cowichan Valley. She also serves in the Baha'i community of Shawnigan Lake and the Cowichan Valley, BC.

Barb is currently studying for her Master's degree and enjoys making music in her few spare hours.

Gifty Serbeh-Dunn - Head of Ghana Project

Gifty grew up in northern Ghana in West Africa in the heart of what could be called the global Shea Butter capital. When she moved to Canada in 1980 she was amazed that North America did not know about Shea Butter. Over the years she became impassioned with the need to share Shea Butter with the world in a way that would benefit everyone, especially the women who made the Shea Butter and the people who would use the product.

In 1999 Gifty started experimenting with Shea Butter, adding essential oils and marketing products in little brown glass containers.

In 2003 Gifty travelled to Ghana and met the Tapko Widow's Group, a group of widows from a northern Ghana village who had banded together so they could help each other to better feed and educate their families. One of their main activities was gathering Shea Nuts and making them into Shea Butter. Gifty recognized the quality of their product and the rightness of their cause and on the spot she bought 1,000 pounds of Shea Butter and arranged to have it shipped to Canada. Her first commercial Shea Butter business, SheaCare, was launched with the intent of wholesaling raw Shea Butter in North America.

Read more...

Our Executive Director is Garth Schmalenberg.  For introductory Keynotes on Partners for Prosperity and how it can help Organizations, please Contact Us.