Posted by BEN BEAUMONT – A number of our students will travel to Tulane University in New Orleans in a few weeks to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U.), an extension of President Clinton’s yearly Global Initiative in New York that has spawned major commitments to fight global poverty, climate change and disease. CGI U. will give students and universities the opportunity to come together and make commitments of their own to help tackle these worldwide problems. President Clinton laid out his vision for CGI U. in an article in the Chronilce for Higher Education:
CGI U. is about more than learning — it is about transforming awareness into action. In discussions with leading social entrepreneurs, directors of nonprofit organizations, academics, and other engaged citizens, the participants in CGI U. will come together to identify innovative approaches to improve global health, alleviate poverty, study climate change, and strengthen human rights around the world. Participants will share their individual efforts and learn from one another. “Meet-ups” will enable people who live in the same area or share similar interests to create teams that can continue to forge solutions together long after the meeting has concluded.
Like each member of CGI, each participant at CGI U. — students, campus groups, and universities — will be responsible for making a commitment to take action. Big or small, each commitment has the power to drive positive change. Students might develop projects to install compact fluorescent bulbs in all university facilities. Others could start scholarship programs for students from conflict areas. Student groups might mobilize large numbers to advocate for human rights, create microfinance funds for young entrepreneurs in the developing world, or create citywide bike-share programs. The possibilities abound for students and for educational institutions, and the resulting projects are dependent only on the participants’ imaginations and appetites for change.
Click here for more.
Responses