When a small, free high school in Tanzania faced closure because
its water was shut off, several university students from across
California pooled their resources to buy new water tanks.
While spending time in Sri Lanka as a freelance journalist, UCLA
student Arthur Rhodes, who spoke at a panel discussion Saturday,
filmed a documentary on the political and social unrest in the
country.
Sending resources to Tanzania and working in Sri Lanka are only
two examples of how students, with proper organization, have taken
steps to make a real impact on global problems.
This weekend, the Undergraduate Students Association Council
Office of the President sponsored and organized a conference that
attracted students from across the state to learn more about global
issues and create a network of students to combine their resources
and better their respective programs.
The conference, called “Thinking Globally, Acting
Locally,” brought together over 600 students from 41 schools
across California.
“The … conference really was designed to give the
students the tools they need to create a springboard to go back to
their campuses and actually implement change,” USAC President
Jenny Wood said. “We hope that they will be more aware of
global issues and make sure that they have the skills to effect
change.”
The conference opened Saturday with a speech about the United
Nations Millennium Campaign goals from Carol Welch, the
campaign’s U.S. director.
Among the goals of the campaign are the eradication of extreme
poverty and hunger, universal primary education, and the reduction
of child mortality, Welch said.
After the opening session, students separated into panel
discussions that focused on issues such as the Millennium Campaign
goals, HIV/AIDS, human rights and environmental sustainability.
“I am here so I can get a lot of useful information and
meet great people that can help me with my goals,” said Lotte
Goede, a third-year international development studies student who
attended the panel on the Millennium Campaign.
Goede is going to a refugee camp this summer in Zambia and
wanted to learn more about how to work with refugees, the topic of
a workshop held on Saturday.
The panels were run by both students and representatives from
many institutes. These include Youth Philanthropy World Wide, which
works with student groups in California helping them raise funds to
make activism possible (the group that sponsored the project in
Tanzania), to the ONE Campaign, a faith-based group whose goal is
eliminating hunger by raising money and lobbying congressmen.
After learning more about different global issues, students at
the conference attended smaller caucus sessions meant to introduce
and network students with similar interests.
“It seems like (the caucus) is helpful, because I
don’t know a lot of people from my major,” said Allie
McDonald, a third-year international development studies student
who attended a caucus on economic development. “It’s
nice to meet people with my same interests and hear about all of
the different organizations that are here.”
After the caucus sessions, workshops with more-focused topics
such as media and social change, HIV/AIDS, and slavery and refugees
were held in the afternoon.
Sunday’s speakers included Katherine Spillar, the
executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and
Laurie David, who, along with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, and others,
founded the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, an online effort to
stop global warming.