FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
President Clinton addresses CGIU delegates. – Lisa Veliz, 2010
UC Berkeley | March 29, 2011 – The Blum Center for Developing Economies and its Global Poverty & Practice Minor will be well represented at the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI-U) hosted at the University of California, San Diego later this week (April 1-3).
Education Director, Professor Ananya Roy, will participate in a panel entitled “Seeking Shelter: The Power of Safe and Affordable Housing.” She will join other experts to discuss the relationship between housing and poverty, highlighting smart housing projects that are addressing the shelter needs of the poor while also taking into account both social and environmental needs. Roy will also hold “Office Hours” a new innovation for the annual CGI-U meeting, that allows student delegates from across the country to conduct more in-depth conversations with panel experts.
Roy, who chairs the Blum Center sponsored Global Poverty and Practice Minor, will be joined by thirteen students from UC Berkeley who were chosen by the Clinton Foundation to attend the event.
To be selected to attend CGI-U, a student must develop a “Commitment to Action.” These commitments are specific plans to address a pressing challenge on campus, in the local community, or across the world. Students from UC Berkeley have made commitments in seven different countries on four continents to address the global challenges CGI-U has identified — Education, Environment and Climate Change, Peace and Human Rights, Education, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health.
Examples of these commitments include:
Education:
Melissa Barker, a fourth year Interdisciplinary Field Studies student, has committed to help make University education more accessible to under-represented and low income student parents, by working on advocacy efforts aimed at increasing affordable child care options.
Akil Mehta, a fourth year Molecular and Cell Biology student, will work with forty disadvantaged youth in Orissa, India to develop and deliver science and mathematics curriculum from the Indian Institute of Technology using desktop computers and e-notebook software.
Sana Naeem, a fourth year Near Eastern Studies and Political Science student, will recruit and train mentors for Think College Now, a Title I elementary school in Oakland, CA.
Peace and Human Rights:
Huda Adem, a fourth year Interdisciplinary Field Studies student, will develop and deliver first aid courses to displaced Eritrean refuges in Kasala, Sudan.
Poverty Alleviation:
Lauren Herman, a fifth year Peace and Conflict Studies student, will build on her previous work in rural Kenya to create and deliver microcredit and financial literacy program for fifty women in urban Kenya.
Jacquelyn Hoffman, a third year Gender and Women’s Studies student, will develop Cal Community Kitchen to bring Berkeley students together to create nutritional boxed meals for low-income families using consumable left over foods from local restaurants.
Public Health
Preeya Desai, a third year Nutritional Science student, committed to developing a Kids Outreach Program, an afterschool program that introduces nutritional education and opportunities for physical activity in San Francisco, CA.
Tsung Mou, a fourth year Molecular and Cell Biology student, will work with medical students in Solola, Guatemala to establish a program that encourages and facilitates an internal flow of Guatemalan health care professionals to serve rural and low-income communities.
Tuyen Nguyen, a third year Public Health student, will address issues of dental health in Kathmandu, Nepal by developing a community health worker and tooth care distribution program.
Melanie Silvis, a fourth year Molecular and Cell Biology student, will work with low-income Asian American communities in the Bay Area to provide screening, positive patient support and outreach for the Hepatitis B Project.