A Working Session at CGIU: Alleviating Global Poverty

Liesel Pritzker (left) and Sonya Perez-Lauterbach at the 2010 CGIU conference

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) in Miami, Fla. I was a table facilitator at two “working sessions” in which I collaborated with student leaders committed to effecting global change.

With me at the conference was Liesel Pritzker, founder and chair of Young Ambassadors for Opportunity (YAO), a volunteer-led, regionally based chapter network of young professionals who inspire, educate, and involve others in microfinance. As conference facilitators, Liesel and I were required to apply with CGIU and demonstrate our involvement and understanding in one of five Global Challenge Areas: Education, Environment & Climate Change, Peace & Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, or Public Health. We both applied for the Poverty Alleviation section and were assigned to share our expertise in the area of Advocacy and Media.

As part of the working sessions, we each facilitated a table of 10 bright, young student leaders who had made direct commitments to alleviate poverty in the U.S. and on a global scale, often through the use of social entrepreneurship. As the students relayed their experiences to the group, we discussed the methods and potential effectiveness of each of their various challenges.

The passion and energy of the students was inspiring. They were overflowing with great ideas on how to use the media to enact change in the world.

In my session, we talked about how to use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and even local radio to successfully spread the word about our projects. Chief among our concerns was protecting the people being served from exploitation by the media, as well as the ethical issues involved in publishing photographs of people who are suffering.

At Liesel’s table, she made the point that the ultimate aim of all aid and development programs is to put themselves out of business. This idea was echoed by Bill Clinton in the closing plenary session of the conference when he emphasized that self-sufficiency and sustainability should be our goal when offering aid.

If we continue to train and support a generation of innovative change makers like those that Liesel and I met at CGIU, I feel confident that we can put aid programs out of business.

Read more about our time at CGIU 2010.