There will be an IYVS2007 info meeting

WEDNESDAY, SEP 27th

9pm

LOUIS ROOM SOUTH - NORRIS
email Alex Lofton alex@iyvs.org or Page Hubben page@iyvs.org for more info

SEPTEMBER 14, 2006

New Center for Global Engagement launches at Northwestern

Center will create programs on Evanston campus and abroad

EVANSTON, IL – With the official launch of the Just Naïve Enough Center for Global Engagement at the Center for International and Comparative Studies, Northwestern University has taken an innovative approach to global education focused on understanding and maximizing the learning potentials of international relationships and shared project planning and implementation.

While universities around the country have created new programs to meet the student demand for international experiences, few have focused on the emerging desire of students to engage in volunteerism and development work, says Nathaniel Whittemore, founder and Executive Director of the new Center.

“Those programs that have focused on volunteerism and project planning have tended to assume that students going abroad to “help” have the skills to do so. What’s more, they’ve often failed to understand how problematic – for the students and the communities hosting them – an uncritical framework of “helping” can be.”

The Center for Global Engagement is different and unique, says co-founder Jonathan Marino.

“Rather than simply relying on their good intentions, our programs build the real capacities of students to engage with global problem solving in a responsible, effective, and sustainable way. We provide our students with collaborative interdisciplinary learning that involves understanding development theory and criticism, building relevant organizational skills like strategic planning and fundraising, and most importantly allows them to form real relationships with communities abroad that develop and grow over time.”

During their first year, the Center for Global Engagement will focus on two “global engagement programs”, long-term educational experiences that involve classroom learning, independent study, and international immersion. The two programs will provide students a chance to actively engage with communities in Uganda and Guatemala by developing projects like designing a new teacher’s college focused on human rights pedagogy in Guatemala and fundraising for and building a new Internet Café and Resource Center for children recovering from the conflict in Northern Uganda. In addition, the Center will advise the second year of the successful International Youth Volunteerism Summit, an annual event that last year brought together students from more than twenty countries to build their capacities to design international projects and engage abroad.

The new Center for Global Engagement is being supported by a two year seed grant from the Office of the Provost, and advised by the Center for International and Comparative Studies. “This program is a possibility for Northwestern to take a leadership role in [a field] that will be growing in the next several years,” said Andrew Wachtel, director of CICS and dean of the Graduate School.

For more information, see www.nuengage.org

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Download the Director and International Partnership Director application here.

DUE FRIDAY May 26 at 5pm

send completed applications to directors@iyvs.org

Director Application

International Partnership Director application

Over the course of the next few months, IYVS Staff will be working on an IYVS Outcome Report. Basically, the idea is to break apart all the different pieces of the Summit in order to figure out what worked, what didn’t and what we can do better in coming years.

As part of the project, each week IYVS Staff will be uploading short update documents to the IYVS CollectiveX File Cabinet. Additionally, we will be having discussions about different parts of the Reporting project in the forums.

If you’re interested, please feel free to join those discussions. There is a good chance you’ll be contacted at some point to get your ideas on different pieces anyway, but this is a great way to start to influence our organizational development.

Starting in May, we’ll also be starting a regularized newsletter, to bring the discussions straight to your inbox. If you have ideas for what to include or would like to write a guest column about the status of your project or some other relevant topic you’d like to share with the IYVS community, email nathaniel [at] iyvs.org

“WE NEED THE LIBERAL ARTS - now more than ever. While studying Marquez, Mozart, and Picasso might seem irrelevant to would-be MDs or MBAs, exposure to a wide range of ideas and disciplines provides an unparalleled foundation for addressing the challenges of the 21st century.”

-”Prepared for Life” - Alan Cordova, Williams College

Our very own Mr. Cordova appears as a head2head columnist in this quarter’s Current magazine - a publication for college students by college students distributed by Newsweek. He argues that the liberal arts system - with its emphasis on diverse thought - is uniquely preparatory for the dynamic challenges of the modern world. To read more, including the counter argument, check out: “Head to Head: Loving the Liberal Arts”

I’ve also started a thread in the “General Discussion” forum on CollectiveX where you can respond to the article.

Congrats Alan!

One of the focuses of IYVS2006 was “social entrepeneurship” - innovative nonprofits and innovators thinking in new ways about systematic and multiplicative change. One of the exciting aspects of this new thinking is that the foundations and organizations supporting social entrepeneurs are exploring new, web-based tools for sharing ideas and collaborating on projects.

One of those leading organizations, Ashoka, runs a website called Changemakers.net.  Changemakers (designed in part by our friends at EchoDitto) maintains an online community to open-source global problem solving.

One of their most unique and exciting features is a quarterly $5000 competition to design a plan to remedy one pressing problem. Additionally, the site features profiles of exciting social entrepreneurs on the world, informational articles, and forums for discussion.

Check it out at www.changemakers.net 

There are three deadlines for opportunities previously posted on this site coming up shortly:

www.netsquared.org - NetSquared is offering full scholarships for a few young organizations to come to California in late May for a conference on improving the use of technology in the nonprofit and social change sector. Due APRIL 12
Win A Trip With Nick Kristoff - NYTimes editorialist Nick Kristoff is taking one lucky university student on a trip with him this summer somewhere in Africa - he’s thinking Central African Republic or Burundi. You’ll be blogging and sharing your impressions on www.nytimes.com DUE APRIL 20
Delaying the Real World Grant - win $3000 to implement a project of your own design this summer.  DUE APRIL 28

We’re doing another instillation of the OpenShutter Project at this weekends third annual Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights: The Chains that Remain - Human Trafficking in a Global Context.

In addition to the show, we’ll be leading two workshops on activism and volunteer opportunities focused on Ugandan issues.

Some of the organizations we’ll be profiling:

Uganda Conflict Action Network - Michael Poffenberger from UgandaCAN participated in IYVS2006

Global Youth Partnership for Africa - Josh Goldstein and Jeremy Goldberg - both participated in IYVS2006

Invisible Children - an organization working to connect the American public to the issue in Uganda

See our updated OpenShutter exhibit webpage at www.openshutterproject.org 

Thank you to everyone who applied for the IYVS Outcome Grant! We’re working to sort through all the great applications and if you’ve applied, expect to be hearing from us within the next week or so regarding the next steps. Additionally, we hope to be starting a regular email newsletter soon.

If you haven’t yet filled out an online survey, please take just a minute to do so at:

http://www.iyvs.org/iyvs2006/alumnisurvey/survey.php 

This survey is giving us the information we need to better serve you in the coming months.

Finally, look forward to an exciting announcment and a few new opportunities just for IYVS Alumni in the coming weeks.

-IYVS Team

When: June 19th-June 23, 2006

Where: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
What: The World Urban Forum was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies and policies. The World Urban Forum is a biennial gathering that is attended by a wide range of partners, from non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, urban professionals, academics, to governments, local authorities and national and international associations of local governments. It gives all these actors a common platform to discuss urban issues in formal and informal ways and come up with action-oriented proposals to create sustainable cities.

The third session of the World Urban Forum (WUFIII) will be hosted by the Government of Canada. It will take place in Vancouver, Canada, from 19 to 23 June 2006 and have as its main theme, “Our Future: Sustainable Cities – Turning Ideas into Action.”

More info:

Official Website: http://www.unhabitat.org/wuf/2006/

TakingItGlobal Information: http://events.takingitglobal.org/8399