March 3, 2011 - 5:44pm
'U' ONE chapter wins $10,000 for campaign to end poverty
BY VERONICA MENALDI
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is the champion of the 2009-2010 ONE Campus Challenge — a competition between universities across the country to end global poverty.
The ONE group will receive $10,000 to give to the organization of its choice. According to a ONE Campus Challenge press release, the group chose to give the grant money to Carolina for Kibera — a small nonprofit organization based in Nairobi, Kenya in the Kibera slum, which is the largest slum in East Africa.
Michigan State University, Boston University and the University of Florida were other top schools in the ONE Campus Challenge competition.
According to the ONE Campus Challenge website, student groups earned points by participating in various actions and monthly challenges.
The University’s team has been at work since September recruiting group members, educating peers about poverty, lobbying members of congress and gathering petition signatures.
The press release states the University’s chapter of ONE advocacy project “included a stunning visual petition, 78 phone calls, 789 letters and 78 additional hand-written letters to Michigan Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin.”
An e-mail that was sent to ONE members stated that Levin’s staff acknowledged the University’s team’s efforts when he signed a bipartisan budget letter this week for the International Affairs Budget.
School of Public Policy senior Stephanie Parrish, the University’s ONE campus leader, visited Carolina for Kibera in the summer of 2009 as a student participant in the first-ever ONE trip to Africa, according to the press release.
The press release also states that in January, the University sent three representatives to the Power 100 Summit — a three-day conference in Washington D.C. for ONE leaders.
