Where academics meets action, passion finds purpose, and challenges inspire change.

2010 - 2011

Message from the Director

Over the past six years, the Center for Global Engagement (CGE) has guided the creation of a highly integrated set of curricular and co-curricular programs to train a generation of young leaders who are committed to addressing the most critical global challenges today, and for the rest of their lives. Over 1,000 undergraduates have participated in courses, student groups, internships, research, and experiential learning programs that CGE supports. Many students cite their involvement in CGE activities as the pinnacle of their learning as well as their dening college experience. CGEs innovative set of nationally recognized multidisciplinary programs help students become experienced, effective, and compassionate global leaders. Our work focuses on four areas: Developing opportunities that allow students to cross borders and disciplines to critique academic theory through experiential learning Mentoring co-curricular student groups who lead and design activities that promote responsible and effective ways of engaging with global issues Strengthening students leadership capabilities and skills through programs that foster self-reection and mobilize others to pursue informed action Cultivating a network of leaders who gain skills and knowledge to advance solutions to the worlds most pressing challenges Whether working for the World Food Program in Ethiopia, pursuing an MD/PhD in Central American infectious diseases at Harvard University, or organizing immigrant communities on Chicagos west-side, alumni attribute their achievements to the guidance, networks, and skills built through CGE programs. We are proud to have played a major role in the emergence of Northwestern University as a leader in providing comprehensive, interconnected, and unique global engagement opportunities. After reading this report, we trust you will agree that Northwestern students are both critical thinkers and engaged actors. Through your continued support, we look forward to growing our programs to train a generation of students who are redening personal and academic success, as well as the role of the university in fostering global change.

Sincerely,

Brian Hanson

About Us
Mission
To prepare undergraduates with the knowledge, skills, and experiences to address shared global challenges and to lead lives of responsible global engagement.

Center for Global Engagement (CGE)

CGE is a comprehensive student support center dedicated entirely to improving undergraduates abilities to address global poverty and inequality. We help students attain tangible skills and critique academic theory through experiential learning. Through a unique set of multidisciplinary opportunities, ranging from study abroad programs to fellowships, CGE builds the capacity of young global leaders to cross borders and partner with communities to produce responsible, sustainable solutions to global challenges. CGE connects students to a network of individuals and organizations at Northwestern and around the world. CGE is actively shaping a new generation of experienced, effective, and compassionate global leaders in a variety of elds.

History
The Center for Global Engagement (CGE) was rst conceived in 2005 by a group of undergraduate students led by Nathaniel Whittemore, then a Northwestern junior who had recently returned from volunteering at refugee camps outside of Cairo. Speaking with dozens of other students volunteering and researching abroad, Whittemore realized that he was not alone in feeling a gap between the desire and ability to make a difference in the world: The story among my peers was common tons of passion and energy, a deep belief and desire to connect across cultural, religious, and national borders to make a better world, and frustration with the lack of support, infrastructure, resources, and education necessary to really go beyond good intentions. Young people knew they didnt have the skills or resources needed to impact the problems they were trying to solve; they didnt even know where to get those. Whittemore and Jon Marino, a fellow Northwestern student, went in search of academic training that could be combined with off-campus experiential learning to help students gain the tools they needed to be agents of change. Rather than found another program or group to raise awareness, they wanted to create a center to provide the educational tools and experiences that could help students in the eld, and then enable students to reect on their learning. The center, they hoped, would provide the training and capacity-building young people need in order to participate in global social change, international development, and social entrepreneurship. From these student-initiated roots, and together with support from across campusincluding the Ofce of the Provost, Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies, School of Education and Social Policy, and School of CommunicationsCGE developed. 4

Values
Leadership development
CGE is rooted in student engagement and action; it was created in response to undergraduates demand for an education that would provide a strong academic understanding of global challenges, as well as hands-on experience and practical tools to put that learning into action. Whether planning a national summit on global health or designing a sexual education curriculum in a conservative Indian village, students lead initiatives and play the dening role in creating curriculum, events, and seminars that add value to their co-curricular pursuits. In turn, students become better thinkers and contributors to the classroom, as well as more equipped to grapple with real world challenges once they leave the university.

Experiential learning
CGE draws on faculty and coursework from across Northwestern Universityparticularly the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Communication, and the School of Education and Social Policy. Through CGE programs, students often travel abroad to critique academic theory through action. They gain a variety of tangible experiences, such as designing and implementing community development projects abroad as participants in the Global Engagement Studies Institute, installing an electronic medical record-keeping system at a public health center in Ghana with the student group GlobeMed, or developing a prototype to train community midwives in Malawi on proper removal of the placenta after childbirth through a CGE project grant.

Community engagement
CGE students learn that in order to enact real change in the world, they must value local actors and perspectives. With philosophical roots in the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern, CGE encourages students to build the capacities of communities in order to achieve lasting people-powered change. All CGE students learn to listen to and work directly with those experiencing the challenges of poverty and social injustice. At the same time, students are trained to question, consider, and act on the economic, political, cultural, and social causes of global inequality.

Multidisciplinary academics
CGE draws participation from dozens of academic disciplines and universities, offering each student a unique opportunity to engage with complex issues through a multi-faceted lens. An engineering student moves beyond classroom-based solutions to leverage local knowledge and create culturally appropriate, affordable technologies, while a pre-medical student discovers that an HIV/AIDS positive community requires not only anti-retroviral treatment, but also alternative income sources in order to afford a healthier diet. CGE students, no matter their eld of expertise, learn that they can add value to development projects while gaining a broader understanding of the mutually reinforcing interplay between disciplines. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ The Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies is the institutional home for CGE and oversees our activities. Nicole Patel (Assistant Director), Meghan Ozaroski (Program Manager), and Karina Walker (Program Coordinator) handle the programming and administration at CGE.

Areas of Work
I. The Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI)
This summer, GESINorthwesterns only summer international experiential learning programsent 63 students to ve countries to design and implement projects using methods of community development they studied at Northwestern. Pages 7 - 14

II. Mentoring Co-curricular Groups

We mentor co-curricular student groups that think critically and act responsibly with regard to the international issues they care about. Such groups host yearlong programming that engages a vast network of students through student-led photo exhibits, conferences, seminars, workshops, service trips, and more. Pages 15 - 22

III. Global Development Speaker Series

Our popular Global Development Speaker Series helps students think more broadly about global challenges, contextualize their own international experiences in developing countries, and supplement their classroom learning with insights from scholars and practitioners of global development. Page 23

IV. Grants
CGE provides grants to undergraduates interested in pursuing local or international projects that concern a global challenge. We help students with planning, budgeting, and making connections to various organizations here and abroad. Pages 24 - 25

V. Career Development Support

Through our new website, weekly e-digests, advising hours, and CGE Fellowship program, students explore various job and internship opportunities, develop their skill sets in order to pursue meaningful post-graduate opportunities and careers, and connect with our alumni who nurture and guide students both during and after college in their professional and personal pursuits. Page 26

GESI Program
About Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI)
This experiential learning program combines rigorous academic training with hands-on international development eldwork. The program prepares undergraduates to work in multidisciplinary teams with community-based organizations in Bolivia, India, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Uganda. Comprehensive pre-departure coursework helps students explore the history and theory of international development, equips students with team building, international leadership and community consulting tools, and introduces them to the political, social, and economic situation of their host country. Such rst-hand experiences allow students to grasp the complexities of global change while developing their professional skills in collaboration, project management, and cross-cultural communication. Once abroad, students live in homestays and intern at organizations working on issues of micronance, public health, education, womens empowerment, and the environment. Students return to Chicago after their in-country immersion for a three-day reection, where they share geographical experiences, reect on their learning, and explore ways to transform their experience into a lifetime of global engagement.

global engagement.
GESI students design and implement a development project while leveraging the assets they discover in their teams and host communities. Students: Intern at a community-based NGO. Live with a host family. Learn from locals what their communities are capable of accomplishing.

global experience.
No matter students professional or academic interests, international work experience is essential to have but difcult to obtain. Through GESI, students: Develop cross-cultural professional skills. Gain eld experience in education, livelihood generation, health, environmental sustainability, and other development sectors. Learn to work in a collaborative setting.

global education.
GESI is a comprehensive international education experience. Academic highlights: A Pre-Departure Learning Summit with NU faculty and development practitioners. A Final Reection Summit for cross-regional sharing and reection. Two Northwestern course credits (equivalent to six semester hours).

GESI Partners and Supporters

Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies
Through support from the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies, CGE awarded $235,000 worth of scholarships over the past two years to increase the socioeconomic diversity of participants. This funding helped to signicantly diversify the racial demographics of participants. In 2011 alone, 62 percent of GESI students received scholarships. Nearly 55 percent of the students describe themselves as African American, Hispanic, Asian, or biracial, and there were international students from China, India, Japan, Korea, and the Netherlands.

ThinkImpact and Foundation for Sustainable Development

This summer marked the launch of GESIs newest site in South Africa in partnership with ThinkImpact, an international leader in catalyzing social enterprises. Eleven students spent the summer living and working in rural Manyeleti District, South Africa. Utilizing ThinkImpacts in-country curriculum on small-business development, students worked with community members to develop small businesses. The Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD), our rst and oldest program partner, continues to run our sites in Bolivia, India, Nicaragua and Uganda where students work with local organizations to create projects addressing a range of issues.

Building Bridges Coalition

This year, CGE joined the Building Bridges Coalition (BBC), a consortium of organizations promoting international volunteering. BBC grew out of the Brookings Institutions Initiative on International Volunteering and Service. Today the coalition is over 300 strong, representing the leading international volunteer service organizations, corporations, universities and colleges, government agencies, and policy makers.

Google
Currently, a mere 50 percent of the world is properly mapped. Mapping the world can make the delivery of humanitarian aid and disaster relief more efcient. Google Map Maker is a website that allows anyone to add and edit information available to millions of people. Next summers GESI students will put the underserved regions they work in, as well as its physical assets like hospitals and schools, on the map for the benet of governments, organizations, and individuals.

McCormick Office of Career Development

In an effort to increase the number of McCormick students participating in GESIand going abroad in generalCGE partnered with McCormicks Ofce of Career Development to offer a non-credit version of the program for engineering students. Through this partnership, McCormick students participate in GESI at a reduced cost and are enrolled in a non-tuition, non-credit course, called CRDV312.

GESIs Reach
GESI Summer 2011
This summer, 63 undergraduates from 14 colleges and universities, participated in Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI) in ve countries (Bolivia, India, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Uganda); they partnered with local communities to develop small-scale development projects. This years GESI participants represented 35 majors including environmental engineering, social policy, economics, and theatre. The class also hosted a large percentage of underclassman who will build on their GESI eld experiences back on-campus for several years to come.

GESI Participants beyond Northwestern

Thus far, students from approximately 40 colleges and universities have participated in the GESI program: Bates College Brown University College of William and Mary Colorado College Dartmouth College Davidson College DePaul University Duke University Fordham University Georgetown University Grinnell College Harvard University Indiana University Macalester College New York University Oberlin College Occidental College Rice University St. Olaf College Stanford University Swarthmore College Tufts University University of Arizona University of California at Davis University of California at Santa Barbara University of California at Berkeley University of Chicago University of Colorado at Boulder University of Florida University of Illinois University of Iowa University of Michigan University of Minnesota University of North Carolina University of Pennsylvania University of Southern California University of Washington Vanderbilt University Virginia Commonwealth University Wellesley College Yale University

Conference Presentations
GESI has emerged as an exemplar of preparatory training, pedagogy, and post-program reection activities in international experiential education. This year we presented at conferences as a means to further the national discussion on effective models and challenges of such programs. International Service and Higher Education: At the Threshold of a New Era Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, March 30-April 1, 2011 Beyond Sustainability: Building Resilience and Regeneration for both Participants and Partners Presented by Paul Arntson, Faculty, Northwestern University and Nicole Patel, Assistant Director, CGE 14th Annual Continuums of Service San Diego, California, April 27-29, 2011 Doing Development: Building and Sustaining Competencies of Students and Global Partners Presented by Paul Arntson, Faculty, Northwestern University and Nicole Patel, Assistant Director, CGE The Marshall Forum on Transatlantic Affairs Chicago, Illinois, September 9, 2011 Higher Education & Equipping Global Citizens Presented by Nicole Patel, Assistant Director, CGE

GESI Student Testimonials

There are two ways of learning: by putting your nose to a book or by opening your eyes to the world. GESI provides a rare learning opportunity to combine both. I know I have walked away invariably changed for the better.
Kalindi Shah, Northwestern University, WCAS, India

It's not just a matter of understanding why things are the way they are, but becoming so involved in the community that making a change in that area is as close to your heart as making a change at home.
Cristina Lamas, Northwestern University, McCormick, India

GESI is about engaging a world that is bigger, more exciting, and more complex than most people imagine it to be. After returning from the program, I'm compelled to continue my engagement with the communities outside Northwestern. This program allowed me to learn more about myself as a student, a partner in the work world, and as a member of humanity, and I'm looking forward to my continued growth in all these capacities.
Tarik Patterson, Northwestern University, WCAS, South Africa

GESI is not that average study abroad program. It is the opportunity to work with a community to problem solve together. By designing a project that utilizes both individual and community assets to address a need, you will gain a new understanding of grassroots development.
Abigail Weitman, Wellesley College, Peace and Justice Studies, India

We worked directly with residents of a village in South Africa to start a business. We lived in the same village where we worked so we became very close with the community. I developed many strong relationships that I will treasure for the rest of my life. The community was extremely welcoming and I still feel Clare Village is my home.
Stone Shen, Northwestern University, WCAS, South Africa

GESI exposed me to the difcult but rewarding realities of community development: True impact comes from work at the grittiest level. If you're considering a career in a non-prot, NGO, social work, or anything that supports your community, an experience like this is vital.
Kirk Vaclavik, Northwestern University, School of Communications, Uganda

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GESI Student Proles

Nicaragua: Andrea Morgan, McCormick 2013
I h ave a l way s h a d a n i n t e r e s t i n international development and that interest has grown during my time at Northwestern. In part, this is due to the opportunities I have had to globalize my education through an international development themed section of Engineering Design and Communication, a two-quarter sequence all freshmen McCormick students must take, and my work on international projects with the student group Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW). I decided to do GESI because I have come to realize that in order to do successful work in an international setting, even highly technical work, it is essential to have a deep understanding of the community and the culture. With GESI, I spent two months living in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua and interning with an NGO named Fundacin Fnix, which focuses on drug and gang prevention amongst youth. I worked with a team of four other university students to develop a program to provide a safe venue for youth to discuss sensitive topics that affect them as well as to expand the existing agriculture program. Additionally, we worked with the mayors ofce and community to build a new soccer eld to increase interest in the organization. In choosing our project, our team followed the design process, as well as the principles of Asset-Based Community Development. We conducted user interviews and observations, held a formal brainstorming session, and tested our program with students before developing our nal program. The process was riddled with challenges including language barriers and cultural differences, yet it was one of the most rewarding and enriching parts of my Northwestern experience. As an engineering student, GESI provided me with an opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary team and apply my problem-solving skills to deal with pressing social issues. This complemented my technical knowledge. So much of my experience was focused on building strong relationships and developing a deep understanding of the community including both its strengths and needs. An ability to relate to people with different life experiences, and entirely different cultures, can truly set an engineer apart as an individual with a user-centered design approach. I aim to continue my experience by bringing new knowledge to my work in ESW and continuing to develop Spanish language skills. My experiences with GESI cemented my desire to nd a future in community development work. This summer was one of the most rewarding of my life. I would recommend GESI to any student interested in international development and social justice.

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GESI Student Proles

Bolivia: Danielle Moehrke, SESP 2013
It's amazing how you can enter an organization as an obvious outsider, wide-eyed with culture shock, and depart the organization with heart-felt goodbyes, teary-eyed to leave a place that has become a second home. Although spending 10 weeks gallivanting across Europe and periodically throwing in class attendance seemed mildly appealing when I was searching for a study abroad program, I realized I wanted to gain a global perspective rather than an appreciation of French wine. I was drawn to GESI for the complete cultural immersion, that chance to step so incredibly far out of my comfort zone through the homestays and direct community development work. GESI was a way to learn more about myself and a new culture and to hopefully do a little good in the process. Centro Integral Warmi, the NGO at which I worked in Bolivia, was founded as a soap factory with the intent of providing jobs to women in the community during the severe economic recession of 1982. Soon after that, they added a childcare center for the womens children, which eventually expanded. This organization is an incredible asset; now it operates primarily as a low-cost daycare, and continues to employ ve women that produce and sell soap. Through interviews and observations, we decided that there was much potential for growth in the soap factory, particularly in the marketing and selling of the soap. Thus, our project consisted of designing an effective marketing strategy to increase the organizations soap-selling brand. By creating a promotional video to put on Youtube, developing a new logo that better demonstrated the connection between the kids and the women, designing the packaging for the new detergent soap, contacting potential funders, working with the women in the factory through a workshop, and helping the staff develop a soap press conference at the mayors hall, we increased the visibility of the organization. More importantly, we instilled the community with condence in the value of their work. I learned the importance of humility when you are an outsider coming into a community.GESI shattered my idealistic view of single-handedly "saving the world." I realized that in the grand-scale of things, we did little to help the developing nation of Bolivia; however, I still believe our actions made an impact on individuals. Warmi staff members now recognize the good they are doing and the incredibly positive effects they have on the children who see the organization as a second home. No one GESI group drastically derailed the world and set it on an upward path toward complete equality, but together the combination of all the little things we did this summer and the little things these organizations do on a daily basis, has a great impact and shapes the worlds trajectory toward a positive future.

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GESI Student Proles

Uganda: Lynne Fort, Medill 2014
When I was considering my plans for the summer, I wanted to do something constructive and useful for my journalism career. GESI provides valuable experience for anyone interested in working as a journalist abroad. As a journalist, one must understand her community and country, which is difcult for an American working in a place like Uganda. Also, you cannot be afraid to go out of your comfort zone; many countries in Africa and the Middle East are dangerous for foreigners who dont know their way around, but who still have a job to do. Finally, GESI has the potential to help one grow as a person, which is useful no matter what your career might be. I chose GESI because of these factors. I worked with three other American interns; one also from Northwestern, one from Wellesley College, and one from the University of Illinois. The NGO where we interned was called St. Elizas Community Development Organization and it focused on providing health care in the slum where we lived. Most of the work performed by the staff centered on providing immunizations, treating malaria, and helping patients living with HIV or AIDS. St. Elizas was working on expanding its community development work to other areas when we arrived. After visiting as much of the community as we could in the time we had, we came up with a project for a school within St. Elizas jurisdiction called Kagogwa Primary School. A problem for all the schools in our area was the lack of food during the school day. Kagogwa had three or four acres of fertile land, so we proposed growing maize there and feeding the harvest to the children. There was enough land to grow a crop that would feed every child in the school once per day per term. The school agreed, and we put everything in place for the project to go forward before we left. About a week after our departure, the school planted the maizethe rest is yet to come. Learning to connect with and understand the host community was important to my work, and I became aware of my own biases going into interactions with other cultures. Its hard to accept that you dont know much about the world, but once you do, you can start looking and learning to gain more knowledge and actually become effective, no matter where you are or what work youre doing. As a journalist specically, the program was eye-opening in terms of what life would be like if I worked as a foreign correspondent. It taught me how difcult and important it is to understand and respect the area where youre reporting from.

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GESI Student Proles

India: Ari Sillman, WCAS 2014
During the fall quarter of my freshman year, I saw a ier for an info session about GESI, which I subsequently attended. The passion and ingenuity of the GESI alumni about their respective projects during the program convinced me that this would be a great opportunity to experience the eld of international development rsthand. Moreover, as a History and International Studies double major concentrated in Asia, especially south Asia, GESI was especially attractive as it provided me an opportunity to fully immerse myself in Indian culture. In Rajasthan, India, three other students and I developed a project focused on improving the local cooking methods of a small village outside the city of Udaipur. We worked with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), a national NGO which does a variety of environmental projects. We met families in India who used wood-fueled indoor cook stoves, without ventilation, to prepare meals. We discovered that this method of cooking can lead to environmental problems for the community, such as deforestation, along with health problems for the individual family, such as increased risk of asthma, cataracts, as well as lung and eye infections. We also learned that many families wanted to learn new methods of cooking. We worked with 10 such families to install smokeless stoves that direct smoke and soot out of the household through a chimney, and one family to install an outdoor bio-gas stove. These methods ensure that smoke does not concentrate in the household, and they utilize sustainable fuels such as dung to prevent deforestation. We also created an image-based maintenance poster to make sure the residents knew how to repair these devices. The project serves as an example to other communities, as well as to future interns or NGO employees, to expand upon. Through GESI, I gained key insights on the nature and problems of poverty that I will take to both my academic studies and to my future career. Most of all, I learned patience. Development, like other forms of social change, requires a shift in mindset, both individually and societally. As such, rapidly implementing a variety of projects, even if the need is great, will result in many failures. The most successful projects are the ones that actively engage the communities that they affect over the long-term; in the process, one must be patient and willing to accept failures and setbacks. I look forward to continually applying my learnings from our challenges and successes to my studies and personal development.

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Mentoring Co-Curricular Groups

On campus, in the classroom, and around the world.
Global Engagement Summit | Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights Innovation for Emerging Markets | GlobeMed | Food for Thought | The 195 | Global Water Brigades Northwesterns academic excellence is mirrored outside of the classroom by a vast network of internationally engaged co-curricular student groups. Such groups take charge of their own learning, using skills and concepts explored in the classroom, to enrich the undergraduate experiences of their peers and themselves. For example, co-curricular groups organize national conferences on the Northwestern campus, train other students to maximize winter and spring break experiential learning programs, or increase awareness of global challenges through innovative and provocative oncampus events. These groups create networks of informed and engaged change-agents from across disciplines, universities, and countries. CGE afliated groups access regular advising from CGE staff, participate in quarterly leadership-training events with other student leaders, and are regularly featured in our newsletters and listservs. CGE encourages students and co-curricular groups to participate in ambitious work and develop innovative ideas for global engagement.

CGE awards afliate status to student groups with an interest in global problem solving and a desire to implement learning beyond the classroom. Through afliate status, these groups receive annual funding, administrative, and advisory support from CGE. We also offer one-time funding opportunities for groups interested in increasing global engagement on campus through individual events, guest speakers, and other means. Proposals for afliation are reviewed twice per year, once in the fall and winter respectively. In addition, we accept proposals for one-time funding, which are reviewed on a rolling basis. This year, we invested approximately $30,000 in 7 groups, impacting hundreds of students.

CGE-afliated student groups: Take on the role of teacher by developing year-long curriculum to enhance their understanding of the global issues they care about Embrace multidisciplinary education by involving students and faculty from across the university in their programs and projects Gain leadership and professional experience by developing content, organizing large-scale events, selecting and inviting experts from across the world to campus, and managing large teams of students Comprise a growing community of Northwestern students who think critically about global issues and apply their learning to real-world projects

15

Global Engagement Summit

GES, founded in 2005, builds the capacity of the next generation of global change leaders by training students for on-the-ground development work or social entrepreneurship ventures and by connecting driven students with thought leaders in development. GES is organized each year by a team of 60-90 Northwestern undergraduate students (called staff). Through comprehensive curriculum that includes workshops, leadership training, current events analysis, and discussion, staff develop a working knowledge of community development and social change issues, as well as a powerful and supportive social network. GES staff organize multiple events for the broader Northwestern community, regional and international GES alumni gatherings, and a massive annual Summit featuring more than 30 workshops. GES has inuenced what I want to do with my undergraduate years as well as my future career. GES has been the most important tool and activity while I have been a Northwestern student and I cannot speak about it highly enough." -Karin Scott, American Delegates Co-Chair NU 2013 Every April, approximately 80 student delegates from universities across the globe come to Northwestern for GESs annual ve-day Summit. Delegates are chosen by Northwesterns GES staff through a competitive application process; each delegate must have a community development or social entrepreneurship project that he or she seeks to advance through the skills and networks gained at the GES Summit. At the Summit, delegates explore the challenges of and opportunities for global engagement; hone the skills and mindsets that will enable them to better plan, execute, and participate in change-based projects; and connect with peers from around the world. Through workshops, critical discussions, community building, and post-conference resources (i.e. funding, mentorships, and networking opportunities), GES ensures that its members have the tools to move beyond their good intentions to produce change. GES is the only conference of its kind for undergraduates providing students with skills, while also equipping them to think critically about the strengths and limitations of their efforts.

The GES network consists of nearly 700 individuals from across the world including former delegates, staff alumni, mentors, and professionals. A number of Northwestern alumni attribute their professional success to their involvement in GES: Nathaniel Whittemore, NU 2004: Founder of Assetmap Strategies, the Global Engagement Summit, and the Center for Global Engagement at NU; Advisor and Editor of Social Entrepreneurship at Change.org Lauren Parnell-Marino, NU 2007: George J. Mitchell Scholarship recipient 2008, Student Co-Founder of NU Public Interest Program Liz Granger, NU 2009: Fulbright Scholar in Kampala, Uganda 16 Allison Bream, NU 2010: Princeton in Africa Fellow with the UN World Food Program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Megha Agrawal, NU 2010: Associate Director at the Unreasonable Institute

Sana Rahim, NU 2011: Tony Blair Faith Acts Fellowship recipient

NU Conference on Human Rights

The Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights (NUCHR) is the largest undergraduate student-organized and student-attended conference on human rights in the United States. NUCHR is dedicated to promoting the universality of human rights, which can only be achieved by recognizing the difculty in consensus, issues of cultural relativism, and the potential paradoxes in implementation and practice. Through programming events, student-organized seminars, exposure trips, and a culminating conference, NUCHR raises awareness of international human rights issues and fosters social activism at Northwestern and beyond. The three-day conference unites student delegates from across the country with distinguished academics, activists, and policy-makers to address a unique aspect of human rights each year. In the past, the conference focused on issues such as human trafcking, torture, human rights and humanitarian aid, globalization and the universality of human rights, American policy towards HIV/AIDS in the developing world, and American interventionist policy abroad. NUCHR has featured distinguished speakers including: Cherif Bassiouni, Romeo Dallaire, Nicolas De Torrente, Dr. Sheri Fink, Mark Hanis, Richard Holbrooke, Bernard Kouschner, Nicholas Kristof, Stephen Lewis, John Miller, and Dirk Salmons. In the 2010-2011 academic year, NUCHR explored the theme Human Rights in Transit: Issues of Forced Migration. The conference included 41 delegates, 60 NUCHR student members, 34 universities, 5 NU delegates (one from Qatar), and 23 speakers. The event challenged participants to analyze the role of borders on the universality of human rights and examined forced migration from the perspective of multiple actors. It encouraged students and faculty to question the responsibility in the application of human rights and discuss the obligation of the country of origin, host country, and international organizations to protect and preserve the rights of migrants. Ms. Rose Mapendo, the founder of Mapendo New Horizons and UN Humanitarian of the Year, opened the conference with her inspiring story as a Tutsi refugee from the Congo. She spoke of the loss of her family and how she used her experiences to raise awareness of the plight of refugees. In addition, Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond, founder of the Center for Forced Migration Studies at Oxford University, concluded the conference with a case-study analysis about how the Ugandan and Rwandan governments work with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to force repatriation of Rwandan refugees back to Rwanda. Other panels considered and problematized the denitions of forced migration and refugee; the psychological and cultural effects of forced migration; and the role of the global community in resettlement. In 2011, NUCHR strengthened its relationship to the Northwestern Center for Forced Migration Studies (CFMS) in multiple ways; NUCHRs year-long programming and conference complemented the current work of CFMS, and the two organizations collaborated continuously throughout the year; NUCHR student members became interns at the center; NUCHR and CMFS co-sponsored speakers; and CFMS provided invaluable resources and guidance to NUCHR. In exchange, the conference brought greater recognition to CFMS, acting as the starting point for continued relations between CFMS and academics from other universities in the US and abroad. NUCHRs 2011 conference received the Norris Student Recognition Award: Outstanding Community Service Event.

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Innovations for Emerging Markets

IEM aims to drive social development by integrating innovative, technology-driven products into emerging markets around the world. Through the combination of business model development and engineering design, IEM teams seek to address a need within developing communities by creating a scalable, market-ready solution. Innovations for Emerging Markets (IEM) offers undergraduate students real world design experience. IEM provides teams with support and resources including faculty led workshops, mentors from design rms, guest lectures, and panel reviews. Students gain a strong understanding of the challenges and economics of developing communities, as well as a broader understanding of the issues associated with innovating for emerging markets around the world. IEM members receive a holistic view of product design and international development by learning about the economics of developing countries, the various challenges associated with innovation for foreign markets, the potential for development using a social entrepreneurship model, and the initial design stages of ideation and prototyping. Some IEM students also write research papers for class based on their projects, bringing their experiential learning back into the classroom. IEM currently has three design challenges its team are trying to address: Redening Water Extraction Problem: Hand pumps in many developing communities are inefcient. How do we easily and efciently draw water out of the ground from a government issued well? Single action hand pumps currently used in rural areas around the world are difcult to utilize and extremely inefcient, requiring signicant amounts of mechanical energy input from the user. Teams improve the ratio of input of mechanical energy to output of water drawn. The team is attempting to redene the way water is drawn from underground wells using a low cost system. This would be useful across a number of developing countries where hand pumps are used. Post Harvest Fishing Problem: Fishermen in developing communities are often forced to throw away up to 25 percent of their daily catch due to spoilage. How might we enable shermen to sell their entire catch? Fishermen begin shing in the morning and do not return until evening. Without electricity/refrigeration, most of the sh collected are subject to spoilage by the end of the day. IEM is exploring a solution that will enable small and medium scale sheries in Sri Lanka to preserve sh and prevent spoilage. This project has potential for use around the world for more than just shing. Time Sense on Drip Irrigation Problem: Irrigation systems have to be manually turned on and off throughout the day, which is inconvenient for the farmer. How might we make it easier for farmers to control their irrigation systems? IEM is creating a low cost time sense system for already existing drip irrigation units. The system responds to various environmental parameters such as soil moisture. A text message from the farmers cell phone will allow the system to run without the farmers physical presence. 18

GlobeMed
GlobeMed is a national organization of student-led chapters at universities across the country that partner with grassroots NGOs serving poor communities. GlobeMeds national headquarters is located in Evanston, and the network has grown to over 46 campuses with the hub at Northwestern. GlobeMed enables students and communities to work together to improve the health of the poor. By training students in global health, partnering with effective grassroots organizations, and growing its network of chapters, GlobeMed strengthens the battle for equity in global health. Since the chapter's founding, more than one hundred students have been members of GlobeMed at Northwestern. These members, along with hundreds of other students on Northwesterns campus, have participated in GlobeMed's high-impact programming. GlobeMed has developed a comprehensive set of programs to educate, enable, and inspire students to understand growing inequities in global health and to actively make an impact on the work of partner grassroots health organizations. At Northwestern, students learn about global health practice and policy through GlobeMeds year-round global health curriculum. GlobeMed at Northwestern funded the design and construction of the H.O.P.E. Center, a village-level health center that works with the Ghana Health Services to deliver needed public health services to the eight rural communities that otherwise lack access to health care. The H.O.P.E. Center currently serves 6,000 people in 8 villages with child welfare clinics, childhood immunizations, maternal health classes, insecticide-treated bed net distribution, and family planning services. Currently, GlobeMed at NU is working to address malnutrition through a community-based nutrition and education program. This partnership enables Northwestern undergraduates to see rst-hand what it takes to build, develop, and maintain a clinic in Africa. In 2011, students traveled to Ghana to strengthen their partnership with the H.O.P.E. Center and to learn about their current projects. The trip helped students contextualize the projects for which they fundraise throughout the year. Students were able to discuss the new head nurse's vision for the future of the H.O.P.E. Center and develop assessments of a sexual health program and of the areas maternal health status. In 2011, Northwesterns GlobeMed chapter, consisting of 65 undergraduates, raised almost $9,000 to further community outreach programs at the H.O.P.E. Center and to create a more visible and active presence on campus. The chapter educated new members about pertinent global health topics and their relation to politics, economic systems, educational policies, and human rights issues through a self-designed curriculum. In addition to their work in Ghana, students work with BEHIV (Better Existence with HIV), a comprehensive AIDS service organization in the Chicago area. BEHIV provides management, housing, prevention, testing, mental health counseling, and massage and art therapy to the Chicago community.

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Food for Thought

Food for Thought is a student lead colloquium that encourages the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and experiences between American and international students regarding global issues. Food for Thought, launched by Northwesterns International Student Association, was designed to provide both international students and the broader Northwestern community an opportunity to discuss international affairs. These conversations integrate international students opinions and knowledge into discussions on international development and on global engagement at Northwestern. Each month, students come together to enjoy a meal, listen to short presentations or documentary clips relevant to the nights topic andmost importantlyto learn, ask questions, and discuss. As a student-led discussion, FFT provides a comfortable atmosphere for undergraduates to discuss international issues, even if they know little about the specic topic beforehand. Relevant articles are also available to allow students to further explore the issue. All Northwestern students are welcome to attend, and the gatherings generally draw more than 40 undergrads from across the university.

In 2011, students explored and debated the following topics at Food for Thought: Are foreign volunteers doing more harm than good through short-term service abroad? Should governments enforce or prohibit hijab? How can foreign aid be used in a way that does not promote dependency? Does emigration of skilled and educated professionals create a Brain Drain or Brain Gain for sending and receiving countries?

After dinner was over, my friends and I could not stop thinking about what we had heard, so we stayed outside for an hour or twoin Chicago weather!having an impassioned conversation about religion and politics and spirituality... I feel it is rare to have such profound discussions with friends. -Marie Giacometti, French international student

FFT also collaborates with many other student groups on campus. Last year, it worked closely with Northwesterns Japan Club when discussing the earthquake in Japan and with Northwesterns Political Union when discussing foreign aid. By involving international students in conversations on global engagement, FFT seeks to dismantle the west knows best mentality still evident in development work. The growing popularity and ongoing dialogues among participants suggests the plan is working.

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The 195
The 195 is a website that aims to provoke conversations that bridge the gap between college campuses and the far reaches of the globe.

The 195.com shares the stories of students and recent graduates who are abroad in some of the worlds 195 countries. Founded at Northwestern University in 2009, The 195 is a platform for students to provoke conversation and challenge perspectives. Through the visceral power of multimedia and the intimacy of the written word, The 195 aims to bring distant parts of the world closer. The 2010-2011 academic year was one of signicant change and growth for The 195. It expanded its management team, hosted a record number of contributors, added new features to the website, and sent more than 80 total contributors abroad in countries ranging from Madagascar to Senegal to Argentina. During 2011 spring break, The 195 partnered with the Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights (NUCHR) during their week-long study trip to Turkey. It was mutually benecial: The 195 provided NUCHR participants with a space and format to share their reections about their trip and NUCHR gave The 195 a week lled with engaging and thoughtful content. This collaboration was the rst of what the The 195 hopes will be many partnerships and relationships with other campus organizations. It was a clear sign that, only one year after its launch, The 195 has found a large audience within the Northwestern community and has a strong reputation for quality storytelling.

In just its second year, The 195 already had an impressive following, with site visits from 102 countries or territories and 1,200 unique cities worldwide. Their goal is to someday be read and have contributors in each of the worlds 195 countries.

In addition to becoming widely-known and well-respected on Northwesterns campus, The 195 is being noticed beyond the university; it was recently quoted in a Newsweek article about study abroad (Party Hard, Study Harder, September 19, 2011 issue). With its success at Northwestern, The 195 has begun thinking seriously about expanding the site to other schools and networks. The 195 believes that the value of students views on the world is not limited to Northwestern, and they eventually would like to see a worldwide network of students traveling and writing about the world around them.

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Global Water Brigades

Global Water Brigades (GWB) is a catalyst for change in health, education, and infrastructure.

GWB connects water professionals with community leaders to create sustainable change in underserved communities. GWB also empowers villages by providing the seed capital and resources needed to obtain safe drinking water. Each brigade works with Honduran community leaders to conduct research, plan projects, and oversee the construction of an improved water system. Projects include constructing gravity water systems, wells, purication systems, sanitation education, and other innovative ideas provided by students and experts. The 2010-2011 year saw a continuation of old traditions and the start of exciting new ones for GWB. From the annual spring break brigade to new awareness events hosted at Northwestern, these initiatives transformed GWB into a recognized name on campus. The 2011 brigade took 10 Northwestern undergraduates to the community of El Cantn in El Paraso, Honduras with participants across years, majors, interests, and experience levels. The elds of participants study ranged from environmental engineering to human development and psychological services, and from global health to biological sciences. During the trip, students dug trenches and laid pipes for a water system that would serve the community of 500 people. They also led educational seminars on hygiene for youth in the community. On Northwesterns campus, GWB has enjoyed similarly meaningful conversations through formal group meetings and informal get-togethers. In February, Education Chair Emily Roskey, SESP 12, organized a social awareness event about global water disparities in water consumption. Now in its third year on campus, GWB has furthered its connections with other Northwestern organizations to accomplish a shared vision of a globally engaged campus. Together with the groups of the Northwestern Engagement Coalition, GWB has striven to capitalize on collaborative opportunities between student organizations with similar passions and missions. As a McCormick student group afliated with the Center for Global Engagement, GWB bridges the gap between many other global engagement organizations and more technical interest groups on campus.

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Global Development Speaker Series

CGEs Global Development Speaker Series offers students the opportunity to network with and learn from established leaders in international development thought and practice. Guests typically participate in a public lecture and small dinner reception with students and faculty. In 2010-2011, we hosted approximately 10 scholars and development practitioners in the series.

Paul Collier
The Plundered Planet: Why We Mustand How We CanManage Nature for Global Prosperity Professor Collier discussed how responsible harnessing of natural resources could lift The Bottom Billion countries from poverty.

Amartya Sen
The Idea of Justice Nobel laureate and Harvard professor Amartya Sen discussed the idea of social justice.

Esther Duflo
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty Professor Duo shared MITs Poverty Action Lab ndings about what works in international development.

Charles Kenny
Getting Better: Why Development is Succeeding & How We Can Improve the World Even More Kenny, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, argued that new ideas and technologies have greatly improved the lives of the worlds poor.

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Grants
CGE grants provide funding for undergraduates to pursue project work abroad (or domestically, as long as the proposed initiative addresses a global challenge). Through our grants, students apply their research interests to tangible action with communities here and/or abroad. Students with international and work experience (i.e. from internships) as well as an academic grasp of a global challenge, are strong candidates to receive one of these awards.

Go Abroad at Home
This award provides funding for undergraduates to explore an international issue from a domestic perspective or setting. Projects must directly involve communities anywhere in the US, on a topic of international relevance. Projects move beyond personal edication and toward creating impact or knowledge at Northwestern and/or for the communities where grant recipients work. Project ndings must be designed for sharing. This year, we awarded the grant to three undergraduates. Jackie Burns, a Northwestern journalism major and Business German minor, used the Go Abroad at Home Grant to spend summer 2011 working with the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Chicago to present and preserve interviews she previously collected from survivors of the Soviet Gulag. Jackie met with leaders of the Chicago Ukrainian community and tailored her work to suit their needs, sharing her research in written format with the Cultural Center (various articles for the Ukrainian newspaper and the rst draft of a book), as well as presenting at schools and serving as the keynote speaker at the annual Ukrainian Festival. The goal of her project was to share never-beforeheard stories of survivors of an important and underrepresented period of Soviet history in as many ways as possible. Esha Khurana, a Northwestern biology major and psychology minor, spent summer 2011 using the Go Abroad at Home Grant to work with high school teachers, university professors, and local politicians in West Chester, Pennsylvania to host the areas rst International Affairs Forum, a summer program she designed for highly motivated high school students interested in international policy and foreign affairs. Esha facilitated thought-provoking discussion and critical thinking skills among high schoolers through activities such as policy debate, model UN simulations, speaker discussions, and lm discussions. Eshas project also enabled high schoolers to plan, develop, and execute a capstone project for a cause of their choice. Leezia Dhalla, Medill senior, is using her award to study the effects of nancial aid policies on access to higher education for undocumented students. She is spending the school year interviewing administrators familiar with nancial aid operations at 5 to 7 select schools in the area, as well as students who allegedly are (or have been) undocumented as a means to better understand the obstacles they have faced in higher education. To culminate her project, Leezia will produce a cohesive document that describes the existing policies implemented at Chicago-area community and national colleges as well as public and private universities. She will also produce an interactive medium so the results of this project can be shared within the wider Northwestern community.

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Grants
Davis Projects for Peace
This grant enables undergraduates to design grassroots projects for peace that address global social issues. The program is run through the University of California-Davis. At Northwestern, CGE and the Ofce of Fellowships work together to facilitate the award. Northwestern nominates two student proposals, with a guarantee that the Davis Foundation will fund at least one of them. The grant provides $10,000 for a summer project with a nonprot focused on some dimension of enabling peace in a global world. Many student projects revolve around direct volunteerism, philanthropy, or development work. The project can be driven by research or a more applied experience, so long as it connects the participant with an established organization. 2011 Davis Projects for Peace Winner: Lydia Hsu (WCAS 2011) Lydia Hsu developed Vocation for Education, an internship program in Kigali, Rwanda that supports hands-on business experience through English language learning. In 2010, Lydia developed and taught an English curriculum at the Rwanda Multi-Learning Centre (RMLC), a school that teaches English and income-generating skills to survivors of the 1994 genocide to prepare students to work in the public sector. During this experience, she realized that students require more than English prociency to nd jobsthey need hands-on learning through work experience. She launched a pilot program that paired three students with part-time paid internships that were likely to transition into full-time jobs. With the Davis grant, Lydia returned to the RMLC to fully develop the program, with the hopes of ensuring sustainability and expanding the program to support students elsewhere.

Special Project Grants

CGE also funds other opportunities that contribute to students active learning and participation in global social change. 2011 CGE Grant Winners: Jane Merrill (SESP 2012) and Joan DeGennaro (SESP 2013) CGE provided support to two undergraduates (Joan DeGennaro and Jane Merrill) to participate in Innovate for Impact (I4I). This experiential learning course for Kellogg graduate students and wellq u a l i e d u n d e r g ra d u a t e s p l a c e s s t u d e n t s i n t o interdisciplinary teams. The teams receive training in design for low-resource contexts and social entrepreneurship. Teams developed a prototype and/or business plan addressing a social challenge, then spent two weeks testing and rening their projects abroad. DeGennaro, Merrill, and their other team members focused their project on postpartum hemorrhaging, which is a cause of the high mortality rate among mothers in Malawi. Their project centered around a prototype to train community midwives on how to safely remove the placenta after childbirth.

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Career Development Support

This yearin response to the growing number of undergraduates who seek mission-driven organizations to learn from, collaborate with, or eventually work atCGE expanded its activities to formally support students interested in career development opportunities and resources. CGE began offering a competitive fellowship program that seeks to develop practical skills, such as communication, project management, grantwriting, and others necessary to be successful in the workplace. This six-month career development fellowship, mostly for juniors and seniors, is geared towards students interested in nonprot work, international development, or social entrepreneurship. The CGE Fellowship program draws from professionals in the Chicagoland area who work in various mission-driven organizations in the private, n o n p r o t , a n d g ove r n m e n t s e c t o r s ; t h e s e professional mentors will conduct trainings once a month for six months, from November to April. Trainings will cover a wide range of skills employers may seek in job applicants, as well as general information and capacity-building for students interested in launching their own ideas on and off campus. Fellows will meet, learn from, and collaborate with a community of like-minded Northwestern students. At the end of the program, fellows will produce ve videotaped informational interviews with representatives of organizations in the Chicagoland area through a partnership with Zoomforth.com. The videos will be uploaded to Zoomforth.com, an online startup that seeks to connect job seekers to mission-driven organizations based on their skills and interests. The website allows users to watch informational interviews from a range of elds. CGE also launched a new website (www.cge.northwestern.edu) where visitors nd a wealth of information including: streamable videos of past Global Development Speaker Series lectures; resources for career development, internships, and jobs searches; information on upcoming events (on and off campus); and opportunities for Northwestern alumni and other professionals to mentor individual students or groups. Finally, we publish a weekly online newsletter which provides updates on j o b s , i n t e r n s h i p s , e ve n t s , a n d volunteer opportunities related to international communities and issues.

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Center for Global Engagement Northwestern University 620 Library Place Evanston, IL 60208 cge@u.northwestern.edu |847.467.0844 | www.cge.northwestern.edu