Commitment Ideas

Here are some ideas to get you started on your commitment to action. These are only ideas. We welcome your creativity and ingenuity. It is entirely up to you what your commitment will be and how you will execute it.

You can browse these ideas by CGI U's five global challenge areas: Education, Environment & Climate Change, Peace & Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health.

Education

Sponsor a village or district overseas to help eliminate or reduce their school fees in a region where basic education is not available to most children.
Partner with NGO's or relief organizations to help offer access to education in disaster or conflict zones.
Create a campaign to collect books or school supplies and send them to communities in need.
Combat illiteracy by expanding access to eye care in developing nations.
Establish night schools for child laborers who have no option but to work during the day.
Start a program that brings low-income high school students to campus for college preparatory classes, one-on-one tutoring, or career counseling.
Create mobile and digital libraries for regions with scarce access to educational materials and technologies.
Work with your school's social work department to create a summer program for low-income youth from the surrounding community.
Develop a "sister school" relationship with a school or university in a developing region, where students and teachers from each school can communicate through letters, email, video conferences, or service learning trips and learn from each other's experiences.
Create a scholarship and support program to facilitate girls' schooling in areas of the world where there are gender-based barriers to education.
Create a community-university partnership board, a group of students and administrators who will award money to innovative community development projects that benefit the youth of the local community in unique ways.
Donate educational technology to schools that could use it the most.
Create a workforce retraining program that matches the unemployed in your region with training in rapidly growing sustainability sectors, such as green building and alternative energy.
Partner with overseas development organizations to create a summer service project where students from your school help build or repair a school in a region where it is desperately needed.
Start a student-run global debate club on campus.
Establish a lifelong learning center in your community, which could serve as an intergenerational venue for members of the community at large to share skills and resources.
Institute an exchange program within your school's education department where future teachers can do a semester-long apprenticeship in an international school to gain a hands-on understanding of global education.
Provide free public tutoring at a local library, school, or mall.
Sponsor free school lunches at a school in a developing country that does not provide them.
Work with your school's administration to institute a mandatory volunteering or community engagement component to your school's graduation requirements.
Help start a center for global education within your school's existing education school or department, which could offer classes and research opportunities on the role of education in sustainable global development.
Expand access to public libraries, particularly in rapidly developing urban centers around the world.
Create a hands-on problem-solving seminar at your school which works across disciplines to address pressing international challenges.
Sponsor a community or school in the developing world with low-cost laptops (as the non-profit One Laptop per Child does) or access to satellite internet.
Work with local NGOs to open an adult literacy center in a region with scarce access to literacy resources.

Environment and Climate Change

Turn college building thermostats two degrees up in the summer and two degrees down in the winter.
Hold a green design expo where campus engineers, architects, and other interested student teams can present their ecological inventions and designs that could be used on campus.
Organize a competition between two dorms or departments to see who can reduce their carbon emissions the most.
Complete an intensive energy audit for your campus. Review the energy consumption patterns of your school, meet with your school's facilities department, and find the most practical methods for emissions reduction.
Install energy metering devices in all campus buildings.
Create a green computing center on campus that relies exclusively on renewable energy and maximum computer efficiency.
Create an electronic waste center which provides safe and responsible recycling or disposal of defunct or broken computers.
Start a green initiative fund, which could pay for the "start-up" costs of green innovation on campus. You could also join an alternative energy purchasing consortium in an effort to decrease initial costs.
Create a partnership between your university and the local city planning office to implement sustainable infrastructure and design throughout the community.
Establish or expand a hybrid Zipcar or bicycle rental facility for students and faculty on campus.
Establish a network of bicycle and pedestrian greenways on campus and in the nearby community.
Create a bicycle-powered laundromat in your dorm.
Design and build a solar-powered car.
Create a rapid-response disaster or flood surveillance and monitoring system with a partner region or village overseas.
Work with the Clinton Climate Initiative or EPA's Green Power Partnership to decrease the start-up costs of renewable energy systems for your school.
Build a system which can create real-time energy audits of your campus buildings and provide ongoing digital monitoring of your campus's energy use.
Enact mandatory student fees (such as $1 per credit) which could underwrite green start-up costs on campus.
Sponsor micro-renewable energy for rural populations that are currently not on the electric grid.
Ensure that plastic water bottles are not sold in campus stores.
Start or expand a local farmers market on campus.
Create "single stream" recycling on campus where paper, plastic, and glass can all go into the same can.
Create an airport carpooling program that students can use during university holidays and other periods of high-volume travel.
Calculate your campus's carbon footprint and assess your school's renewable energy capacity. Draw up a 30-year plan.
Make whiteboards available in all study facilities on campus to eliminate use of scratch paper for notes.
Recycle graduating seniors' furniture and other items by donating them to a local non-profit.
Create a university-community alliance that works with local industry and government to lead the way in carbon emissions reductions in the region.
Install compact fluorescent bulbs or LEDs in all university facilities.
Create a carbon-neutral dorm on campus.
Initiate a tree planting campaign on campus or in the nearby community.
Support and install renewable energy in a rural region or village which has no or limited access to electricity.
Purchase university energy from clean energy sources through renewable energy credits (RECs).
Design and market reusable containers for your campus's cafeteria and dining halls. Your campus bookstore could donate free reusable bottles to all students during orientation.
Work with the nearby community to establish a green land trust.
Invest a portion of the university's endowment in a clean energy fund.
Retrofit a building or dorm at your school to be carbon-neutral.
Work with your local transit authority to increase mass transit stops and other public transportation options in and around the campus community.
Lobby for university-wide principles of sustainability that are integrated into all decision-making on your campus.
Create a revolving loan fund to finance campus sustainability initiatives.
Start a campus-wide recycling program if it does not already exist.
Start a hands-on outreach and education program in local primary and secondary schools where young people can learn about energy, climate change, and practical steps towards sustainability in the community.
Start a campaign to ensure that your university purchases only EnergyStar appliances for dormitories, classroom buildings, and laboratories.
Work with other universities and businesses to form a statewide consortium which petitions your state government to mandate an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2050.
If your university's president is not already a signatory, work with your college to become a member of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.
Work with university administrators to start or expand an Office of Sustainability which will enact practical sustainability measures and devise long-term strategic plans for the campus.

Peace & Human Rights

Create a permanent scholarship fund for students from areas affected by conflict.
Partner with a school overseas to initiate a landmine removal program and develop landmine risk reduction seminars in the surrounding region.
Sponsor basic supplies for refugee camps and emergency shelters.
Create a partnership between architecture, urban planning and engineering students on your campus to work together in designing and building temporary housing for refugees and internally displaced persons.
Organize a group of students to serve as election monitors and travel to countries with a need for neutral observers in support of free and fair elections.
Partner with law school students to draft legal briefs for those in your community seeking political asylum.
Hold a campus dialogue between veterans and peace activists.
Go beyond study abroad: create a global literacy program where students travel on a for-credit program for at least a semester with an international group of students from partner schools around the world.
Create an online database which can track and monitor the sale of illicit arms.
Research and promote increased representation of indigenous peoples in the formal political decision-making process.
Initiate a cross-cultural, interfaith, or interracial dialogue or service program on your campus.
Create a speaker series on your campus allowing survivors of war and refugees to tell their stories.
Utilize the cultural expertise of professors and international students on your campus to create translational materials for international organizations.
Create a fellowship program which funds student work with human rights organizations during summer break.
Start a peer mediation program at a local public high school.
Work with your school's engineering department to develop innovative de-mining and minesweeping devices.
Create or volunteer at a summer camp where youth from areas of conflict can interact peacefully.
Work with the study abroad center at your university to create a resource center for students who wish to volunteer abroad. Explore partnership opportunities with humanitarian organizations in need of materials and/or volunteer staff.
Support microfinance in areas of conflict lacking stable revenue sources.
Volunteer or create a local volunteering network that works with a local prison to provide tutoring, job training or recreational classes.
Donate materials and funds to provide access to education and communications technology in conflict zones and refugee camps.
Hold a dialogue between local rival political parties to find common ground on potentially divisive community issues.
Create a tutoring program at a local resource center for internationally displaced people.
Start an oral history project which documents the lives of those in your community afflicted by war.
Create a peace building study abroad program.
Create a student group to provide emergency translation services for populations in need of urgent assistance.

Poverty Alleviation

Work with your university to create a satellite campus in a resource-scarce community. Partner with local NGOs, social enterprises, and businesses to create a viable model for sustainable development in that satellite community.
Work with law and business students to offer pro-bono legal and financial services to the community surrounding your campus.
Start a campus investment fund that support grassroots entrepreneurs or microfinance initiatives overseas.
Promote increased debt cancellation for the world's most impoverished nations.
Donate usable technology (particularly agricultural and educational technology) to communities that need it the most.
Sponsor bicycles and bicycle equipment for a village in a developing nation that has scarce access to transportation.
Work with your campus's agriculture and biology programs to research and support increased crop productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Partner with professors and local anti-poverty organizations for a research project on poverty alleviation in your community.
Create a partnership between the business and international politics programs at your school to design an overseas social venture that involves the local community and will help grow the local economy.
Work with international NGOs and governments to expand women's land and property rights.
Work with your university to create a program where students get credit to implement innovative poverty alleviation strategies in partnership with local community organizations.
Start an education and public outreach campaign that details the effects of water and electricity privatization in low-income nations around the world.
Sponsor satellite internet for a rural community.
Promote fair trade products at school facilities.
Increase access to safe drinking water in developing nations through the marketing and distribution of inexpensive water purification tablets, pumps, or filters.
Start a microfinance program at your campus which provides small loans to low-income residents in the nearby community.
Hold a clothing drive on campus to provide low-income job applicants with appropriate clothing for job interviews.
Create a socially responsible investment (SRI) committee to petition your university to create a SRI policy for its endowment.
Work with business students to develop a campus social entrepreneurship program which enables students to turn innovative social enterprise ideas into legitimate community organizations or businesses. Give annual seed capital prizes to the best proposals.
Start a multidisciplinary program between the journalism and international politics programs at your school to investigate the effectiveness of foreign aid.
Work with your administration to institute courses in global resource management and sustainable development.
Offer technical assistance for income-generating agriculture projects in the developing world.
Partner with international NGOs to expand training for women entrepreneurs in developing nations.
Create a rapid response food security monitoring and surveillance system with a partner region or village overseas.
Work with local community organizations to create an innovative, hands-on, anti-poverty summer program for both students and community members.
Establish a series of community gardens in a nearby neighborhood.
Create a socially-responsible MBA curriculum that works hands-on with start-up ventures.

Public Health

Provide basic water sanitation through the distribution of low-cost oral re-hydration packets and/or mobile water filtration units.
Raise funds to support the international campaigns against malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, or other diseases.
Work with your school's health center and an outside international development organization to facilitate the donation of used medical equipment.
Build a community garden on campus which provides fresh food to the campus cafeteria or other local community venues such as homeless shelters or public schools.
Raise funds to supply mosquito bed nets, free of cost, to vulnerable populations worldwide.
Work with your university's administration, faculty, and student body to create a global health program at your school
Create a partnership between architecture and medical students on your campus and a host community to work together in designing and building sustainable health facilities.
Work with faculty, graduate students and members of your school's administration to pursue the research, prevention, and treatment of neglected infectious diseases.
Work with governments, NGOs, and local partners to eliminate user fees for basic health care in developing countries.
Start a campus anti-smoking initiative.
Create a program to send medical graduates at your university to provide medical services in communities with underdeveloped medical infrastructure and/or a shortage of physicians.
Increase global access to medical innovation. Advocate for your campus's adoption of licensing policies that respect a university's intellectual property but also ensure that low-income countries have access to basic medical services in an "open borders" format.
Work to expand the use of iodized salt as a means to prevent widespread iodine deficiency.
Provide scholarship funding for low-income women seeking to become trained birth attendants.
Promote maternal health in underserved communities with an outreach and education campaign.
Work with governments, NGOs, engineers, public health experts, and computer scientists to create accurate and reliable disease surveillance systems.
Hold community seminars on preventive medicine.
Work with your local farmers market to enable them to accept food stamps.
Start a peer health education program for local public schools.
Create a volunteer program at your school to help staff underserved local clinics, hospitals, and other health care centers.
Create a campus-wide (or even cross-campus) student investment fund for research, prevention and treatment of health conditions primarily affecting marginalized communities.
Start a visitation program with a local retirement home where students from your university spend a few hours every week with the residents.
Establish a partnership with local farmers and agricultural companies to educate their workers on safe growing techniques and safe ways to handle the pesticides they use.
Raise funds to provide feminine hygiene products to girls in under-developed communities.
Create a sexual health education campaign at your school. Hold workshops, distribute informational pamphlets, or make presentations to classes, clubs, fraternities/sororities, and other community partners. You could target your work in communities that are susceptible to abuse.
Advocate for your school to create an exercise-friendly campus, full of bike paths and walking paths which provide convenient access to public transit.
Create a job shadowing program between the health department on your campus and local health care facilities.
Start a group which travels to local healthcare facilities to assist patients with chronic diseases.
Create a partnership with a local soup kitchen to increase the number of visitors served and increase the nutrition of the meals served.
Partner with the local American Red Cross to start a CPR and first-aid certification course at your university.
Partner with local NGOs to bring free STI/STD testing and counseling to local public high schools.
Hold a street fair to educate local community members about the dangers of high blood pressure, obesity, cholesterol, diabetes, and other common preventable health issues.
Start a lecture series on your campus dedicated to bringing in experts in different fields of the global health arena. Speakers could address issues ranging from global food shortages to affordable malaria treatment, from maternity care to HIV/AIDS prevention.
Raise funds to supply vaccines to underserved communities.
Organize engineering students to install basic water and sanitation systems in communities where they are most needed.

A project of the Clinton Global Initiative.