Clinton Global Initiative University: Three Days, 1,000 New Commitments, 290,000 Lives Impacted

The third Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting was held on the University of Miami's Coral Gables campus April 16-18, generating new student service projects, dubbed Commitments to Action, aimed at solving some of the world's most intractable problems. Hosted by former President Bill Clinton, the three-day conference drew more than 1,300 students from 83 countries and all 50 states, along with university presidents, administrators, and national youth leaders, to discuss and devise strategies to make the world a better place.

In all, UM students accounted for about 250 of the more than 1,000 new commitments at this year's meeting, ranging from an initiative to establish a network of community youth centers in the Haitian slum of Cite Soleil to a program to help rescue victims of domestic minor sex trafficking in Miami.

"That's what makes CGI U work: It frames global issues on a human, doable scale," UM President Donna E. Shalala said. "It turns mild-mannered college students into super social entrepreneurs."

Commitments to Action are the backbone of the third CGI U meeting. On Saturday, participants attended workshops and meetings focused on five topics that are of particular importance to college students: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation, and global health. The campus-based portion of the CGI U conference ended on Saturday evening with a plenary session focused on recovery and reconstruction efforts under way in Haiti. On Sunday, CGI U participants joined Clinton, former NBA All-Star Alonzo Mourning, and about 75 UM student-athletes in Homestead, Florida, for a service project at the Homeless Trust Fund.

"You really do have the power to change the world, and you don't have to be wealthy to do it," Clinton told an audience of more than 5,200 people, most of them students, who had gathered at the arena for the opening plenary address. "The most important thing to have is an idea and a strategy to implement it."

For more information at the Clinton Global Initiative University at UM, please visit www.miami.edu/cgiu.