October 08, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - Last year Western Kentucky University’s chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) led the university to win the ONE Campaign’s National Campus Challenge among more than 1,500 universities to mobilize America’s youth to combat extreme poverty. WKU was recognized as the “Most Globally Aware Campus” in the nation and received personal praise from activist and U2 front man Bono.
Now WKU’s AID chapter is promoting step two in the long walk to justice. This time the goal is to help students, faculty and administrators understand what it really means to live in extreme poverty. WKU AID is asking students, faculty, administration and local officials to take the challenge and stand with the more than 2 billion people living on less than $2 a day.
On Friday, Oct. 17, WKU students will join with millions of people worldwide as they STAND UP against poverty and break a Guinness World Record for the largest mobilization of people ever. WKU is hosting Kentucky’s premiere STAND UP event, a global mobilization to pressure world leaders to end extreme poverty by 2015.
STAND UP KENTUCKY will take place at 6 p.m. Oct. 17 at WKU’s Ivan Wilson Fine Arts Center Amphitheatre. The event will feature prominent speakers and musicians from across Kentucky culminating in a single moment as millions of people around the world STAND UP and TAKE ACTION in the fight against extreme global poverty.
WKU AID also is challenging individuals to take the $2 A Day Challenge. This begins by documenting their expenses on Thursday, Oct. 16. Then on Friday, Oct. 17, participants will be asked to live on no more than $2.
WKU AID believes that from such an experience, participants will gain a better understanding of what it is like to live in extreme poverty. The difference in spending between Oct. 16 and Oct. 17 will then be donated to the development project of the participant’s choice via www.globalgiving.com.
Additional information is available online: ONE Campus Challenge at www.one.org/campus; Americans for Informed Democracy at www.aidemocracy.org; WKU AID at www.wkuaid.org/standup; STAND UP at www.standagainstpoverty.org
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu and at http://wkunews.wordpress.com/. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Matt Vaughan at (573) 639-0344.
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