FRI 20 FEB 2004
Students can ease poverty with click of a button
By Tara KarrArgonaut Staff
With the click of a mouse button, 25 cents can be donated to help people living in poverty.
From Feb.14 to March 26, the Collegiate Click Drive will give college students across the nation the opportunity to earn money for their school as well as improve the lives of the poor.
KIANNA HAIL / ARGONAUT / Oxfam America gives students a chance to battle poverty at www.povertyfighters.com
UI has registered to be part of this year’s drive. Jana Leachman, a senior international studies major and Oxfam CHANGE leader, organized UI’s participation, which is sponsored by UI’s Office of Diversity and Human Rights, and the Civic Education Project.
Participation in the drive takes less than a minute and a few easy steps, Leachman said.
Starting at www.povertyfighters.com, students select “University of Idaho” from a drop down menu. This connects students to UI’s Collegiate Click Drive Web site, which has a “Click Here to Donate and Win” button. When the button is clicked, 25 cents is donated, and the amount is recorded as a UI donation. The button can be clicked twice per day per computer.
The money donated comes from Web site sponsors such as Bread for the World and Accion International, at no cost to students who click. Donations are put into funds that provide small self-employment loans for people living in poverty, Leachman said. The loans are eventually paid back, and the money is lent out again.
The Web site also contains links to examples of success stories about recipients of these loans, also known as “microcredit” loans. For instance, Ismete Demo, an Albanian woman, was given $200 dollars to buy a refrigerator for her small grocery store so she could sell dairy products. Ranjani, an Indian woman, was given a microcredit loan to start her own business selling her paintings after her husband, a photographer, went blind and was unable to work.
“The loans basically help the poor work their way out of poverty,” Leachman said.
As of Feb. 18, $35.25 had been donated through the UI drive — that’s 141 clicks. The school with the highest number of clicks by the end of the drive will receive a $1,000 prize from Oxfam.
Leachman said if UI wins the drive, the prize money will be used to bring two or three Idaho high school students to UI to attend the Borah Symposium. These students will be chosen from populations that are underrepresented at UI and may be first-generation college students. Leachman said this could be an opportunity for high school students to learn about social justice issues in the world as well as to apply to UI.
Leachman said she wants to encourage UI students to participate in the drive and tell their friends and family about it. “Anyone can click under the UI name,” she said. An easy way to remember to click is to make the site your homepage and click every morning, Leachman said. Students who click will not be added to any mailing lists or asked to give out personal information, she said.
Suzanne Lanier, a freshman chemistry major, said she had never heard of anything like the drive before but was excited to participate. She said if UI wins the prize money, it will be like “killing two birds with one stone,” since people in poverty and the university will both benefit.
Freshman engineering major Christy Simpson said she thought the click drive sounded like an interesting idea, but she wanted to know more about the sponsors. She said she would like to help out, and she thinks it would be nice if there were a link to the drive somewhere on UI’s Web site.
TODAY
Human Resource Development workshopAdministration Building, Room 217
9 a.m.
Borah Blockbuster Series:
“Kill Bill Vol. I”
SUB Borah Theater
7 and 9:30 p.m.
ASUI senate meeting
UITV-8 programming
8 p.m.
SATURDAY
Flute studio recitalSchool of Music Recital Hall
2 p.m.
Ê Borah Blockbuster Series:
“Kill Bill Vol. I”
SUB Borah Theater
7 and 9:30 p.m.
SUNDAY
Shades of BlackDance, music and rap performances
SUB Ballroom
6 p.m.
Faculty recital
Chris Thompson
School of Music Recital Hall
8 p.m.
MONDAY
Art exhibitAlbum covers of the 1940s and ’50s
Prichard Art Gallery
8 a.m.
UI Argonaut, 301 Student Union, Moscow, ID 83844
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