Mission, Vision, History and Accomplishments | Board and Staff | AID's Approach

Our Approach:

We host weekend summits that educate young leaders about the interconnectedness of our world, connect these leaders with global experts and campaigns, and provide them with a comprehensive package of leadership and messaging guides that train them to be effective organizers and advocates in their communities. We then support these empowered leaders as they coordinate local campaigns and host town hall forums and videoconferences that connect their communities to global issues.

Our strategy builds the movement for responsible U.S. global engagement. A young person initially decides to attend one of our summits because she is curious to learn more about an international issue. Our summit then empowers her by educating her about the interconnectedness of our world, connecting her to a global campaign, and introducing her to likeminded peers from her own community. She then goes back to her community as part of a team of young leaders with the skills, resources, and connections to bring the world home to her peers and the broader public. With our support, she now works with a team of her peers to organize an educational event and a local campaign in her community. Using our town hall organizer’s guide and global videoconferencing network, she sets up an engaging forum to educate her community on a pressing global issue. She then draws on our campaign toolkits to build a local coalition and connects that coalition to a global campaign.

Breaking it Down:

AID works on four primary issues:

• Global development (including poverty-alleviation, fair trade, human rights, and access to water);
• Global health (including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and maternal and child health);
• Environmental protection (including reducing carbon emissions and our dependence on oil); and
  
• Peace and security (including the U.S. role in the U.N., the International Criminal Court, and nuclear weapons).

AID uses the same participatory methodology across our issue areas: we raise awareness of global issues, promote action, and link students with positive actions that they can take to address issues of concern. AID raises awareness through programs that provide students with new substantive information on a topic. Specifically, AID organizes the following activities to raise awareness among students:

Global Leader’s Summit
Global Leader’s summits are organized by AID staff and are larger, more well-funded events related to AID and our partner organizations issue priorities. AID national staff recruit speakers and partners for the event, advertise in a tri-state area for the event, send email invites to students and professors in the region, fax out press releases on the event, and organize food, lodging, and other logistical details. Staff may work with an AID chapter to develop the event but the bulk of the organizing is done through the National Office. Staff-organized summits also tend to draw students from throughout the region and feature higher profile speakers.

Town Hall Meetings
Town Hall meetings are student-organized one-day conferences on an issue. They are usually organized by one chapter or affiliate. These events feature more local speakers and tend to draw a smaller audience. AID‘s National office supports these events by providing organizing toolkits which students can use to create the event. The toolkits provide template emails, template flyers, a schedule for planning the event, and other tools which student’s can modify to easily plan their events. Moreover, AID’s National Office publicizes the event to students in the local area through email blasts, prepares a conference registration page for the event, sends out press releases for the event, and may assist students in finding speakers. Finally, AID provides reimbursements to students to defray their expenses for refreshments, food, advertising, etc.

Videoconferences
Through a partnership with the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) in association with the World Bank, AID reaches out to distance-learning centers throughout the world with email invitations to participate in our videoconferences. These centers provide the technology and recruit interested participants from U.S. and international sites. AID’s National Office sends out a call for participation to our student networks, specifically our campus chapters and we recruit guest experts and facilitate the dialogue. Due to the space restrictions at most video-conference sites, most sites can host up to 20 students at a time. This small size also offers great opportunity for students to have a real conversation with one another, and enables more students to actively participate in the event. Often we have eight sites reaching over 150 students and young adults per videoconference. AID uses the videoconferences as a way to engage students in longer-term change efforts, campaigns and campus actions. AID’s National Office follows-up with U.S. based students to encourage them to take the next steps to create change on their campus regarding this initiative.

International Conferences
In 2006, AID held Global Leader’s Summits with American youth and Muslim youth in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt as part of our efforts to expand Hope Not Hate programming and engage Muslim youth in the MENA region.  Students also hosted one-day events following the conference in Rabbat and Qatar. AID has held conference in Berlin and Madrid and holds two conferences each year in London in partnership with Syracuse University.

Film Screenings
AID purchases DVD fillms for our campus chapters and affiliates. We mail dvds to students and provide them with an organizing tool-kit for film screenings. We help student’s publicize the film screenings and provide them with a discussion guide for each film that is shown. We may also help them secure a local speaker to spur discussion. Finally, AID provides reimbursements to students to defray their expenses for refreshments, advertising, etc.

Leadership Retreats
AID provides leadership retreats related to specific initiatives. The 2-3 day retreat features expert guest speakers on a specific issue, a chance to meet with Congressional staff that work on that issue, a workshop on organizing events, developing semester-long campaigns, as well as information on how to film and edit video campaign materials. The retreats bring together students from across the country to Washington DC to hone these skills, meet other students, and gain inspiration to launch their campaigns.