Table of Contents

Part I: Campaigns Background Info

1).  Women’s Empowerment
2).  Maternal and Child Health
3).  Water and Sanitation
4).  Education
5).  Global Health
6).  Environment
7).  Fair Trade
8).  Labor Rights
9).  Debt Relief

Part II: Fundamentals of planning and running a campaign

• Forming a Group
  
• Group Health
  
• Resources, Allies, and $
  

Part III: Concrete event ideas, actions, toolkits & mini-grants to launch your campaign

• Documentary Screening
  
• International Videoconference
  
• Mini-conference
  
• Rally
  
• Bird-dogging
  

Part I:  Campaigns

All of the proceeding campaigns will enable students to engage with an important development topic.  There is no specific way to organize these campaigns, but the best guiding strategy is to build upon previous events (more on campaign strategies are outlined below).  For example, if a student decided they wanted to get involved with a campaign to get fair trade products served in their dining hall, he/she could organize a film screening, proceed to host a speaking event and workshop session on the campaign, and then become involved with a national day of action—perhaps by holding a rally or pursuing some other strategy.  The different national days of action will be listed under each different campaign area.  In addition, AID is excited to partner with other student and national organizations in each topic area, and we encourage students to use the resources and expertise of these organizations in addition to those of AID in order to organize an effective campaign.

Poverty

Throughout the world, people lack access to meet their most basic needs: adequate food, water, or shelter. Millions experience other types of poverty as well; they are frequently sick because they can’t obtain decent healthcare; they are unable to get jobs that lift them out of poverty because they have been deprived of a decent education; they have little time to pursue new opportunities or leisure because they have to work so hard and possibly walk so far to provide food, water, or money to support their families.

Yet, despite these odds, individuals are finding ways to support themselves or press for jobs with dignity, to find ways despite the odds to educate their children; to look for solutions that would make healthcare more affordable and accessible.

As students, there are many ways in which we can support individuals who are making a difference.  Organizations are providing these basic needs and other forms of assistance; and policymakers who are promoting ways in which the U.S. can play a role in ending poverty and creating a more just and equitable world.

Today, you can take one action to make a difference; tomorrow, you can plan an event to showcase challenges and solutions to global poverty; and in the future you can work to inform your community about these issues and ensure that our elected  officials play a leadership role on these issues.

1.  Women’s Empowerment

Women are the epicenter of their families and communities, and for this reason, they are central to development.  Despite this simple fact, women around the globe face social, political, and economic barriers:  500,000 women a year die in child birth; women do 2/3 of world’s work and only earn 10% of the global income; women produce 70% or world’s food, but own a meager 1% of the land.  Women are disproportionately poorer than men as well:  They comprise 70% of the approximately 1 billion people living on less than $1 a day.   Ending poverty is inextricably bound up with supporting women’s empowerment efforts.

Moreover, when women gain extra income, they tend to invest it in improving the quality of food, education, and healthcare of their children so the money that women earns assists them personally and enables them to lift their families out of poverty.

AID is working with CARE—an international development organization which works in more than 60 countries worldwide—that integrates women’s empowerment throughout analysis, programs, and policy work. Similarly, AID strives to integrate gender analysis throughout all of our work as well.

There are a number of ways students can get involved in supporting programs and policies that empower women. Some include :

A)  Support the Global Poverty Act:
This bill would require the U.S. to develop a comprehensive strategy to reduce global poverty and eliminate extreme poverty. This effort is being supported by CARE and others. Click here for our how-to guide.

B)  Support the GROWTH Act:
This piece of legislation aims to empower women worldwide by allocating U.S. assistance to promote women in small business, ensure safe and enabling working conditions, and supporting women’s organizations throughout the world.  The bill is being supported by Women’s Edge and the ONE campaign.  Click here for our how-to guide.

Come to the CARE 2008 National Conference!

2.  Maternal and Child Health

More than 500,000 women die each year due to complications from child birth.  Over 10 million children will die before their 5th birthday due to some combination of poor nutrition and/or disease.  These deaths are preventable.  Indeed, the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) sets forth the reduction, by two-thirds, of the mortality rate for children under five; the fifth MDG seeks reduce by three-fourths the number of maternal deaths related to child birth.  CARE has taken an integrated approach to reproductive and maternal health, and has incorporated in its other programs around education, water and education, and HIV/AIDS.

3.  Water and Sanitation

Over 1 billion people world-wide lack access to safe drinking water.  Compounding this paucity of potable water, 2.6 billion people do not enjoy access to basic sanitation.  Lack of water and unsafe water contribute to the death of one child every fifteen seconds in the Global South.   Moreover, women spend hours each day walking to get water for their families, time that could be spent on other endeavors.

Water is a basic right, and sanitation is an essential component in maintaining public health (preventing diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, and other water-borne illnesses, and facilitating such simple activities as the gestation of drugs to counter the effects of HIV/AIDS and other diseases), stimulating productivity, and generally fostering development.

Given its importance, the UN has designated 2008 as the year of Sanitation in its efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) generally, and goal number seven specifically, which aims at halving of the number of people without access to safe drinking water.  Investment in water and sanitation projects results in immediate and gainful improvements:  It is estimated that for “every $1 invested in water yields an economic return worth $8 in saved time, increased productivity and reduced healthcare costs.”

There are a number of ways that students can become involved in the fight for safe, affordable drinking water and adequate sanitation:

Start a Take Back the Tap Campaign. For more info, please contact sam@aidemocracy.org.

4.  Education

Education has broad impacts that extend beyond simply reading and writing.  When children are provided education, they are simultaneously empowered through a variety of ways: raised awareness of their rights, a greater understanding of health necessities, and a fuller ability to participate as citizens in their society. Moreover, increasing education for girls and women has a dramatic impact on women and their children. For example, children of mothers who receive 5 years of primary education are 40% more likely to live beyond age 5.  Similarly, in low income countries, a young woman’s average earnings increase between 10% and 20% with each additional year of education

CARE is using education as the principle means to stop and prevent child labor—protecting labor and human rights through education.  Seventy-seven million children throughout the world are disenfranchised; they do not have access to primary education and all of its accompanying benefits.  Students can play a role in changing this reality.

AID will be working with the Global Campaign for Education on a national day of action to support The Education for All Act in late April. Contact sam@aidemocracy.org for more information.

5.  Global Health: HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis

Health is foundational.  It is primary and intrinsic to changing conditions cited above.  People who are sick cannot tend their crops, go to work, or care for their families.  Children who are plagued by diarrhea, cholera, or malaria cannot go to school.  Beyond education, HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects workers between the ages of 15 to 40—the most productive generation.  Societies who are sick lose out both on education for future generations as well as the production from the current generation. Chronic and acute maladies undercut all other projects by forcing the sick to redirect time, energy, and resources to healing and nourishing themselves. 

AID has dedicated a whole programming area to the issues encompassed by global health, which you can find here.  Check out this area for more information as well as the exciting, inventive campaign with which you can become involved!

6.  Environment Campaign

The environment is critical to development.  AID believes that there cannot be sustained improvements in human wellbeing and development outcomes if the natural resources that sustain the human population have been degraded or damaged. At the same time, low-income people need access to income-generating opportunities so that they can afford to protect the environment rather than have to use resources unsustainably. There are many ways for low-income countries and wealthier nations to be environmentally sustainable, increase ecologically sound development, and protect our environment and ecological corridors for ourselves and future generations.

In order to highlight the link between development and the environment, AID has formulated a separate environmental program area to give students the information and tools to undertake a campaign.

7.  Fair Trade Campaign

Trade can be a powerful catalyst for human development. Trade and recent innovations in technology enable us to connect to one another across borders, exchange ideas through the internet and exchange goods and services.  The trading system directly affects the environment, labor rights, agriculture and food security, maternal and child health, and indigenous rights.  Given its breadth, trade holds great potential.  For example, in East Asia from the 1970’s to ‘90’s, prudent, tempered integration into the world trading regime helped to lift 400 million people out of poverty.   Similarly, the North American Free Trade Areas (NAFTA) created 5.3 million jobs in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Nonetheless, pervasive flaws in the rules governing trade agreements and the trading system have left millions of people behind—both in the Global South and North. Trade agreements have also displaced many jobs in the North and South.  For example, NAFTA’s led to the loss of 1.3 million jobs in the Mexican agricultural sector.  Furthermore, the new jobs that were created in Mexico came with a high cost:  they were primarily created in the informal sector, where vulnerability, inequality, and insecurity are common and defining aspects of informality.  Furthermore, the new occupants of these jobs (primarily women) are often forced to work long hours in often  dangerous working conditions.   Indeed, free trade has often disproportionately disadvantaged women.  For example, Jamaica’s trade liberalization policies, men gained 45,500 jobs while women lost 12,400 jobs.   Finally, despite economic growth in many countries, inequality between the rich and the poor is growing. Today, same number of men, women, and children—1.1 billion—subsists on less than one dollar a day as was the case the mid 1980’s.  Economists have found that “for every $1 generated through exports in the international trading system, low-income countries account for only three cents,” meaning trade is certainly not fulfilling its potential to create a sustainable, equitable, or just world.

Indeed, our current trading regime has exacerbated these problems.  Trade liberalization has  often perpetuated existing gender inequalities ; tariffs and subsidies in developed countries have frequently undermined the development processes in impoverished countries:  “Trade restrictions [tariffs, subsidies, and quotas] in rich countries cost developing countries around $100bn a year—twice as much as they receive in aid.” Too often, trade policies have added undue pressure to ecologically fragile areas—endangering or compromising future human development under the guise of short-term productivity and growth gains.   These effects do not manifest evenly across all countries, but rather, fall more heavily upon the impoverished and vulnerable populations of countries: women, workers, children, and indigenous groups.

Given its broad ramifications and potential, we—as students—can take an active role in constructing a more humane and just trade system.  And one of the best and simplest ways we can accomplish this goal is by getting fair trade products on our campuses.

Fair trade is both a notion and a practice.  It is predicated upon the desire for a just system of international trade and it holds the potential to create jobs, protect the environment, and provide workers world-wide with high-quality, safe working conditions.  According to the Fair Trade Federation, “fair trade means an equitable and fair partnership between businesses and organizations in North America and producers in the developing world.”  In essence, fair trade is fundamental to engendering sustainable development. 

Students have a unique opportunity to procure fair trade products on their campuses, and thus, simultaneously, secure the accompanying benefits that fair trade products confer and ensure to producers around the global, such as living wages and environmentally sustainable operating practices.  For example, as K. Ohemeng-Tinyase, the Managing Director of Kuapa Kokoo cocoa cooperative in Ghana explains, “A bite of fair Trade chocolate means a lot to farmers in the South. It opens the doors to development and gives children access to healthcare, education, and a decent standard of living.”   Procuring fair trade products is equally important in the US context:  Often the farmers and garment workers make the very food we consume and the apparel we wear; that is, there is an immediate, tangible link between our purchasing decisions—both on a personal and institutional level—and the lives of destitute, vulnerable workers around the world.   

A number of organizations support and advocate for policies that can be broadly characterized as promoting fair trade:  The ONE campaign supports trade justice, Catholic Relief Services have a fair trade program where members can buy fair trade produced products, and United Students for Fair Trade have a number of campaigns that provide students with the necessary tools to have fair trade products served your university’s dinning services.  AID encourages all students to check out these organizations, to host an event about fair trade, or to become involved with a fair trade campaign or a national day of action.

A. USFT

USFT is a collaboration of students and youth working in solidarity with cooperative communities to promote fair trade principles, products and policies. Consciousness raising, leadership development and capacity building stand at the core of our grassroots organizing. We envision a world in which the global economy is based on human relationships, transparency, democracy, shared power through cooperatives, equitable access and community autonomy.

What do we do?

Through a network of over 150 affiliate groups across the country and a democratically elected coordinated committee, USFT organizes to raise greater consciousness of fair trade and campaigns to bring fair trade products to campuses and communities. USFT’s conferences, both the yearly International Convergence and smaller Regional Convergences, provide opportunities for students, cooperative allies, NGO’s and fair trade businesses to come together and strategize about the fair trade movement and the year ahead. Additionally, USFT facilitates exchanges between Global North and South through connecting students with internship opportunities with cooperatives in the Global South, as well as hosting US-based internships for youth from cooperatives.

Visit USFT online at www.usft.org to learn more.  Get involved with a USFT campaign to get fair trade products on your campus!

Resources

USFT Organizing Guide: How to organize and launch successful campaigns on your campus.

Transfair USA: The certification body of fair trade products, lots of helpful resources about Fair Trade.

Cooperative Coffees: A group of community-based fair trade roasters throughout the US. Check out their section on “What is fair trade?”

B. Catholic Relief Services:

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) partners with a variety of individuals and producers cooperatives in order to identify and connect them to consumers around the world.  You can make conscious and ethical purchasing decisions by visiting their website and buying a present, some chocolate, or a number of other fair trade products.  By supporting the vendors highlighted by CRS, you are enabling a man, woman, or child around the globe to lift themselves out of poverty.

Start a campaign on to get fair trade products served on your campus.

8.  Labor Rights

An integral part of the global trading system are the workers who produce the goods that are traded.  Workers comprise a significant proportion of the poor in the in the Global South.  For example, the International Labor Organization—an agency of the United Nations—reports that in Africa there are “a total of 152.8 million working poor living on less than US $1 a day, representing about 46.2 per cent of the total estimated employed in all of Africa.”   In Africa, where large proportions of workers are engaged in agricultural production, these statistics aptly provide some idea of the reality of farmers throughout the continent.  In Latin America, these trends are similar, and in addition, fall heavily upon workers employed in the manufacturing sector. Worldwide, over 1.3 billion workers comprise the “working poor”—earning less than US $2 a day—and are thus unable to pull themselves out of poverty.

Workers in the global economy genuinely want employment. However, many workers who produce food, toys, clothes, or other things for the U.S. work in unsafe, laborious, and insecure conditions. Many workers experience sexual harassment, physical abuse, child labor, and intimidation.  Other workers do not receive even the minimum wage required by the law—such as health care and maternity leave—work without a day off or unpaid overtime, and are exposed to pesticides or other harmful chemicals or health hazards as part of their job. Despite being employed, these workers may not be able to meaningfully contribute to the development process.  Low pay and poor working conditions disproportionately affect women workers:  For example, more than 55 percent of the flower workers in northern Ecuador have been subjected to some form of sexual harassment, and forced pregnancy tests and sexual abuse are commonplace.

Quite simply, these injustices are antithetical to development.  Furthermore, often these farmers and garment workers make the very food we consume and the apparel we wear; that is, there is an immediate, tangible link between our purchasing decisions—both on a personal and institutional level—and the lives of destitute, vulnerable workers around the world.

In order to protect labor rights and their importance to development, AID collaborates with and supports other groups on a number of different levels:

A. International Labor Rights Forum (IRLF):
ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.  We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests. We are committed to overcoming the problems of child labor, forced labor, and other abusive labor practices. We promote enforcement of labor rights internationally through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government and business groups.
ILRF has 4 program areas in which its work is focused: Creating a Sweatfree World, Ending Child Labor, Rights for Working Women, and Ending Violence Against Trade Unions.  ILRF engages in corporate campaigns to fight for an end to child labor globally. We are currently focusing on the cocoa industry (especially Nestle) for their use of child labor in West Africa.  ILRFs newest focus is on sweatshops in the fields as the food and agricultural supply chains become increasingly consolidated and riddled with unimaginable labor rights violations.  The Fairness in Flowers campaign raises awareness in the US about labor rights violations and health and safety problems in the cut flower industry, and promotes the occupational health and safety of the labor rights of workers in the cut flower industries of Colombia and Ecuador.  For more information, visit the IRLF website.

B. United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)
USAS is an international student movement of campuses and individual students fighting for sweatshop free labor conditions and workers' rights. We define 'sweatshop' broadly and recognize that it is not limited to the apparel industry, but everywhere among us. We believe that university standards should be brought in line with those of its students who demand that their school's logo is emblazoned on clothing made in decent working conditions. We have fought for these beliefs by demanding that our universities adopt ethically and legally strong codes of conduct, full public disclosure of company information and truly independent verification systems to ensure that sweatshop conditions are not happening. Ultimately, we are using our power as students to affect the larger industry that thrives in secrecy, exploitation, and the power relations of a flawed system. If you would like to find out more about how you can use your power as a student to support workers demanding better working conditions then please check out our website at <http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org>  and contact zack@usasnet.org.

C.  CARE and Labor Rights
Learn about CARE’s work with child laborers in Bolivia, and how you can get involved in their national day of action to ensure these children receive an education, instead being condemned to work in the mines.

D.  Fair Trade Products:
Procuring fair trade products on your campus is one way to protect the workers that make these products.  Details are available above in the Fair Trade Campaign. 

9.  Debt Relief

Individual countries cannot address natural disasters, trade, health, water, sanitation, food insecurity, or a plethora of other development issues if they must spend their money repaying millions or billions of dollars of debt.  For example, it is estimated that “every year Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region of the world, spends $14.5 billion dollars repaying debts to the world's richest countries and international institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.”

Debt was often incurred by previous undemocratic governments, yet countries are still required to pay off a debt that citizens and new governments did not accumulate, nor would have agreed to pay. Freed from debt repayment, countries will be able to allocate their scarce human and physical resources to productive ends, rather than servicing debt.  For example, “Tanzania has used its savings from debt relief to increase education spending and eliminate school fees. Almost overnight, an estimated 1.6 million children enrolled in school. By 2003, 3.1 million additional children were attending school.”

Jubilee USA and the ONE campaign are working tirelessly on debt relief.  Currently, the Jubilee Act has been introduced into the House of Representatives.  Calling for maintaining a commitment to debt relief, this piece of legislation will expand debt relief.   Here are ways you can get involved:

Continue the great work done during the Fall Semester by participating in Jubilee’s National "Leap into Action Days." You can take a stand and make sure that the Jubilee Act--the most comprehensive piece of debt relief legislation in several years--is passed.   More information on the Jubilee Act can be found here. 

Part II: Student Empowerment: Organizing

Forming a Group:

Getting our fellow students and greater universities to take concrete steps—such as providing fair trade produced coffee in our dining services—to foster global development is within our reach, but we have to organize and build support together.  The first step is forming a group of students in order to work collaboratively toward this goal. 

Begin by discussing the issue with your friends, colleagues, or professors--essentially with those who you think will be most interested in the issue.  In many cases, Americans for Informed Democracy may have affiliate groups, chapters, or interested individuals on your campus or in your community with whom you can collaborate.  If no such organization exists, you can begin your own group with your friends and other students who want to organize events around this campaign.  Click here to get information about starting a AID chapter.

Starting a group often requires that the chapter or group register with the university—typically by becoming a student-government-recognized group.  Contact your student government for help with this process or more information.

As a student-government-recognized group, you can reserve a room on campus and begin to have weekly meetings to coordinate your campaign.

Group Health:

The heart of any campaign is its members:  The passion, energy, and dedication that students give to their cause are fundamental to the success of the campaign.  These commendable and desirable characteristics, unfortunately, can be undermined by personality conflicts, racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.  Thus, just as important as the issue we are working on, is the way in which students organize themselves.  We must not be complacent; we must build, bolster, and maintain our groups’ health at all times.  A few guiding aphorisms and questions can help you think of ways to make your group dynamic, egalitarian, and above-all, healthy.

Questions:

• Does the whole group make decisions, or just certain individuals?  Is there a group hierarchy?  How are decisions made: voting (with some form of majority), consensus (all members in agreement), or some other way?
•  Do some group members’ opinions carry more weight when making decisions?  Is this because they have excellent ideas, or because the group is deferring to someone who is of a certain sex, ethnicity, class, or sexual preference?
• Does everyone in the group feel comfortable speaking?  Are all group members encouraged to speak, share, and weigh-in when making decisions?
• How are tasks delegated?  Do a few people do all of the work? Who does what work? Are tasks based on skills and preferences or by gender, race, or ethnic stereotypes?
• If someone discriminates against another group member, how does the group respond?

Some General Advice:

• Step up if you have not spoken; step back and permit others to speak if you have dominated the conversation.
• Delegate tasks evenly and broadly:  Groups can accomplish incredible amounts, but only if all group members are participating.  Allow everyone to do both desirable tasks and less-enjoyable work.
• Have a different person facilitate each meeting.  The facilitator can keep the meeting moving, encourage everyone to participate, and, if several people want to speak at once, is responsible for keeping track of who is next to speak.  By rotating this position, each person in the group can build leadership and communication skills, while simultaneously ensuring that one person does not dominate the discussion.
• Greet new members when they arrive, make them feel as part of the group, and encourage them to get involved with small tasks.  This is a way to hook them into the group and enfranchise them.
•  HAVE FUN!!!  Group members should, hopefully, be friends; meetings should be a space for work as well as jokes, food, and a time to spend learning from other intelligent, passionate students.  You are doing great work, and you should enjoy doing it together.

Sample Meeting Agenda:

Meetings should, ideally, be short and sweet: plans are made, updates are presented, tasks are delegated, and we can all have a good time and hang out together.  Below is a sample agenda that can be used as a guiding example of how to structure the meetings:

1. Intros with beginning question (favorite quote, flavor of ice cream, travel plans?)
   
2. Announcements
   
3. Most pressing business to discuss: updates, report backs from previous events or meetings, etc.
   
4. Events to plan—delegation of tasks
   
5. Anything else
   
6. Evaluation:  This is a way to make everyone feel comfortable and offer a space for analyzing the meeting:  What worked, what should be changed, and any other commendations, concerns, or thoughts.

Resources, Allies, and $:

A.  Student Groups

There are a myriad of sympathetic student groups on campus that will support your campaign.  It is important to reach out to them, to ask for their support, and to reciprocate by attending their events and/or endorsing their campaigns.  Initially, do not ask too much of other groups until you have established a foundational relationship.  Attend their meetings and events, build relationships with their members, invite them to your meetings to present their group, and hang out together.  Much of this type of coalition building is informal; it is about building and deepening relationships—both personal and working ones.

Once you feel these relationships are sufficiently developed and strong, you can ask them to cosponsor an event (see events section for more on this) or sign on to a letter that formally proclaims their group’s support for your campaign.  This type of sign-on letter—an explicit and public endorsement of your campaign by other student groups demonstrates to your primary target that you are not a parochial, isolated, or small group of students, but rather, a coalition and a movement.  It carries great weight.

Potential allies include:  Amnesty International, and Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), American Medical Student Association (AMSA), The Global AIDS Alliance, and medical and/or pharmaceutical student groups, and Greek life groups.

B.  Community and Religious Organizations

These can be approached in much the same way as student groups.  Often students in your group are already members of these groups, and can address these organizations and ask for their support.  These organizations are often more amenable to writing individual letters on behalf of their organization to the primary target rather than sign onto a form letter.  This method is persuasive and effective as well.

These organizations often can provide financial support and are willing to cosponsor events with student organizations.  Take advantage of their resources, contacts, advice, and support!

C.  Student Government

Student governments can be a boon to any campaign.  Beyond having funds that students can access to underwrite a campaign, their resolutions are powerfully symbolic and have far-reaching effects.  Discuss your campaign with interested student government representatives to take the pulse of the student government.  Are they interested in introducing, sponsoring, or supporting a resolution exhorting your university to adopt the policy you want?  Do not, however, try to push through a resolution that will not pass; it will be detrimental to your campaign.  If it is possible, pass the resolution, but also take advantage of the resources, influence, and contacts of your student government.

Student governments usually grant money to student groups in the form of an operating budget.  They also, usually, have an special allocation request process, which is simply a mechanism for obtaining funds to put on an event—for example, to cover the costs of renting a room, sound equipment, or other materials.

D.  Faculty and Staff Governments

Often faculty and staff have representative associations, such as a senate.  These bodies can be approached and utilized in the same way as the student government: Establish contact with a supportive representative, discuss the issue, and how the representative body can support your campaign.  Also, academic departments often have funds available to help finance speaking events.  Finally, at schools where the faculty and staff are unionized, you can ask these associations to endorse your campaign.

E.  Americans for Informed Democracy (AID): Network and $

AID has a vast network of students with whom you can collaborate.  These students often have insights and experience with organizing events—what worked, what was unsuccessful, and a ton of other info. 

In addition to that invaluable resource, AID has something more quantifiable: mini grants.  You can apply for a mini grant for your event by registering your event (see ideas below).  Also, here is an example of a sample mini grant budget.  Although not massive, these mini-grants will give you the financial means to buy the materials that will get you going, or augment and enhance your campaign. 

Part III:  Concrete Events to Launch, Strengthen, and Win your Campaign.

AID offers specific organizer’s toolkits and mini-grants for the following events that you can use as guiding steps to build your campaign. 

·  Film Screenings:  AID has a plethora of provocative films and documentaries that you can screen    at your campus.  This is a great first event to kick-off your campaign—setting the educational and awareness foundation for you campaign.

·  Mini-conference :  Draw upon AID’s network of pre-eminent speakers to come to your campus and speak on a topic pertinent to mini campaign.

· International Videoconference:  Link to other students nationally and internationally to discuss your campaign, interact with these students, learn, and apply what you have learned back to your campaign.

·  Rallies:  Plan an exuberant, overwhelming display of support for your campaign to raise further awareness and pressure your administration to implement your proposed policy.

•  Birddogging: More info coming soon!