By Kristin Coveney Off the top of my head, GES allowed me to pursue my deepest interest in international affairs that the university’s academic offerings did not fully support. Separate from the bureaucratic and static course offerings, the Summit lets us run with our natural curiosity and I think therefore I learned more as a member of GES than as a student at Northwestern. This meant we learned about topics underrepresented at NU but also about processes and skills that traditional ...

By Kristin Coveney Eric Mulwanyi and his five siblings grew up in a rural, Ugandan village with only their mother to raise them. While some might view this as an insurmountable obstacle, Eric saw an opportunity. He now helps youths to develop their own businesses by promoting cheap, modern pig rearing techniques, and forming savings and loan associations. Eric originally set out to translate classroom ideas into tangible projects through low-cost, advanced farming. However, after the 2010 Global Engagement Summit, he refined ...

By Tadelech Mengesha In the current U.S. economy, more and more U.S. citizens are beginning to live lives that resemble that of third-world people. Luckily, the United States is fortunate enough to establish homeless shelters for people in need; but even these are sometimes not adequate enough to give these families opportunities to fully rise out of poverty. However, United States is even luckier to have people like Calla Hales. Calla is a junior at Hofstra University, who like many other college ...

By Hyun Kim (Kimmy) Northwestern Class of 2009 GES 2006-2009: 2007- Co-Chair of Open Shutter, 2008-09 Co-Director of GES Studied abroad at the London School of Economics during Junior Year, Studied abroad in India after Freshman and Sophomore Years Masters Degree in International Development at London School of Economics Currently working at a non-profit strategy consulting firm in Washington D.C. (FSG) Rajni described GES as an incredibly meaningful experience because it emphasized hard work and a commitment to more thoughtful ways to make change. GES influenced her future ...

By David Chase Background History When I was in Cairo studying abroad during my junior year, I ended up spending most of my time tutoring Sudanese refugees in English. The experience was on the one hand more captivating than any other sort of volunteer work I'd ever done -- these people would literally line up for hours for 15 minutes that might help them improve their lives and the lives of their families -- yet on the other, demonstrated what little capacity ...

By Anna Krist, GES staffer For the past few weeks, the Media and Marketing team has been working to include Evanston middle school students in the GES experience through an exciting new project called GES Colors.  Just last week, staff members went to Nichols Middle School and worked with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in their art classes to create posters inspired by global engagement.  Their work will be part of a contest, and the finalists’ posters will be displayed on the GES website for ...

By Elizabeth Derby, GES Staffer About two weeks ago, I attended a viewing of Water Pressures on campus. It was a documentary about water conservation in rural India and featured a group of several Northwestern students who traveled to a small Indian village to help put in a better water system. Juxtaposing Northwestern's access to Lake Michigan with this rural Indian village's access to water from wells and small ponds, I was struck with the realization that we are pretty lucky.  We ...

By Rose Conry, GES Staffer While the rest of the world or at least the rest of the hallway prepared for the Harry Potter premiere, sporting Gryffindor colors and fake glasses, I opted for a quite different theatrical experience. Instead of transporting me to the twisting hallways of Hogwarts, the International Student Association screening of the 2009 film Ajami took me to the dangerous streets of the Israeli city Jaffa. Although equally unfamiliar to me of that of the wand-wielding wizards of Harry Potter, the setting and ...

By Jeremy Intel, GES Staffer So I came across this article on an uber-cool website my friend showed me over the weekend. I suggest you all check it out if you have a general interest in LIFE! While reading the article, I thought to myself, “Is there ever such a thing as impartial third parties in investigative/journalistic reporting on controversial issues?” We are often bombarded, whether we like it or not, with opinions from high ranking officials, popular journalists, and even our ...

Recently, Northwestern alumni Will Butler of The Arcade Fire spoke at Northwestern as part of the Center for Civic Engagement's Civically Engaged Young Alumni Conference. He discussed the band's work with Partners in Health, the non-profit healthcare organization co-founded by influential global health leader Paul Farmer. For every ticket that the Arcade Fire sells, $1.00, £1.00, or €1.00 is added as a surcharge that gets donated to PIH. “The consumer doesn’t really notice it with Ticketmaster,” Butler jokingly explained, ...