Clinton Global Initiative University: DREAMZone
By The Editors
The Clinton Global Initiative University was launched in 2007 by President Clinton to develop a growing community of students on college campuses around the world – a community working to make the world a better place. Who are the students participating in this community? They are leaders – young leaders set to make a difference. They don’t just discuss global challenges – they come up with innovative ideas to solve the global challenges they discuss and then take real, concrete steps to implement those ideas.
Students in this community develop their own Commitments to Action: a specific plan of action to address a selected challenge. Central to Commitments to Action is the translation of practical goals into meaningful and measurable results. In addition, college and university students participate to a competition, the Commitments Challenge.
This year, the winner of the Commitments Challenge is a graduate student from Arizona State University, Davier Rodriguez. His team’s project, DREAMzone, aims to establish a national network of allies to support undocumented students. He says: “It will offer a four hour ally certification course that breaks down preconceived notions of undocumented students and educates participants on federal, state, and local challenges. I hope to enhance undocumented students’ higher education experiences by creating a national network of supportive allies.”
Here Davier talks about what motivated him to start his winning project.
6 Comments
Alejaaa21
As a Mexican American student who was also born and raised in this country I have seen and felt the struggles of these students who unlike myself do not have the right to attend college or cannot afford it due to their illegal status in this Nation. It brings me joy when I hear about people like Davier who are willing to contribute and make a difference in the lives of many of these undocumented students just by the simple fact of informing people and letting people know about the stories and struggles of these students.I am also in hope that soon US will pass a comprehensive immigration reform that would grant many undocumented students as well as others the ability to grant legal status in the country.
When Cubans escape from the communist island of Cuba they receive what is known as political asylum, which grants them legal citizenship here in the US.
Nadouna
This program is very interesting and inspirational. I would love if my university helped with this movement! Posting about it on facebook or other social networks can get the word out to a lot of college students.
sam g
my understanding is that universities provide minimal funding for these projects, and the students that develop the commitments are left with the burden of finding additional means of support, which is tough to do……
awilliams199
Davier’s program is interesting and addresses a very important topic that congress often has difficulty agreeing upon. I was very surprised by this post because i was unaware of the fact that cubans automatically gain citizenship in american unlike many other immigrants. Why is this so?
AnnaJosephine
Thanks, littlesusie. The entire reason for this post is to motivate college students to get involved in community projects and find the right resources to carry them on.
littlesusie
It’s surprising how little is known about these initiatives. I really enjoyed what Davier said in the video. I think he is inspirational, it’s also very interesting to hear how people from diverse nationalities coming to the US may have so different experiences in terms of keeping their papers in place. Again, I’m not sure why there is so little known about students that are so involved in important community projects. I was curious, so I did a search on Davier and I was disappointed to find out that there is little on the web about him. just winning that price should give him more coverage. i hope other sites pick him up and share his video because students would be inspired by what he has to say to follow in his footsteps. The person that posted the video on youtube should be thanked for doing so, and I thank theglobalfool for passing it along.