Spring Break
Students hold conference on poverty
by Matthew Brock
News | 4/29/08
Posted online at 2:51 AM EST on 4/29/08
/ Last updated at 6:04 PM EST on 4/29/08
The Millennium Campus Network held a three-day conference to teach students how to combat poverty through five tracks, education, economics, public policy, health and technology during the weekend of April 18, said Cofounder and Director of Strategic Development Seth Werfel.
The MCN is a network of student organizations across Boston and across the nation that focuses on global poverty, said Sam Vaghar, the MCN's executive director.
Vaghar and Werfel co-founded the group last August. Both Vaghar and Werfel were involved in Positive Foundations, a group that "has successfully advocated for the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty through fundraising initiatives and collaboration with [other groups]," according to its Web site.
They founded the MCN because "Sam and I wanted to take what we are doing at Brandeis to the national level," said Werfel. In 2000, 191 countries agreed on eight goals to tackle extreme poverty, said Vaghar, and one of the MCN's objectives is to force the government to make those goals a priority.
There were so many groups fighting poverty, Seth said, that they would run into coordination problems, like all trying to book the same speaker at the same time. But, "a unified effort is stronger than a fragmented one," he said, and the MCN helps coordinate the different groups.
The conference had three purposes: to raise awareness, to educate the attendees and to provide an opportunity for networking, said Werfel. The event also helped the groups gain attention, increase funding and more leverage by demonstrating their large support base, said Vaghar.
The event opened with a keynote address from John Edwards, a former presidential candidate and senator, and Henrietta Fore, director of the United States Agency for International Development, a branch of the United States government that, according to its Web site, administers foreign aid, dating back to the Marshall Plan, said Werfel. Fore discussed the United States' strategy for economic growth abroad while Edwards issued a call to action for the United States to support the Millennium Development Goals.
The MCN is a network of student organizations across Boston and across the nation that focuses on global poverty, said Sam Vaghar, the MCN's executive director.
Vaghar and Werfel co-founded the group last August. Both Vaghar and Werfel were involved in Positive Foundations, a group that "has successfully advocated for the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty through fundraising initiatives and collaboration with [other groups]," according to its Web site.
They founded the MCN because "Sam and I wanted to take what we are doing at Brandeis to the national level," said Werfel. In 2000, 191 countries agreed on eight goals to tackle extreme poverty, said Vaghar, and one of the MCN's objectives is to force the government to make those goals a priority.
There were so many groups fighting poverty, Seth said, that they would run into coordination problems, like all trying to book the same speaker at the same time. But, "a unified effort is stronger than a fragmented one," he said, and the MCN helps coordinate the different groups.
The conference had three purposes: to raise awareness, to educate the attendees and to provide an opportunity for networking, said Werfel. The event also helped the groups gain attention, increase funding and more leverage by demonstrating their large support base, said Vaghar.
The event opened with a keynote address from John Edwards, a former presidential candidate and senator, and Henrietta Fore, director of the United States Agency for International Development, a branch of the United States government that, according to its Web site, administers foreign aid, dating back to the Marshall Plan, said Werfel. Fore discussed the United States' strategy for economic growth abroad while Edwards issued a call to action for the United States to support the Millennium Development Goals.
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