This paper describes how institutions of higher learning can enlist the skills of students, professors, and alumni to fight world poverty in remarkable ways. These activities unite and energize the institution, impart skills and vision to the students and professors, and improve the lives of thousands of people in developing countries.

Our College’s poverty alleviating activities fall into four categories:

1. Internships that give students opportunities to do meaningful, professional work for NGOs that are effective in fighting poverty;
2. An interdisciplinary course, “Solutions to Poverty”
3. Personalized independent study courses to coach students who want to launch their own poverty reducing ventures.
4. Social enterprise business plan preparation and evaluation.

I will discuss actual projects including:

1. Microloans and poverty alleviating investments;
2. Tourism businesses in Africa that provide funds for community development;
3. Job training and humanitarian enterprises in India;
4. An international organization we created to establish sustainable water treatment businesses in Haiti. (This student has involved over 70 students!!)

During this talk I will also discuss problems that we have encountered and next steps that we will be taking.

This presentation shows how we can combine the idealism of youth with the experience of professors and alumni to make the world a better place!