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Posted: Thursday, 03 September 2009 11:32AM
Berkeley Students Battle Global Poverty
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BERKELEY, Calif. (CBS 5) -- Jonathan Lee and Nicole Walter just graduated from UC Berkeley. Jonathan was pre-med, Nicole studied architecture, but their common interest in fighting global poverty took them both around the world.
"I helped set up a community-based health care system in one of the poorest rural communities in the central region of Honduras," Jonathan explains.
"I did a design build project in a disadvantaged community of the outskirts of Salvador," says Nicole.
It's real world experience designed by Richard Blum, a man rooted in the modern world of high finance.
"You now have a young population going through college who want to make a difference," Richard says.
A Cal grad himself, and now a UC Regent, Richard wanted to make a difference after a 1968 trip to Nepal. He founded the American Himalayan Foundation in 1981, which has raised millions for the region, but more recently he found a way to harness the energy of a new generation.
"It struck me that maybe the school where the Peace Corps really was most popular was the place for student activism in another way... which is all about helping deal with global poverty issues. That's how it started," he says.
So three years ago Richard launched the Blum Center for Developing Economies, an integrated approach for students and faculty to tackle the issues of global poverty. Engineering Dean Shankar Sastry serves as Director.
"A key feature of the Blum Center is that it combines experiential learning with a notion of what it would take to lift these three billion people out of poverty," Shankar explains.
The Blum Center pays for students' travel and helps develop their ideas for real use right now. It has become Cal's fastest growing minor.
Nicole says, "We actually get a hands-on experience on how to make a difference and we get to see that difference."
Richard's contributed over $15,000,000 dollars to help get the program started. Now a brand new center is rising on the Berkeley campus.
He, along with his wife Senator Dianne Feinstein, still travel the world. Richard says he still sees everything that needs fixing, but now there is something more.
"You will never get a greater reward than when you go to these really poor places and see that you have changed lives," he says.
So for giving a new generation the tools to make big changes around the world, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Richard Blum.
By Kate Kelly
Related Link:
* Blum Center for Developing Economies
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