The Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive, which began Sunday, is a national competition among students and alumni across the country to generate the most donations to charities on behalf of their colleges and universities.
By clicking every day on PovertyFighters.com’s front page, students can raise money for impoverished people worldwide to start small businesses. Each click raises 25 cents, provided by the drive’s sponsors.
‘The Click Drive is exciting in terms of organization, creativity and technology,’ said Meredith Dodson from Results, a lobbyist organization and co-sponsor. ‘We can really educate and mobilize people on these issues. Results jumped on this to go so far as to change government policies on individual development accounts.’
The main sponsor of the Click Drive is Oxfam America, an international development organization dedicated to creating lasting solutions for hunger, poverty and social injustice around the world.
According to its website, Oxfam provides financial, technical and networking assistance to grassroots groups to support their self-help community development proposals. Oxfam also educates Americans about the causes and solutions to world hunger and poverty.
Some of the enterprises the Click Drive benefits are as simple as selling fruit on a street corner, said Andy Laties, director of PovertyFighters.com. Many, such as tiny stores and cottage industries, are run out of the borrowers’ homes, while some are small manufacturing shops.
Twenty million penniless entrepreneurs worldwide currently access $4 billion in credit from loans, Laties said. The Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive hopes to double those numbers this year, he added.
Although Boston University is not currently a registered member of the drive, many students expressed interest in participation.
The drive targets students because of their dedication to community causes, according to Jen Hecker, director of hunger campaigns at the National Student Campaign against Hunger and Homelessness, a co-sponsor of the Click Drive.
‘Students are leaders in many social changes. They have the passion to get things done,’ she said. ‘The youth generation is the online generation. It’s a great way to reach people.’
Claire Smaldon, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she thought BU should be a part of the drive.
‘I don’t really have time to do community service along with schoolwork, so I would definitely participate in something like the Click Drive,’ she said. ‘I want to do something to help out, and this would be an easy way to contribute.’
Site visitors may use the click to donate button once each day on the PovertyFighters.com homepage, and may click once each day on their logo on any story page in the ‘More Borrower Stories’ database.
‘I would click,’ said Stella Goldstein, a CAS sophomore. ‘You hardly have to move to help out with a great cause.’
The 2003 Click Drive will run until March 28. This year, the winning college will enjoy national recognition for its efforts, as well as a $1,000 reward.
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