Blueprint Summaries
Read about our fellows' self-designed Blueprint for Social Justice projects.
- Create a nonprofit organization that will provide leadership education in the community with a curriculum that targets youth. The program will provide basic personal, organizational, community, social, and responsible leadership skills to address the problems of student apathy, lack of civic participation, and lack of social awareness. In the future, the organization should be shaped to serve the personal growth of every participant through continuous leadership development. This growth could be supplemented through program referrals to leadership positions, scholarships based on leadership merit, and opportunities with other leadership/citizenship-based programs.
- Our project was created to provide insecticide treated nets to locally run health organizations along the Thai-Burma border to prevent the spread of malaria in Eastern Burma. These nets will be distributed to groups of internally displaced people (IDPs) who have fled their homes within Burma and often lack access to proper health care and housing. Burma has suffered under a brutal military regime for the last 20 years and the region of Eastern Burma has seen the most political conflict and violence. By addressing the issue of malaria, our vision is to strengthen the relationship between peace and health, as health correlates directly with human rights and humane treatment, especially in areas of armed conflict.
- We visualize a campus where students care about their fellow humans across the globe as well as in the seat next to them. We visualize a school where the person protesting for Darfur and the person protesting for living wage understand that the issues they care passionately about have something in common: they deal with demanding dignity for others. We visualize a generation of Baylor students who have been given the opportunity to understand, the opportunity to be empowered, and the opportunity to act.
- Our vision is to create a more inclusive and diverse campus and minimize the risks of discrimination and hate crimes. We want to implement a program for diversity and ally education on campus. This program will require that administrators, staff, professors and students receive a wide array of education relating to diversity and LGBT issues. This program will have workbooks and resources available to any individual on campus. We will have a team of speakers that will educate in forums and workshops campuswide.
- It is our goal to provide an internship opportunity for students at Michigan State University that allows them to build personal relationships with the people they work with. In order to do this, we will create the Zonkizizwe Sustainability Initiative (ZISI) to help prepare students for a three-month internship at a community center for children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS in Zonkizizwe, South Africa. Michigan State University has one of the largest college campuses in the United States and has an equally large study abroad program to go with it. The unusual size of the campus and its mainstream international travel programs create a problem for some students who are looking to do meaningful internship work in the United States or abroad.
- I want students with disabilities to become more integrated into college life. I envision that college campuses would facilitate the integration into society (politically and economically) of students with disabilities. It is not just about accommodations in the classroom or in public facilities. It is about participation to the fullest extent possible in the political, economic and educational aspects of society.
- I want to bring the officers of the student feminist group that I am the current president of (SMU's Women's Interest Network) to New Orleans for "V-Day to the 10th" on April 11–12, 2008. This experience will solidify their future commitment to and the ultimate survival of the Women's Interest Network. Also, it will aid them in seeing the immediate positive results of organizing the Vagina Monologues on SMU's campus.
- Our overarching vision for Columbia College is an engaged student body and a transparent and responsive administration. Our shorter-term vision for the Columbia College community is a campus free from Wackenhut, the security firm contracted by the school. Wackenhut does not respect the guards or their union, Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U).
- Our vision is for a community where all people are able to access resources and opportunities. It is an integrated community in which no one person is isolated or alone. Where all people are able to achieve the success and benefits of equal opportunities in society. Where all members of the community feel represented in the political process. Our mission is to help young people and the immigrant community in Chicago overcome common obstacles to our vision of full access to opportunities and resources.
- ECO envisions Northwestern as a leader in environmental sustainability among all institutions of higher learning. This requires a revitalization of two major components: institutional practices and campus culture. All elements of Northwestern's business operations should account for their environmental impacts and align with strong targets to reduce those impacts. A revitalization of campus culture entails invigorating conscientious stewardship of public utilities and an awareness for the broad range of environmental impacts in everyday behavior. These efforts will reduce the environmental footprint of Northwestern University and produce a cohort of environmentally conscious graduates.
- My vision for my community is that within the next five to ten years this rural community that has suffered the effects of rural decline will have been revitalized, moving forward to a new-age version of its previous state of economic, cultural, and ecological sustainability. More specifically, I want to see Millheim become a lively, empowered and engaged community with an active appreciation of and participation in the arts as an integral part of life.
- I envision a community of health students focused on working in true, equal partnership with those in need, and I envision the expansion of the global health movement that strives for community-driven, ground-up initiatives to affect positive changes in community health at the local, national, and international level. GlobeMed as an organization and through our chapters embraces this perspective on grassroots engagement to its chapter members. Through on-site programs, GlobeMed will provide a concrete opportunity for chapter members to experience for themselves the power and efficacy of a true, equal partnership for affecting tangible positive change in community health.

