Calvin Students, Staff to Attend UN Summit

September 9, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY

A group of Calvin College students will travel to New York next week to attend
three days of prayer and fasting surrounding the 2005 United Nations World
Summit, described as the "largest gathering of world leaders in history."

The students, who likely will number a dozen or more, will join students from
North Park Seminary in Illinois for the September 14-16 summit.

There they will provide logistical support for "An Interfaith Vigil to
Overcome Global Poverty," hosted at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza by the Micah
Challenge, Sojourners and Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation.

They will also participate in a press conference graced by activists like
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sojourners founder Jim Wallis and David Beckman
president of Bread for the World.

The vigil is being organized in support of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDG), agreed to and signed by all UN member nations in 2002. A particular
focus for the three organizing groups is the goal to eradicate world hunger and
poverty.

Jeff Bouman, the director of Calvin's Service-Learning Center, and Jason
Fileta, a 2005 Calvin alum and field organizer for the Micah Challenge, will
accompany the students on the trip and say it should be a life-changing
experience.

"It (the trip) introduces students to the notion that problems are complex and
multifaceted," Bouman says. "Our students will be in a position to evaluate
and analyze their own perspectives. They will see things they can't see here
(at Calvin)."

The students, in addition to participating in at least part of the fast, will
set up the site at the Plaza, welcome speakers, direct participants to the site
and do publicity throughout the city.

For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/un_summit.htm

Contact Contact Jason Fileta at 616-224-0807 or 648-5315 (m) or Jeff Bouman at
616-526-8610

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Received on Fri Sep 9 10:03:25 2005