SLIM Malier 09/08/09

Hello all!

We had our first meeting of the year last night and it was fantastic to see so many of you! We introduced our officers: Sesi and Liz, Miranda, Christina, Mujidat, and myself, as well as the club founder, Nathan Riley. We also spoke a little about our club's missions and our main activities throughout the year, most especially the SLIM 5K/10K and Project Malawi in the spring (you can read more about these on SLIM's blog [URL listed below]). If you missed the meeting last night and still want to be involved, come to our next meeting on Monday, September 14th at 8:40pm (room TBA).

In terms of what's coming up soon for our club, we are continuing to raise awareness about the G-20 summit coming to Pittsburgh September 24-25. One of our primary goals in this club is to educate people about economic imbalances and the forces that perpetuate them, so this conference is incredibly important to our club. We as an eBoard have been contacting other Pitt organizations asking them if we can give a short PowerPoint presentation about G-20 and global poverty issues. As of now, a few organizations have responded to us and we would like any of you to show up to these meeting and aid in giving the presentation. Just show up is all you need to do.

Wednesday 9/9 Microfinancing Against Poverty - canceled
Thursday 9/10 FORGE: Cathedral of Learning 206 @ 9pm
Sunday 9/13 Invisible Children: Cathedral 232 @ 4 pm
Wednesday 9/16 STAND: Einstein's in Posvar Hall @ 9pm

Please check our blog to see which organizations have not yet been contacted and go ahead and help us out. If you have any other clubs that you know may be interested in hearing our presentation, go ahead and shoot them an email as well. Other than that just keep an eye on the blog for any updates or new pictures.

If you are interested (as we all are) in poverty issues, check out this lecture at CMU next Monday.

Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University
World Poverty: Explanations and Responsibilities
Monday, September 14 - 4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)

Abstract: While world income has grown at an impressive rate, the share
of the poorest half has sunk below 1.8% percent of world income. Severe
poverty persists in many poorer countries, causing about one third of all
human deaths (some 18 million annually) and blighting billions of lives
with hunger and disease. What role do global institutional arrangements,
such as the rules of the WTO Treaty, play in the persistence of severe
poverty? And how does the causation of poverty affect the responsibility
of citizens in affluent countries to work for its eradication?

See you next week,
Clif McKee
Secretary