oldpage

**WELCOME TO THE GIFTS' OLD HOME PAGE**

**Two years ago we began working towards making the world a better place for people, as part of the Global Issues Network.**

**Our current project is about promoting literacy through a group we have founded, called GIFTS Shanghai.**

**We are: Emily Vogel, Kimber Wong, and Audrey Goettl**

**WHAT'S HAPPENING?** //Note:// //1. There is another page called "Upcoming Events." Suggested Resolution: Merge this section onto the "Upcoming Events" page or put all upcoming events on this section.// //2. This section is// **//outdated//**//. (What is the role of this section? Members posting their own schedules on their respective projects?)//

**Each group needs to review its goals for this year and set up an action plan with a timeline** __Goals 2010/2011__

Current members Emily Allison Annice Mary Ann Antonio Daniel Liza Ivory

__[|Why is literacy important?]__

**GLOBAL ISSUES NETWORK**

The //Global Issues Network//, [|__GIN__], aims to empower school students to work towards solutions for global problems - based on the [|__Millenium goals__]. Read the explanation from the EARCOS GIN website below:

//"The Global Issues Network is based on the ideas described by Jean Francois Rischard in his book// **High Noon "Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them."** //Rischard identifies 20 urgent global problems and encourages the formation of small groups around the world to help solve them. This echoes Margaret Mead’s famous quotation, “//Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has//.”//"

What is GIFTS working towards?

"Through literacy, the downtrodden can find their voice, the poor can learn how to learn and the powerless can empower themselves"

__[|UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura at the launch ceremony for the Literacy Decade]__

GIFTS hopes to create a program to provide reading books to schools in Shanghai, particularly the migrant schools. We hope to do this through creating a system that students in all schools can follow to fund-raise for bookshelves and books to donate to schools that don't have libraries. **As Jane Goodall says,** [|__**The power of youth is global**__]

**MILLENIUM GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER**

**Target 2: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people**
 * [|__Full employment remains a distant possibility__]
 * [|__Low-paying jobs leave one in five developing country workers mired in poverty__]
 * [|__Half the world’s workforce toil in unstable, insecure jobs>__]