Excerpt from article by Craig Prince | Institute for Nonprofit News | Full Article
The Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) program is a leadership education and empowerment program launched by President Bill Clinton to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. This prestigious experience activates students through year-round programming that includes access to topic experts and change agents, mentorship networks, financial resources, and community events including the annual CGI U meeting.
The CGI U class of 2020 includes over 800 accepted students, representing 113 countries, 39 states, and 320 schools. As the NC State representative for CGI U’s 60-member University Network, NC State Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship is proud to announce the three students from NC State who were accepted as part of this exceptional cohort: Nancy Ingabire Abayo, Anna Petrova, and Naila Segule ’20.
Naila Segule ’20
Segule is an inspiration when it comes to never being too young to start making a difference. She is a class of 2020 Park Scholar majoring in Biomedical Engineering and a Self-Design major in Global Health Communication and Development. Recently awarded the prestigious Payne International Development Fellowship, Segule is actively involved in trying to improve public health work. During her time as an undergrad, she has been involved in public health research both locally with the GenX Exposure Study and globally while studying abroad in Botswana.
Segule became a passionate advocate for health equity after seeing the profound environmental health disparities in her home country of Tanzania. Locally in North Carolina and the U.S., she has lobbied for marginalized voices by co-writing resolutions that would affect the university ban on gender-inclusive housing and protecting Title IX legislation. One major concern she has with public health is food waste and how much it contributes to carbon emissions and food insecurity.
“No matter one’s zip code, nationality or occupation status, each individual will have access to quality health care, be able to live in a non-toxic environment, and [have] other barriers to global health equity removed.”
To address local food waste, Segule’s CGI U commitment to action involves creating a volunteer-based food recovery service that focuses on one-off events like weddings and conferences in North Carolina. This action is meant to reduce food waste, provide this nourishment to local hunger-relief non-profits, reduce greenhouse emissions, and inform on the amount of food waste being produced in Raleigh’s hospitality sector.
Her plans included partnering with local NGOs, catering companies, and venues to recruit partners to both donate and receive the saved food and with local environmental and hunger-relief NGOs to recruit volunteers and advertise this service. The expected outcome of this project is to divert over a ton of food and provide over two thousand meals in 24 months.
CGI U Virtual Meeting
This year’s annual CGI U student meeting, originally scheduled to be hosted at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, has been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. However, on April 18, 2020, dedicated students from across the world came together for a virtual convening to discuss how to support each other and build resilience in our communities through student action. The agenda included plenary sessions with President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and health care professionals and a live “town hall” to answer questions submitted by CGIU student delegates.
The 2018 CGI U was attended by Park Scholars Hampton Clark ’20, Michael Evans ’21, Claire Mellott ’20, Adrian Teegarden ’19, and Lindsay Wrege ’21. For information on attending this event in the future, contact NC State Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Institute for Nonprofits at socentprogram@ncsu.edu.
The full article originally appeared in the Institute for Nonprofit News.
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