Edun Live spotlighted at global university

Watch it! Catch video of Jacque's panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative University.

Middle: Jacque Rupert with Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative University. Bottom: Rupert (right) speaks with a Miami student about EDUN Live.

The president of Miami’s EDUN Live on Campus is spending the first days of her spring break at Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), where she was a panelist.

Jacqueline Rupert, a junior minoring in Entrepreneurship, spoke about the innovative partnership between Miami’s Social Entrepreneurship program and EDUN, a socially conscious clothing design and manufacturer founded by U2's Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson. The company’s EDUN Live line consists of t-shirts completely made in Africa of African-grown cotton, thereby creating sustainable industry among some of the world’s poorest communities. The goal of EDUN’s partnership with Miami was to create a marketing arm of the company that would expand the product’s market among college students.

Since its launch on the Miami campus in the fall of 2006, EDUN Live on Campus has created a model that can be replicated at other universities. An EDUN Live on Campus program is now in operation at Ohio State and Gonzaga universities and several other university chapters are in the planning stages.

Rupert’s fellow panelists in the March 15 "Students Ending Poverty: Start from Where You Are" CGI U session were Lawrence S. Bacow, the president of Tufts University; and Premal Shah, president of online marketplace Kiva.org.

CGI U, a new project of former president Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative, is designed to challenge college students and universities to tackle global problems with practical, innovative solutions. The goal of CGI U sessions is to move beyond discussion of the world’s challenges to take concrete steps towards solving them.

This first CGI U gathering took place at Tulane University in New Orleans, an appropriate setting, considering the city’s devastation by Hurricane Katrina, the national recovery efforts that continue, and the important role that volunteers have played in the city’s recovery.

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