ISU student organizations are teaming up this week to help raise awareness about a very important issue affecting people everywhere: poverty.

Students Helping Our Peers, Engineers Without Borders, Committee on Lectures, UNICEF, International Student Council, Alpha Phi Omega, Student International Medical Aid Club and ISUganda have all teamed up in order to hold Poverty Awareness Week.

Engineers Without Borders is a student organization that partners with communities in the developing world to provide sustainable engineering solutions to their everyday problems. The group started Poverty Awareness Week as a way to educate students about poverty and sustainable development issues.

“This year, we decided to invite other like-minded organizations to hold events during the week,” said Daniel Voss, junior in materials engineering and vice president of Engineers Without Borders. “It’s important for poverty alleviation groups to collaborate as much as possible, because we ultimately want and are fighting for the same things. The response was pretty good and hopefully this forms a basis for future cooperation between these groups and expansion of the event.”

Engineers Without Borders approached the organizations during the fall semester about hosting Poverty Awareness Week. Many of the student clubs had heard or already knew about Engineers Without Borders’ work, so they readily agreed to be a part of the event.

“Knowing the projects undertaken by Engineers Without Borders in different developing countries, we considered them to be credible and wanted to help out in any way possible,” said Nidhi Shah, graduate student in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology and treasurer of UNICEF as well as president of International Student Council.

Monday was the start of Poverty Awareness Week. The organizations set up displays in front of Parks Library to help raise awareness about the event and inform people about how they could get involved.

Tuesday, Scott Lacy, a former Peace Corps volunteer, will be featured as the speaker of a lecture entitled “Scott Lacy: Making Poverty History.” The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Sun Room of the MU.

Wednesday, the ISU food pantry will be given a boost by the efforts of Students Helping Our Peers through a campus food drive. This will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the MU.

“As an executive board we decided to become involved to spread awareness about our organization,” said Hailey Boudreau, sophomore in dietetics and president of Students Helping Our Peers. “We are the food pantry on campus, and we want more people to use our service to help college students in poverty or to receive help if they are in poverty. Students can donate non-perishable items, donate unused meals from the dining centers, buy our T-shirts and learn more about how they can use or help our organization.”

Thursday, Student International Medical Aid Club and Engineers Without Borders will be teaming up to sponsor a benefit concert at Zeke’s Live Music, Arts and Community Center.

“Student International Medical Aid Club hosts a concert every spring to raise money for medical supplies for clinics in impoverished, developing nations,” said Rachel Hansen, senior in political science and president of SIMAC. “We were asked to host Rock For a Cause in conjunction with Poverty Awareness Week this year, and we are very excited to get our message out to a bigger audience. This year, all money raised at Rock For a Cause will be donated to ‘Charity: Water,’ a nonprofit that builds clean water wells in developing nations.”

Tthe Alpha Phi Omega Multicultural Night will take place from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. Friday at the Collegiate United Methodist Church 

UNICEF will also be hosting a fundraiser called “Game Night: Are you game to help a child?” There will be an entrance fee of $2, and it will include video games, casino games like poker, blackjack, dice roll and other board games.

“We are also planning a bingo game where we would be providing different facts in the boxes as opposed to numbers and then play the game just like bingo,” Shah said. “This would raise awareness about the number of children affected every day and how a small amount like $2 could help them. All the proceeds from this event would be donated to UNICEF USA for combating issues of water-crisis and education for children.”

Saturday will be the closing of Poverty Awareness Week. ISUganda will be hosting an Invisible Children Showing at 6 p.m. at the Harvest Vineyard Church.

International Student Council will host a 12-hour famine where participants would fast from 6 a.m. until noon. Then from noon until 6 p.m., the participants could come to Martin Hall Room 2121 to be a part of activities and discussion.

“We have several activities planned out from noon until 6 p.m. that would help the participants understand the problems faced by poor and hungry people everyday,” Shah said. “Our theme is ‘Earthquake’ to make people realize how this natural disaster has hurt Haiti and Japan. The activities are fun, interactive and eye-opening. We planned this event to make people feel what it is to be poor and unprivileged.”