The second annual Collegiate Click Drive began Sunday. The Click Drive is coordinated by Oxfam America, and www.povertyfighters.com. The Collegiate Click Drive, the brainchild of Union President Ben Brandzel '03, is a project which last year raised a total of $28,000 for micro-loans that are distributed to developing countries, including India, Croatia, Uganda and the Dominican Republic, among many others. The organizers of the Click Drive include Sarah Freidson '04 and Deirdre Mooney '05."The project will allow college students across the United States to raise up to $1 million in micro-credit relief funds," said a press release from Marci Surkes '03, Union communications director, "Micro-credit consists of small business loans given to women in third world and developing nations. The technique is used to raise women, their families and their communities out of the depths of poverty. The payback/success rate of micro-credit loans is estimated to be between 95 and 98 percent."

"We hope to increase traffic to the site and sites like it, as well as spread the word about micro credit and encourage others to get involved with it," Mooney said.

"The main reason for Brandeis participating is that it's just such a great cause! I mean we really have the potential to make a big difference in people's lives, and that's not something that we can pass up," Freidson said. "Also, the click drive was started here, so naturally we want to be involved and are committed to it. Third, it would be nice to win the reward."

The Collegiate Click Drive is a national competition for students and alumni to click on the poverty fighters website. The university that clicks the most will receive $1000 and other rewards, according to the Poverty Fighters website.

In order to raise awareness of the click drive, the Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive Core Committee and the Brandeis Click Drive Club held a free coffeehouse in Cholmondeley's last Wednesday.

In between each act, a member of the core committee spoke briefly, telling the attending students about the Click Drive and about participation. They repeated the poverty fighters' web address and shouted catch phrases like, "Two clicks a day keeps poverty away!"

"This year there are going to be approximately 12 different articles about the Click Drive in papers across the country," Surkes said. "Also, once one (or several) of those articles are picked up by the University Wire System, there is no telling how many campuses across the country will be reading about the click Drive in their papers!"

"I would like to stress how amazing the Click Drive is -- it has so much potential to help so many people," Freidman said. "I think it's especially important because we can truly make a difference in the lives of many women and families in third world countries, where micro-loans can mean a world of difference."

According to Freidman, Brandeis has been very involved in the Click Drive since it started last year. "Our involvement is twofold, we have a core committee of about 15 people orgainizing the national competition in addition to a large group of people involved on campus," Freidman said. "Involvement ranges from the core committee's putting the whole thing together, to volunteers flyering, coming to or playing at our coffeehouse, telling friends about it, putting links and info in AIM profiles or away messages, emailing friends, or just clicking twice a day at www.povertyfighters.com.