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Students for Global Democracy (SGD) is a nonviolent student movement that supports indigenous democratic transitions in authoritarian nations. The definition of democracy advanced by this group is a minimalist one: popularly-determined representative government with a respect for minority rights. SGD uses solidarity demonstrations, fundraising campaigns, and internet outreach to further the democratic aims of local activists who seek support in their struggles, while simultaneously lobbying democratic governments to emphasize democracy promotion as a foreign policy and to make the public more aware of democratic struggles abroad. Its twin strategies are nonviolent activism and public awareness. Image File history File links Stop_hand. ... Nonviolence (or non-violence) is a set of assumptions about morality, power and conflict that leads its proponents to reject the use of violence in efforts to attain social or political goals. ...

Organization Size
SGD has expanded from a single chapter location in February 2004 to seventeen chapters; eight organizations are to be found in the United States, and one each in Canada, Ghana, Nepal, the Netherlands, Pakistan, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey and Uganda. It also has partner organizations in Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Poland.

Brief History

Founding
Charlie Szrom and Andrew Allaby founded Students for Global Democracy at Indiana University in February 2004. The group organized film showings and petition campaigns to lobby Congress on Burmese, Iranian, and North Korean democratic issues. In December 2004 SGD began expanding to other campuses through an Iraqi petition to register student support for Iraqi voters. Shortly after, the organization started focusing on more direct democracy-promotion efforts, beginning with demonstrations of moral support conducted at Ukrainian consulates in San Francisco and Chicago during separate stages of the ‘Orange Revolution.’ In the following month, SGD raised funds for communications equipment for Iraqi student media in conjunctions with January 2005 Iraqi elections.

Orange-clad supporters of Viktor Yushchenko gather in Independence Square in Kiev. ...

Belarus Democracy Campaign
In the spring of 2005, SGD took the cause of Belarusian democracy as its primary focus in a campaign to raise funds for the largest democratic opposition student group, Zubr. SGD President Charlie Szrom began the campaign by meeting with Pavol Demes, a former Slovakian foreign minister currently with the German Marshall Fund of the US, and two Belarusian dissident leaders in Bratislava, Slovakia, in February 2005. The first stage of the Belarus campaign culminated on April 30th in a ‘Hike for Democracy’ organized by SGD’s Berkeley chapter; 30 students walked to give a morale boost of support to Belarusian dissidents and to complete SGD’s 3-month goal of raising $1600. (See Hike Report)
Zubr can refer to: Żubr or Zubr - European bison: wisent Zubr (political organization) - a civic youth organization in Belarus This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Worldwide Walk for Democracy in Belarus: October 15, 2005
Following the Berkeley, CA, based Hike for Democracy, SGD conducted a similar event but on a larger scale to attract international attention to the democracy movement in Belarus. The Walk coincided with the one-year anniversary of a referendum that Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenka used to extend his term in office. In eight sites around the world, including locations in Canada, Great Britain, the United States and Great Britain, students gathered together to hike in parks or walk through city centers, publicly demanding democracy in Belarus and raising funds for Belarusian dissidents.

Consistency with the global democracy movement

It ought to be noted that the aim of Students for Global Democracy differs from the Global democracy or World citizen concept, which is the idea of promoting democratic institutions for the whole World, thus giving less importance to nations, and considering national sovereignty as an obstacle to a full World citizenship and democracy. Instead, SGD states that it aims to help local groups achieve democratic governance in their own nations and that it does not seek to impose a "Western-style" or "American-style" democracy upon anyone. According to its website and past actions, all undertakings to date have involved assisting local groups remove obstacles to democratic transition (for example, funds raised for independent media in Belarus) or persuading their own citizens to give greater heed to democratic activists across the world. Democratic globalization is a movement towards an institutional system that expands globalization by giving world citizens a say in world organizations. ... A world citizen (or citizen of the world) is a person who wishes to transcend the geopolitical divisiveness inherent in the national citizenships of the various sovereign states and countries. ... Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme authority over a geographic region or group of people, such as a nation or a tribe. ...

External links

• Students for Global Democracy
• For A Democratic Nepal Email To Charlie Szrom