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Compiled by Fr. Rocco
Puopolo
Published March 15, 2008
Two hundred and fifty
Notre Dame Students attended a one-day student-led symposium on human
development studies at Notre Dame on February 23, 2008. Mr. Ray Offenheiser, a Notre Dame graduate
who is now the president of Oxfam America, offered the keynote. What started in September 2006 as the
Millennium Development Initiative at Notre
Dame University
has become the Ford Family Program for Human Development Studies and
Solidarity. Now in its second year of
development, this symposium was the first public event of the Ford Program.
The Millennium
Development Initiative was to be the vehicle through which Notre Dame would
participate in the Millennium Villages Project, inspired by the work of
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia
University’s Earth
Institute. It was also foreseen as a
creative way to promote solidarity and human well-being with Uganda Martyrs
University in Nkozi subcounty, about
50 miles west of the Ugandan capital, Kampala,
and the Catholic Church’s development arm, Caritas. This moves the
program beyond the Millennium Villages Project framework.
The Ford Program
encourages an interdisciplinary approach to the study and practice of human
development that emphasizes the inherent dignity of the human person. This is guided by the principles of Catholic
Social Teaching. In this way, the Ford
Program affords Notre Dame the opportunity to serve the Catholic Church through
scholarship and to strengthen the Catholic Church’s service and outreach to the
wider human family.
A very unique and
powerful direction of this program is its appreciation for the interaction of
culture and religion as well as the economic, political, social and
environmental factors in the context of human development, in its service to
the Church, and in its objective to build community across cultures. The Ford Program aspires not only to
advance knowledge and promote innovation that makes a positive difference in
people's lives, but also to build a transnational and interdisciplinary
alliance of scholars, researchers and public servants that will be devoted to
alleviating extreme poverty for many years to come.
The
Ford Program has three foundations:
Teaching, Research and Outreach.
The director of the program, Fr. Bob Dowd, faculty member at Notre Dame
and president of the AFJN Board, stated recently that the outreach component -
grounded in the Ugandan context, partnered with both a university there as well
as the National Caritas Program, is what makes this program unique, exciting
and practical. As the program grows, it
may extend its outreach beyond Uganda.
Notre Dame’s efforts in Uganda are strengthened by the relationship
Notre Dame is developing with Uganda
Martyrs University, Uganda’s
Catholic university, and the Catholic Church through Caritas. As Catholic universities, Notre Dame and Uganda Martyrs
University share common
values and a similar view of the human person.
Uganda Martyrs University
has strong programs in agriculture, public health, development studies, good
governance and business. Notre Dame has
strengths in engineering, the biological sciences, the social sciences and
business. Caritas is at work
throughout Uganda
in areas of agriculture, micro-finance, civic education and justice and
peace. The partnership has the makings
of a multi-dimensional approach to promoting human well-being.
Research and
participation by the students in internships and faculty in fellowships will
directly contribute to human welfare in Nindye, site of the Notre Dame-UMU-Caritas
effort and Ruhiira, site of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP)
partnership. Nindye, located in Mpigi
Distirct just 20 minutes from Uganda Martyrs University,
was selected by a team of Ugandans that included faculty members at Uganda Martyrs
University Ruhiira, located in Isingiro District near
the Uganda-Tanzania border, is the site of the MVP where it was launched in
March 2006. and experts on
development at the United Nations Development Program-Uganda who found Nindye
to be a place where there is both dire need and good local leadership.
Projected plans for the next three years include:
offering research assistance positions to students from both universities, conferences on
Human Development both at Notre Dame as well as in countries experiencing
extreme poverty, curriculum development towards an interdisciplinary minor in
human development studies, and visiting fellowships between these and maybe
other universities.
This initiative speaks of mutuality
and shared learning. It is the kind of engagement that we at Africa Faith and
Justice Network encourage all universities and churches to follow. The human
ties between the people of the United States
and the people of Africa are at the very root of
AFJN’s mission. The Ford Program is a win/win for the two universities,
faculty, and students and a win/win for the people who are part of the outreach
in the two Ugandan rural communities of Nindye and Ruhiira.
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