Community Engagement
The Ford Program promotes a holistic model for human development and works in partnership with local communities to realize the benefits of community-driven, holistic development. Together with partner institutions, we seek to better understand the complex and interrelated issues affecting the development process and to turn that knowledge into action. In engaging with our partners in developing settings, we recognize that local leadership must drive project planning and implementation, and that community ownership is the cornerstone of sustainability.
Through the Ford Program, the University of Notre Dame has partnered with Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) to advance the study and practice of human development by engaging with communities facing a variety of complex challenges. The collaboration aims to build solidarity among peoples, alleviate needless human suffering, and make a positive, measurable, and sustainable difference in the lives of the poor.
The Ford Program and UMU have established their first community partnership with the residents of Nnindye Parish, located just 10 km from UMU’s campus in Uganda’s Mpigi District. The Ford Program and UMU are working with the people of Nnindye—as well as other local, national and international partners, especially universities, to develop appropriate and sustainable development practice in the community. We foresee our partnership with the people of Nnindye serving as a model for interaction with other communities in the future. Notre Dame and UMU have the opportunity to create a model for university-led partnerships aimed at ameliorating extreme poverty in the developing world.
