Nnindye, Uganda

Nnindye, a rural village of about 5,000 farmers and fishermen, is located in central Uganda on the shores of Lake Victoria. It is also approximately 15 kilometers west of the nation’s Catholic university, Uganda Martyrs University (UMU), to which the University of Notre Dame has longstanding ties.

During the fall of 2006, Notre Dame began working closely with local organizations in Uganda to identify a village that would be an appropriate partner as the University sought to expand its outreach in the country. A search committee led by Dr. Johnson Nkuuhe, country coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project in Uganda, linked the Nnindye to Notre Dame because of the village’s dire need, strong local leadership, and proximity to both the UMU campus and a major road leading to the Ugandan capital of Kampala. 

Fortuitously, Uganda Martyrs University had for the previous five years worked with groups of farmers in Nnindye through its Community Outreach Programme, which aims to contribute to development policy and practice in surrounding communities. The trust built between UMU and the inhabitants of Nnindye is evident in the strong relationships between faculty and villagers. These relationships will greatly aid the work of the partnership as the project develops in the village.

The first goal of Ford’s joint Notre Dame/UMU partnership with Nnindye is for the partners to work with the residents and leadership of the village to gather baseline information, which will help illuminate solutions to the development challenges faced by community members.

The second goal is to incorporate their communicated needs and priorities into an investment strategy focusing limited resources in the following key socioeconomic sectors:

• Health—eradication of preventable disease; improved infant, child and maternal health

• Education—both primary and vocational

• Livelihood development—agriculture and other enterprises