"Nonprofit is a tax status, not a business plan"

"Nonprofit is a tax status, not a business plan." (Board Relations) This is what I appreciated during the first month of my Master's degree at the Mendoza College of Business; an emphasis on effective business practice. For our professors it was critical that we learn how to succeed in a competitive business environment so that we can better fulfill our mission. We learned how to address problems in society by utilizing business research and skill sets.

It was a privilege to learn from both fellow students and professors. On our last day of classes I was blown away by the presentations made in class and I wish someone had recorded them. Every day I learned something new about my classmates and as time went on I became more and more impressed by everyone's accomplishments and skills. It was an intense month and many of us were separated from family, but we developed new friendships in the process.

On Tuesday I leave for Uganda. I look forward to meeting Niki at the airport on Wednesday. It is strange to think that this will be the fourth country we lived in during our first five years of marriage.

At home in Gulu

Hello from Gulu, Uganda! This land of red soil and bustling life will be my home now until Dec. 16. I’m on my field experience period as a part of my Masters Degree at Notre Dame in International Peace Studies. Having completed one year of classroom study this is the perfect time to get a chance to participate in ongoing peace work and reflect on how it conflicts and agrees with the theories we’ve been studying. We spend four days a week working with an organization and the last day working on our own research. Three of my classmates are here with me: Karin from the US who is working with Human Rights Focus, Christina from Germany who is working for Caritas, and Ahmad from Iraq who is working for TASO. My other classmates have been spread throughout the world in Cape Town, South Africa, Jerusalem and Mindinao, Philippines. A few have remained in the US to work on a Thesis.

I arrived in Kampala on June 29th after a very long almost 48 hours of travel. I’m now very well reacquainted with both the Heathrow and Amsterdam airports. Karin and Christina met me in Amsterdam so that we could travel the rest of the way together. We spent a day and a half in Kampala before jumping on the “post bus” for Gulu. The most exciting part of the six hour ride was coming across a whole group of monkeys (we think Baboons) on the road.

We arrived safely to a few surprises. The house the university rented for us is beautiful. However we were surprised to find it completely empty! The landlord managed to get beds, including mosquito nets in it before night fall. We were outside with our headlamps that first night helping the electricians hook up the electricity to the house. Slowly slowly we’ve been making it feel like home. Everything we bring home has to come on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi). We are a half hour walk outside of downtown Gulu and so our surroundings feel truly rural.
For those need a quick reminder on the conflict of Northern Uganda here’s a very quick one, for those who know the conflict feel free to skip this paragraph. Note that this is very very simplified version and the actors and issues are far more complex. Uganda gained its independence in 1962 after being an English Protectorate. Many know of the horrible period of Idi Amin. However, here in the North the most recent conflict began when the current President, Musevini, took over power. Around the same period Joseph Kony start the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). There is a long history of economic and resource disparity between the north and south of Uganda, they are also made up of different ethnic groups and difference traditional governance structures. For the last 20 years the people of Northern Uganda have experience atrocities from both government and the LRA. At one point the government forced the whole population into IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps, which also became an easy target for the LRA. Internationally the LRA is known for their wide usage of child soldiers through abduction, which resulted in the phenomena of night commuters, children coming in and of town every night. In 2006 the LRA and the Government finally agreed to sit down for peace talks. In 2008 when the final comprehensive agreement was completed and ready for signing Kony walked away from the table. Musevini again responded with military force. Currently the LRA is active in the DRC and the Central African Republic, but not here in Northern Uganda. The government has forcefully dismantled the IDP camps and many ex-LRA soldiers are working at reintegration after receiving amnesty. It is currently a society struggling to rebuild after been devastated by a multi-decade conflict that may or may not be done.

I’m working with the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), particularly with documentation and research. Feel free to browse their website: http://www.arlpi.org/ I’m very excited to be with them as they are one of the few groups who works both at the grassroots and at the political level. I’ll write more about their work and my work with them as I begin the work more in depth.

Overall life is slower here. Everything is just a little bit harder to do. This morning we washed our clothes in the tub. The people are lovely and very helpful. We’ve been making great fools of ourselves as we move through the market testing out our Acholi, the local language. Many people understand English, but are delighted when you give Acholi a try.

I believe this update is long enough for now. I’ll write again soon.

Peace be with you.

Looking Ahead

Ok, so it's been a while since I've posted something on the blog and I've been inspired to write again, after all it seems like Niki and I continue to have significant detours in our life.

A lot has happened since October 30th that will determine the next year for Niki and I. For one, after having some time to reflect, and a bit of luck getting in, I have decided to take on a Master's in Nonprofit Administration here at Notre Dame http://business.nd.edu/mna/. The program is part in-class part correspondence which works out nicely, but more about that later. For the summer I have four weeks of in-class intensive courses and in the fall and winter I can take between one and three courses by correspondence and the electives may be in-class through a related program if I choose. Then the following summer I have additional in-class work and before I graduate I need to complete a project which I can't start until I have most of my coursework done. The program is set up to allow people to stay in their jobs if they wish and can be done in as little as 14 months or up to 5 years always coming back for the summer. I will try to complete it closer to the 14 months so that Niki and I can be done at roughly the same time. Courses are taught by Notre Dame's business faculty which is exciting and I expect the coursework will be equally exciting. I have already begun to study for the summer as I will have to have a lot of my reading done before classes begin as I will have tests on the first day.

In the fall Niki and I will undergo another move (which is why part correspondence works out nicely), this time to a village, country and continent neither of us has ever been to, Gulu, Uganda.

I can't tell you much about Uganda yet other than a few basics. We will be able to get by with English in Gulu but there will also be a tribal language spoken called Acholi. The temperature doesn't change much all year and stays in the high twenties and there will be a lot of local tropical fruit available. I envision myself sitting outside a cafe reading my textbooks while drinking some fresh mango juice and then taking a study break to go play soccer with a small group of people, but I can only speculate at this point. Niki will be working with a group called Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative http://www.arlpi.org/ which as I understand it is a group of religious leaders from various religious backgrounds working together for peace. Northern Uganda has recently stabilized after the long-term LRA conflict and if you are interested in learning about it Niki recommends the following as a short link for a brief history of the area http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/northern-uganda/index.php I guess I envision her work to be slightly more stressful than mine, but she will enjoy it. We will be living with a few other Kroc students who will be doing similar peace-related work in the area. We will be there until mid-December after which we plan to spend a month traveling with family to Kenya and Tanzania.

There is only one month left before we leave our apartment here on campus. We will be making a trip to Canada to see family and friends and at the end of June Niki will fly to Uganda whereas I will come back to Notre Dame to begin classes and then fly from Chicago to Uganda.

This semester has been busy for both of us. Niki is engulfed in her studies and I have balanced my time mostly volunteering at Ten Thousand Villages through an Internship and working part time here on campus.

So our year ahead will be transformative for sure and hopefully prepare us for whatever comes next.