Trip to Africa and still bumping in to hometown friend

   Twenty-one year old Matthew Keenan, a senior at St. Bonaventure University and a Caledonia resident, traveled halfway around the world this summer to Uganda, Africa with a group of fellow students who are members of the university’s SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) group. He was prepared to encounter a totally unfamiliar culture when he arrived in Uganda but what are the odds that he’d meet up with someone from his hometown of Caledonia, a small town in the northern most tip of Livingston County with a population of roughly 4,000 people? Nevertheless, the students met Kathleen Fitzgibbon, a Caledonia native and a graduate of Caledonia-Mumford High School who serves as a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala. The hometown connection earned the students a tour of the embassy, a two-night stay at her home and some good old American cuisine like pizza and spaghetti.

   "It was surreal to be in a continent the size of Africa and be talking about Caledonia with a native," remarked Keenan. "Her hospitality was amazing."

   While inside the embassy, Fitzgibbon educated the SIFE group about the various projects the United States is involved in throughout Uganda and the African continent.

   "There are several amazing projects going on and her office oversees all of them. She made us all proud to be an American," Keenan commented.

   Keenan is one of about 100 student members involved with the Bonaventure SIFE group that has participated in other service projects within the United States such as assisting after Hurricane Andrew, setting up a community center in the Bahamas and teaching resume writing skills to recently released prisoners. When the group decided to take their next project to Africa, they began locating a sponsoring agency to assist them in identifying a specific project. After many dead end leads, the group connected with Both Your Hands, a not for profit agency based in Alden, NY that has created a simple system that "connects caring communities with impoverished villages who wish to be empowered to create self sufficient income and improve the lives of their families. The programs work to create enough. Having enough means being able to go through a day without hunger, to educate your children, to afford medical care for good health, and to live without fear.

   The program’s director, Deborah Naybor, connected the students with the Bethlehem Parents School in Uganda, a primitive school built of clay that houses about 200 orphaned children, most as a result of the AIDS epidemic. Another 150 students also attend the school. The school is an integral part of the small village and is in desperate need of funding for additional food, water, desks and beds. The students selected the school as the beneficiary of the profits from their proposed micro loan investment project, which they funded through various benefit projects on campus and by soliciting donations from individuals and businesses they knew.

   They called it the Mukwana (meaning friendship in their native language) Micro Loan Agency. It makes low interest loans to people interested in investing in ways to support themselves and their families. The interest earned will be donated to the Bethlehem Parents School to help with their expenses and provide scholarships for students from families who are unable to pay.

   "We invested 2.5 million Ugandan schillings ($1,200 dollars) into the local economy. We diversified the loans over traders, crop farmers and livestock farmers. The money will be returned to the agency within 8-12 months where we plan to continue to cycle the loan to more interested Ugandans," Keenan explained.

   Over 120 people from the village attended the informational meeting to learn how they could apply for and secure a micro loan. After the interviews were completed, the SIFE group visited some of the farmers and other applicants to see how they would invest the money. The students witnessed a crop farmer who produces avocados and bananas, a livestock farm and a small brewery. Each one demonstrated sound business practices and therefore nine loans were issued during the groups stay.

   Keenan says the idea is to also provide education to the people so that they can learn to invest in their own business and from the benefits, feed, clothe and care for their families. He called Uganda a country of extremes; you may pass someone using a cell phone and then witness extreme poverty in the same area where families are sleeping lined up head to toe on dirt floors.

   "It was a good opportunity to do extraordinary work and associate with other young people with a common goal. It was a lot of teamwork. The kids in the village wake up happy everyday even after sleeping on a dirt floor. It was very rewarding, we fed off of the kids’ energy," Keenan remarked.

Matthew Keenan of Caledonia and a senior at St. Bonaventure University majoring in marketing and accounting, was one of five students from the universities SIFE who spent three weeks in Uganda arranging micro loans for local people.