I.C. woman raising funds to assist education in Uganda

The Cedar Rapids Gazette
Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Helping those in Need:
I.C. woman raising funds to assist education in Uganda.

By Christina Erb
The Gazette

IOWA CITY- For 21-year-old Elizabeth Whiston of Iowa City, the seven months she spent in Kikaaya, Uganda, teaching English to seventh and eighth graders proved to be a life-altering experience.

Whiston, a senior at Smith College in North Hampton, Mass., is the founder of the newly created non-profit organization Education for Development. She started the program after witnessing the poor quality of educational services provided to youths in central and eastern Uganda.

"I'm trying to raise $40,000 to build a new school in eastern Uganda," Whiston said. She was in the country from early January to Aug. 1.

The building used for a school in Namirama-a rural remote agricultural town-is a four room building with mud brick walls and not finished floors or windows.

"They have enough people in Uganda for teaching jobs. What they need is money," Whiston said.

Although the thought of beginning a non-profit organization was always there, Whiston said it wasn't until she saw the school building's condition that she was inspired to take action.

"It's hard to be angry in Uganda," she said. "There are so many people living in poverty buy they aren't angry, just frustrated. They are hopeful and welcoming."
Education for Development has already received nearly $5,000 in donations. The money is aimed at both building a new school in eastern Uganda and also at funding the education of 10 Ugandan girls. While the scholarships are geared toward Ugandan females, they also are available for males.

"In Uganda, there is a need to encourage women to go to school," Whiston said, adding that the literacy rate for females is 60 percent compared to male literacy rate of 80 percent.

Dorothy Whiston, Elizabeth's mother, visited her daughter in Uganda and said her initiative to form a non-profit organization initially surprised her.

"It amazes me that she's already made enough money to give scholarships to 10 girls, she said. "Watching her teach was wonderful. I think of her as my kid, so to see her in front of a class of 70 kids being called 'madam' was a different experience."

Education for Development has collected and shipped about 110 pounds of supplies donated by students at Smith College, to schools near Mbale, Uganda. The organization also recently established two pen pal programs between students in Uganda and Iowa City and West Brach.

For Whiston, her stay in Africa was triggered by her need to experience something beyond her small, liberal, all-female school.

"I wanted a more spiritual-based part of my life," she said, adding that she had considered the Peace Corps but wasn't sure she wanted to sign a two-year contract. "I wanted to do something without someone holding my hand."

Not all of her friends at Smith College were supportive of her newly realized ambition.

"Most of them were really surprised. I'm not the type of person to do this," Whiston said, adding she loves fashion, movies and New York City. "And all of a sudden I'm willing to go to Africa and rough it for seven months without running water?"

However, Whiston said, once she decides to do something, there is hardly anything that can change her mind.

For more than half a year, Whiston lived on the school compound 10 miles away from Kampala, Uganda's capital. Her home - two small concrete rooms - was connected to a row of five other homes. On the compound, avocado, papaya, and jackfruit trees grow freely. Nearby, sugar cane stretches nearly 6 feet tall.
Whiston said she initially felt lost and alone, but the other teachers immediately befriended her.

"People really tried to include me," she said. "My neighbors tried to teach me Luganda," the towns primary language.

While Whiston enjoyed teaching English and experiencing a more laid-back climate than the United States, a 20-yearl-old civil war is being fought between the Ugandan military and the Lord's Resistance Army only hours north of where she lived.

"The LRA murdered 300 people for no particular reason while I was there. They were all civilians," Whiston said, adding, however, that she felt safe teaching in her town.

Back home for a visit before returning to college, the United States seems both foreign and familiar to Whiston

While she enjoys being able to communicate fluently with others and the modern comforts of home, she said she yearns for the sweltering heat of Uganda.