Senior's Efforts to Improve Access to Education in Uganda are Spotlighted
July 16, 2010
July 16, 2010, Greencastle, Ind. — David Dietz "is a rising senior at DePauw University -- where he helped form a chapter of Building Tomorrow, a social-profit based out of Lockerbie Square," notes a story in this week's edition of NUVO. "The organization raises money to construct academies in Uganda." The article in Indianapolis' weekly newspaper notes that Dietz recently went to Uganda to help build schools. Building Tomorrow has constructed five school buildings and is at work on five more.
"It's safe to say we all were challenged physically by the labor and heat, but we were repeatedly humbled and impressed by how skilled, efficient, strong and persistent the Kyeitabya (a Ugandan community) community members were," Dietz tells the publication. "They taught us how to perform each task 
and it was always clear that no matter how hard we worked, they could always do more, faster, and better."
NUVO notes, "College students who help organize a campus chapter of BT, like Dietz has, participate and help raise money for the Building Tomorrow academies can pack their bags and go to Uganda to turn the work they have done in the United States and the cash they have raised into the end product. Dietz experienced many challenges while helping build an academy. He practiced one of Uganda's 54 languages, encountered the phenomenon 'Ugandan Time' in which being an hour late was considered punctual (he said the entire trip ran about an hour behind schedule) and had no running water ... While helping provide a better learning experience for others, Deitz learned much himself. He said it was extremely rare for westerners (his group's 
opportunity was a rarity) to participate in construction so the organization could 'minimize the cultural and economic footprint of BT's work in the community, and ultimately leave behind a schoolhouse that the community feels ownership of.'"
Read the complete story -- "Indy social-profit building schools in Uganda: Working for equal education, brick by brick" -- at NUVO's Web site.
Last September, David Dietz co-led a student forum at DePauw which featured Karl Rove and Howard Dean, who visited campus as guests of the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture Series (Dietz and Dean are seen in photo at left). In February 2009, he introduced another Ubben Lecturer, David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Dietz, president of DePauw's College Democrats, had volunteered for the Obama campaign.
Back