September 15, 2012
Uganda Educator has Special Ally in Xavier Student
By: Mark Curnutte, Cincinnati Enquirer
A Pioneering Educator from Uganda, speaking tonight at Xavier University, has a major ally in Cincinnati.
Aditimo Odongkara, in her 70’s and founder of the northern Uganda school called the Upper Nile
Institute for Appropriate Technology (UNIFAT), will be among friends while telling the work of her 25
year old elementary school.
Her host is Xavier Sophomore Meghan Marth, who met Odongkara five years ago when Marth was a
student at Sycamore High School and had been moved to action after seeing the film “Invisible
Children.” It detailed the atrocities committed against the children during Uganda’s civil war. An
estimated 30,000 children were abducted and forced to fight or become sex slaves in the Lord’s
Resistance Army. Untold thousands have died, and as many as 1.7 million people have been displaced.
Marth continued at Xavier an organization she was involved with in high school, Unified for UNIFAT. She
helped raise more than $45,000 in four years to pay expenses for 120 children at the School in the war
torn region of Uganda, whose border to the north is Sudan.
“Unified for UNIFAT is a nonprofit organization founded by students for students,” said Marth,
recognized in 2010 by the Prudential Spirit Community Awards as one of Ohio’s top two youth
volunteers. “We are dedicated to financially and emotionally supporting the children of UNIFAT Primary
Scholl in Gulu, northern Uganda.
UNIFAT school’s motto is ‘Learning for Love and Understanding,’ and we firmly believe that education
begins the pathway to peace, which in turn is the solution to poverty.
Marth is president of the Xavier based organization, a Community-Engaged Fellow, and in the
Philosophy, Politics, and the Public Honors Program at Xavier. The presentation tonight is sponsored by
Xavier’s Eigel Center for Community-Engaged Learning.
“Xavier is proud to share this important conversation with our campus and community,” said Sean
Rhiney, Eigel Center Director. “Meghan is doing important work as a Fellow to further raise awareness
and funds for the school, which accomplishes great things, all while surrounded by civil war.”