Twesigye Jackson Kaguri said fundraising is the same no matter what the cause.
As the interim senior director of development in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Kaguri raises money for student scholarships, research, MSU Extension and study abroad – but not for long.
At the end of May, Kaguri will leave his job at MSU to work full time for the Nyaka AIDS Orphans School he started in Uganda for children whose parents died of HIV/AIDS. He’ll work from his home in Okemos to reach out to donors and engage with children at schools in the East Lansing area to donate school supplies to Uganda.
“From these classrooms, we are also helping these children in Michigan, in Colorado, in California,” Kaguri said. “They don’t get to see stories that relate to other children their age. All the children are the same all over the world.
“So we want children to grow in this sense of ‘I’m not living in this island in America and everything is all about me.’ They can also now expand and say, ‘Oh there are other children somewhere, and these are the circumstance they live in.’”
Kaguri has also written a book about the children at his school in Uganda. It will be released in June and Kaguri will embark on a national book tour to spread awareness about the children at his school.
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