The Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame recently released a story about BLI's origins, its current work, and its journey ahead. Some of the story is excerpted below alongside videos featuring our work.

When Emmanuel Katongole was growing up in rural Uganda, his family’s life centered on a three-acre plot of land where they grew coffee, beans, maize, bananas and other food crops. A nearby spring, accessible by a short trek down a forest path, provided ample water. Their parcel of land was small, but it produced enough to feed their family of nine and occasionally provide a surplus, which his parents would sell to earn money for school fees and other essentials.

“There was nothing romantic about this lifestyle,” said Katongole, now a professor of theology and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and a priest of the Archdiocese of Kampala. “It was tough. But though it was simple, it was marked by a deep sense of belonging to family, community, the land and the nearby forest.”

Life in Katongole’s home village looks vastly different today.