TIKKUN OLAM:
HOW ONE PERSON CAN CHANGE AND REPAIR THE WORLD

Twesigye Jackson Kaguri

DESCRIPTION: Tikkun Olam is a concept in Judaism that encompasses service to society by helping those in need. The expression has come to connote social action and community and social service. The term itself means to repair or to perfect the world and it is understood that if only one person strives to do Tikkun Olam, it’s as if the entire world is doing it - every perfection starts with the first step by someone. The one-time lecture by Twesigye Jackson Kaguri will demonstrate how one man’s actions has led to helping repair the world. 

Twesigye Jackson Kaguri, author of the book A School for My Village will take the audience on a journey that begins with his childhood in a tiny, remote village in Uganda, to his status as a 2012 CNN Hero and world-changing human rights advocate. Born to subsistence farmers, one pencil cut into fifths each year for Kaguri and his siblings was the game-changer for him that many of his peers didn’t ever have a chance to hold due to extreme poverty. Facing adversity at every corner, Kaguri will take the audience on his unlikely journey from a college student in Kampala, to visiting scholar at Columbia University, and a driving force in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. After the disease slim ravaged Uganda and Africa, taking first his brother and then his sister, and leaving countless orphans in its wake, Kaguri decided he had to act. Taking the $5000 he had saved to buy his first home, Kaguri shares how he came to build a school for orphans, as well as the struggles he faced during the first few years. He will explain how a holistic approach to poverty is critical to solving poverty worldwide, including the integration of elderly grandmothers. Kaguri has been named a Heifer International Hero, recognized in Time Magazine’s Power of One Series, and he has spoken at the UN about his work. In 2012, he was selected as a CNN Hero for his innovative work in human rights and emphasis on giving a hand-up to elderly grandmothers.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Twesigye Jackson kaguri was born and raised in Uganda and is a graduate of Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. In 2001, Kaguri founded The Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project in response to the devastating effects of AIDS in his hometown. The organization, which recently celebrated its 11th anniversary, provides free education to children who have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. In addition to two schools, it also operates a library, desire farm and nutrition program, a medical clinic, clean water system, and a support program for grandmothers. Kaguri is also an author and in A School for My Village he shares how he built the first school and the struggles he faced.