One Iowa State student organization is bringing a speaker to campus for a guest lecture.

The Iowa Uganda Alliance will bring in an appropriate guest lecturer once per semester to discuss issues pertaining to the Iowa State University-Uganda Program as well as promote participation in the club and purchasing baskets.

“This event is really a great way for students interested in the Uganda Program, fair trade and women in development to learn more about the program,” said Katie Stringer, president of the Iowa Uganda Alliance and senior in global resource systems.

This semester’s guest lecturer will be Kwikiiriza Shillah, a former Uganda Program staff member who was instrumental to the success of the Tusubila basket-making program. She will present a lecture regarding her experience with the group. Baskets will be available for sale at the event.

The lecture will be free to all admitted. All Iowa State students, faculty, staff and community members are invited and are encouraged to bring their friends. Iowa Uganda Alliance will provide refreshments and sell baskets at the event.

One of the primary field projects of the Iowa State University-Uganda Program is community nutrition. The Uganda Program runs nutrition education centers to assist and educate women about the proper nutrition of children, from birth to age five, and pregnant and breastfeeding women.

In January 2018, a group of mothers formalized as the Tusubila Crafts Group in order to launch their enterprise. “Tusubila” translates to hope.

The Tusubila Crafts Group first emerged from the nutrition education centers in 2015. The aim of this crafts project is to improve lives and assure the long-term well-being of the program’s graduates through income-generating enterprises.

“This is our first guest lecture,” Stringer said. “We are a new group on campus; we were officially approved in July but began meeting in August, so this is our first guest lecture and we wanted to host Shillah because of her role in the program.”

Stringer said the guest lecturer for the event will always be a faculty member of Iowa State or the Uganda Program who has knowledge about that program, and the goal of the event will be to promote the Iowa State University-Uganda Program and encourage the purchasing of crafts.

The Iowa Uganda Alliance is a campus organization designed to improve the mutual understanding of the Iowa State Uganda Program among faculty and students. The organization conducts sales of products produced by rural enterprise projects through a “Globe Shop” to increase economic opportunities for the people of Uganda.