Student uses YouTube Web site to tell story of Ugandan schoolchildren

Published: 2007-09-17

DENVER (CNS) -- Timothy Reidy is an average American college student who never thought he would be using something like YouTube to promote a cause he is passionate about. But he is using the video-sharing Web site to raise awareness of -- and he hopes support for -- students at a Catholic school in Kyarusozi on the western plains of Uganda. This summer he spent nine weeks in the African village, teaching mathematics and speech at St. Joseph Kyembogo (pronounced Chim-bogo) School. He worked with underprivileged families and fell in love with the genuine Catholic identity he said is embodied in the tribal people. In Uganda, "you see the church so deeply ingrained in the culture that it comes out so easily," said Reidy, who was born and raised in Denver and is a junior this year at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, where he is majoring in architecture. "There are no distractions from God. Faith is so easy there." A video he created about the school can be found online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vuKgnIN7hM. Or visitors can enter the words "St. Joseph Kyembogo" at www.youtube.com.

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