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From politics to social entrepreneurship: How one doctoral candidate’s life-changing journey To then 26-year-old Nathaniel Dunigan, deputy director of the Office of the Governor of Arizona, the idea of a month’s leave from work that included an African safari was almost irresistible. What he hadn’t bargained for was the way that first trip would affect him as a socially conscious individual and, ultimately, change his life. “In 1998 I was given the opportunity to travel to Uganda for a month to do HIV prevention education,” Dunigan recalls. “A month off work plus a free safari – who wouldn’t want to go.” But the realities of life in rural Uganda, where the first case of HIV had been recorded and where treatment for infected children was virtually nonexistent, were impossible to ignore. “At that time there were more orphans in Uganda than in any other country in the world, many of them living with AIDS, and yet there was no free medication available to these children,” he points out. “So they were dying a miserable, suffering death. I just couldn’t sit there and let that happen.” After returning to the US, Nathaniel’s search for an organization he could partner with in order to help these children came up empty. “There were orphanages as well as hospitals and clinics in Uganda, but none of them were equipped to deal with children living with AIDS,” he recalls. “Even though there was treatment available in other parts of the world back then, it hadn’t reached these children in Uganda.” Thanks to Nathaniel Dunigan, that situation was about to change.
Bringing hope to suffering Ugandan children In September of 2000, Dunigan sold his car and belongings, bought an airplane ticket, and armed with $3,500 in personal savings, along with a laptop computer and digital camera that had been donated to him, set out for Uganda, East Africa. Within a matter of weeks, he had received his first donation. Soon thereafter AidChild (www.aidchild.org), the organization
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”With no free medication available to the orphans in Uganda, those infected with HIV were dying a miserable, suffering death. I just couldn’t sit there and let that happen.”