Coalition slow to meet Committee has yet to convene to discuss town - gown relations

Last January, a group of Notre Dame delegates led by University President Father John Jenkins traveled to Nindye, Uganda, to visit the village th a t would become Notre Dame’s partner in the Millennium Development Initiative. One year later, the ties between the University and the village of 5,000 have strength­ ened with the research and find­ ings of the project’s staff and Notre Dame students, as well as the en th u s ia sm am ong the Ugandans, according to the pro­ j e c t ’s ass is tan t director, Tim Lyden. “We’ve done a lot 'of listening and learning over the last year, in order to really understand the people of Nindye and the ir needs. That was the first thing we needed to do,” Lyden said Thursday. “We didn’t w ant to just jump into this partnership without taking a breath to figure out what our next step would be and how we were going to do it.” After the 2006 Notre Dame Forum on global health, Jenkins an n o u n ced the U niversity ’s involvem ent in the United N ations’ Millennium Villages Project. Notre Dame, he said, would p a r tn e r with a sub-