As reported in “Summer Camp Ambassadors: Ugandan Jews Meet America’s Kids” (August 26, online), we recruited 13 people from our Jewish community in Uganda, called the Abayudaya, to work as counselors at Reform Jewish overnight camps this summer. While the article portrayed the positive experiences we had, we would like to correct some important oversights about the help that made this possible.
Kulanu, nonprofit that supports isolated and emerging Jewish communities all over the world, mentored us as we started the process that resulted in this camping program. Harriet Bograd, the president of Kulanu, introduced us to Bobby Harris, the director of Camp Coleman in Georgia, who employed us as counselors in 2015 and advocated for this program with the Union for Reform Judaism camp movement.
For 21 year, Kulanu has supported our community in so many ways, helping to create two schools in our community that the counselors have attended, bringing one of us to the U.S. for speaking tours, working with the camps to help them meet our needs so far from home and offering hospitality before and after camp.
We are also extremely grateful to Rabbi Jeffrey Summit of Tufts University Hillel whose yearly fundraising for scholarships has allowed many of the counselors to attend university, unthinkable without his help.
Sarah Nabaggala
