James Ochwa-Echel developed a passion for women’s education.

In Ochwa-Echel’s sparsely decorated Blair Hall office, tucked away in a cabinet behind his desk is the proof of that passion: a folded and worn white envelope.

While researching his doctoral dissertation on Uganda’s educational gender gap, Ochwa-Echel, coordinator of Eastern’s African American Studies program, developed a passion for women’s education.

Inside the envelope are photos of the girls’ nursing school and counseling center Ochwa-Echel is funding and building in rural Uganda, his home country.

The photos show a building still clearly under construction, only identifiable as a school by the blue-and-white multilingual sign posted in front of the building.

But Ochwa-Echel looks beyond the building in his photos to the vocational nursing school he says could one day serve 200 students.

“In my research I found that when women left the secondary education and fail to go to university, there are no avenues where they can pursue other careers,” Ochwa-Echel said. “And yet, having a vocational institution like this would get women to pursue an area where they can professionally train.”

By teaching these women nursing, Ochwa-Echel said, the school would be providing much needed health care workers for the often-understaffed clinics of rural Uganda.

Ochwa-Echel said the school would also include a counseling center designed, in part, to help mothers with HIV/AIDS prevent their children from contracting the disease.

Joe Astrouski can be reached at 581-7942 or at jmastrouski@eiu.edu.