When Aaron Friedland was entering a master's program in economics at the University of British Columbia about a decade ago, he decided to research how the distance to school impacts attendance rates. So he spent two months living in a rural community in Uganda, regularly trekking with a group of kids who walked five miles each day round trip for their education. He still remembers that first morning, taking a boda boda motorcycle taxi at 6:30 a.m. past fields of maize to meet them at a fork in the iron-rich red road.
"Jacob was the first to arrive. He was 12 and the pack leader," Friedland says. Several other kids in backpacks appeared and they started their walk — with Friedland wearing sturdy boots and all the students in sandals made from recycled car tires.
