Every morning in Kampala, Uganda, Alex Petercuskie \u201913, \u201916 MA wakes up under mosquito netting. She boils water for a shower and grabs a breakfast mandazi\u2009\u2014\u2009fried bread\u2009\u2014\u2009from a street vendor on the way to her day job as a teacher. \u201cWill the school have power today?\u201d she wonders. It\u2019s never a sure bet. But one thing for Petercuskie is certain: Uganda is where she\u2019s meant to be, serving vulnerable children and young mothers through her nonprofit, Lift One Kin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her passion for service\u2009\u2014\u2009especially service to immigrants and refugees\u2009\u2014\u2009took root at NC State. As an undergraduate, Petercuskie served as a literacy coach for kids who were in and out of the state court system, many of them recent arrivals to the U.S. After graduation, she worked with Ameri-Corps in an underserved school in Miami, Fla., helping kids from Haiti and Mexico with English. A few years later, Petercuskie put her gift for teaching to work in a new way. \u201cI\u2019d felt for a while this call to go abroad, especially to Africa,\u201d she says. A teaching internship near Congo gave her the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2022, Petercuskie founded Lift One Kin with her fianc\u00e9, Ugandan gospel and reggae musician Joseph Kasirivu. In Uganda, she says, \u201cthere is much poverty and unemployment and far too many kids dropping out of school. Joseph and I believe we\u2019re all connected, all kin, and have a responsibility to help each other where we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lift One Kin aims to meet the needs of Uganda\u2019s vulnerable populations with a focus on children and young mothers. Projects include providing school supplies and educational opportunities to kids whose families cannot afford school and providing washable sanitary pads and other hygiene products to young mothers. The nonprofit also provides job training and sanitary bathroom options in the slums of Kampala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now we\u2019re meeting needs as they come up. And the needs are many,\u201d says Petercuskie. She hopes to consolidate services into a community hub, creating \u201ca safe, familiar space where children and mothers can gather, learn, and get what they need to thrive.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n Every morning in Kampala, Uganda, Alex Petercuskie \u201913, \u201916 MA wakes up under mosquito netting. She boils water for a shower and grabs a breakfast mandazi\u2009\u2014\u2009fried bread\u2009\u2014\u2009from a street vendor on the way to her day job as a teacher. \u201cWill the school have power today?\u201d she wonders. It\u2019s never a sure bet. But one thing for Petercuskie is certain: Uganda is where she\u2019s meant to be, serving vulnerable children and young mothers through her nonprofit, Lift One Kin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her passion for service\u2009\u2014\u2009especially service to immigrants and refugees\u2009\u2014\u2009took root at NC State. As an undergraduate, Petercuskie served as a literacy coach for kids who were in and out of the state court system, many of them recent arrivals to the U.S. After graduation, she worked with Ameri-Corps in an underserved school in Miami, Fla., helping kids from Haiti and Mexico with English. A few years later, Petercuskie put her gift for teaching to work in a new way. \u201cI\u2019d felt for a while this call to go abroad, especially to Africa,\u201d she says. A teaching internship near Congo gave her the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2022, Petercuskie founded Lift One Kin with her fianc\u00e9, Ugandan gospel and reggae musician Joseph Kasirivu. In Uganda, she says, \u201cthere is much poverty and unemployment and far too many kids dropping out of school. Joseph and I believe we\u2019re all connected, all kin, and have a responsibility to help each other where we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lift One Kin aims to meet the needs of Uganda\u2019s vulnerable populations with a focus on children and young mothers. Projects include providing school supplies and educational opportunities to kids whose families cannot afford school and providing washable sanitary pads and other hygiene products to young mothers. The nonprofit also provides job training and sanitary bathroom options in the slums of Kampala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now we\u2019re meeting needs as they come up. And the needs are many,\u201d says Petercuskie. She hopes to consolidate services into a community hub, creating \u201ca safe, familiar space where children and mothers can gather, learn, and get what they need to thrive.\u201d <\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NC State alum shares education with dignity, one family at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"orange_400\",\"caption\":\"Alex Petercuskie \u201913, \u201916 MA with some young people in Uganda, where she co-founded Lift One Kin.\",\"displayCategoryID\":9,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"NC State alum shares education with dignity, one family at a time.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,9],"tags":[1482,1484,1485,1483],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"displayCategory":{"term_id":9,"name":"Stories","slug":"stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":9,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":237,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5753"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5844,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753\/revisions\/5844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5753"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=5753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}By Susanna Klingenberg<\/h4>\n\n\n\n