Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Tuesday, Oct. 18 LECTURE:  

My Travels in Rwanda and Uganda, Africa with Terence “Bud” Crawford and Pipeline Worldwide

By author-journalist-blogger Leo Adam Biga

6:30-7:30 pm

Metro Fort Omaha Campus, Institute for the Culinary Arts Building, Swanson Conference Center, Room 201A

Free and open to the public

In June 2015, Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford, two-time world boxing champion and native of North Omaha, traveled with Jamie Nollette, his 4th grade teacher from Skinner Magnet Center, to learn about her work with Pipeline Worldwide, an organization that supports building fresh water wells and dormitories to support youth and families. Biga, funded by an Andy Award grant from UNO, traveled with them to observe and record their eye-opening activities on the two-week trip, which included meeting African, American and European program directors, educators, aid workers and humanitarians. They met survivors and perpetrators of violence, exploring rural and urban culture. Crawford was feted as a visiting prince by sports officials.

Tuesday, Oct. 18 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Fort Omaha Campus, Institute for the Culinary Arts Building

Swanson Conference Center, Room 201A

Free and open to the public

Terence “Bud” Crawford has captured the hearts and minds of Nebraskans with his move to the front ranks of professional boxing. The Omaha native has traveled a long, hard journey to get to where he is. Boxing is in his blood. The fight game is his life, yet there is much more to him than the tenacious competitor, finely tuned, supremely conditioned, confident, technically sound, unbeaten world title holding prizefighter. He is also a devoted family man who loves kids. Crawford is a sincere advocate for his community and is curious about the wider world outside his hometown and home state, and has made it a point to broaden his horizons. To indulge his hunger to know more and see more, he has twice ventured to Uganda and Rwanda, Africa, and plans to go again in the fall.

The story of why he has gone to those places, whom he went with and what he did there reveals much about The Champ. His travels to Africa are under the auspices of Pipeline Worldwide, an American-based NGO whose executive director and co-founder, Jamie Nollette, was Bud’s fourth grade teacher at Skinner Magnet School in North Omaha. Pipeline Worldwide helps support sustainability and self-sufficiency programs in Uganda and Rwanda. The strong bond between the former pupil and instructor seems destined to last a lifetime since they reunited in 2014. That’s when Crawford joined her on his first journey to Africa. The experience changed him. In June 2015, Omaha author-journalist-blogger Leo Adam Biga traveled to Uganda and Rwanda, Africa with Crawford and Nollette. His reporting mission was funded by the Andy Award for international journalism from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Biga’s talk will highlight various facets of the experience with the aid of a video slideshow.

Biga has chronicled Crawford’s rise to boxing prominence and his single-handedly resurrecting the sport in his hometown by fighting title defenses here before huge crowds at the CenturyLink Center. Crawford operates a gym in North Omaha that is a sanctuary for at-risk youth and young adults, providing them structured, positive activities that teach lessons inside and outside the ring. Friends of Crawford have embarked on a major building campaign to renovate and expand the gym so it can serve more people.

Crawford’s first trip to Africa, Biga reports, was an awakening for the fighter as he saw everything from people living in want and healing from trauma to people working regular jobs, going to market and living in comfortable housing. He visited villages and organizations that Pipeline Worldwide assists with funding to build fresh water wells and dormitories and to support programming that helps youth, women and families. He met survivors of civil war, abduction, abuse and genocide. He played with and comforted sick and orphaned children. He also visited natural wonders.

During the Africa journey Biga joined, the travel party saw everything described above and more. Biga was there to observe and report on it all. It was the writer’s first trip outside the United States, so it was naturally an awakening for him, too.

The visitors met African, American and European program directors, educators, aid workers and humanitarians. They met survivors and perpetrators of violence. Crawford was feted as a visiting prince by sports officials who organized a press conference he handled with aplomb. The travel party divided their time between urban centers and rural areas. They shopped at open air markets and enclosed malls. They were treated to great hospitality wherever they went and they sampled all manner of the local cultures in the food and fashion and in the dance and music they were exposed to. They also did some service work at one stop. They went on safari and a gorilla trek. All in all, the two weeks added up to an eye-opening experience that none will soon forget.

One of the takeaways from it all is that there are many Africans and non-Africans alike working hard to improve conditions and raise quality of life in the countries visited.

And, as expected, traveling two weeks with Crawford gave Biga new insights into him. Biga also developed a deeper appreciation for what Nollette and Pipeline Worldwide does. If anything, the relationship between Crawford and Nollette has grown through their travels together. He helps bring awareness to Pipeline Worldwide and the programs and projects it supports, and she is helping lead the campaign to renovate and expand his B&B Boxing Academy.

Biga’s presentation describes in words and pictures the 2015 trip he made with The Champ to those countries. The talk will give a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Crawford’s world away from boxing and his heart for people. The event is free and open to the general public.

Read Biga’s stories about the experience at https://leoadambiga.com/?s=crawford+africa