Day 6

Friday 20th July

We started the day off with a trip to the closest primary school ‘Sunlight Primary School and Nursery’. This is a government run school, however it is so different from ours back at home – each small classroom consisted of a few benches, very little utensils and jam packed with over 50 children per class. However their faces did not show that they had little, they were the happiest gleaming children ever! It costs from 55-145,000 shillings (£11- 29) increases from nursery to P7, this may seem insignificant to you but for them it is a lot. After our introduction in the playground they marched into their classrooms singing ‘We are marching in the light of God’ which we all joined into and found it so amusing! We taught them some Scottish culture, did some drama, read them stories books and did some art. They thoroughly enjoyed our teaching and their excitement for us to be there filled us with joy.

We had a fairly chilled afternoon at Kitega Centre with the children, playing ball games and involved ourselves in their classes. Everyone, including the kids and staff of kitega, helped to paint the famous wall – it’s really coming along thanks to Beth’s patience and art skills. There’s never a dull moment here at Kitega!!
Later some of the group went to a football match with some of the Kitega staff and Ian and John in one team versus a local team. The game was going well, with Ian showing off his header skills, but unfortunately it ended shortly after. The Kitega centre car was broken into, with belongings stolen including 5 phones. John’s phone was taken, along with 4 boys who worked/volunteered at the centre. The boys remained positive in the hope they would retrieve their belongings, an attitude that was quite touching to us all. Luckily, after waiting for a few hours while local people helped search, all phones apart from one were traced down as the robbers found out they were from Kitega, and because of its status in the community, the phones were left in the sugar cane plantation.

Lynne met with Kennedy (the OT for the centre) to plan how she could help him with his initial assessment forms for the new children coming to Kitega. They agreed they were going to introduce a ‘sensory’ assessment/treatment, this concept is quite unknown to Kitega but important for severe/profound kids. Lynne also met with Ricky, another OT who is volunteering at Kitega, to plan, assess and help provide a new wheelchair and other aids for the children. They all then visited quite remote houses to work alongside the families of the children. From these visits they could understand where their help was needed and what new equipment was necessary to help the children, they are going to order some of this equipment and go back to educate families in a few days time.

In the evening a few of us joined the youth VICOBA group here at Kitega. They are so passionate about working together as a team to achieve their vocational dream. They can join the group from the age of 16 until they don’t feel like youths anymore (around 35). Most members attend uni studying mechanics and arts etc so they work towards projects within their field e.g. carpentry, tailoring, farming and photography. They all save a minimum of £1 a month which goes into a shares type banking system whereby if members would like to take a loan they can do so. However the person must have a project idea and plans set in place to take a loan and must show the group their work and how it helps the community. It was inspiring to see young people keen to get involved in the community and help one another achieve a goal.