Adult literacy test!

Tuesday we told everybody in class that there would be a test (exam) on Wednesday. The women asked me about it in class three weeks ago, so last week I made a test about the ABC.  I discussed it with Juma and he agreed with the test. Juma told Amar to also make a test for the advanced class, so he did.

I printed 15 questions in each each exam and a total of 30 exams . At the end all the exams were gone, so there were over 30  women (and some men). I put on a vey nice green traditional dress for them, and they really liked it! First we practiced the vowels, ABC and  ba, be, bi, bo, bu. This were the things who came back in the test. 

First I thought it would be too easy, if I repeated everything before the test, but I did it because some of them could not even write their own name.

When I handed the paper, the women started laughing and I could see at that time, that it was too difficult. Frank, one of the men in the village helped me with translating but a lot of them did not understand how to fill things in, after a while it went ok, better than in the beginning. I could see clear that they were very good at copying, but they did not know what it meant. Also with the practice I did the pronunciation and some of them could say the alphabet in  English, but a lot didn’t.  I repeated this topics for 6 weeks and I felt very disappointed.

But I focused more on the good thinks which came out of the test: two ladies had a 100 percent good score, all the women were almost present, they are open for making a test, now we know where we stand with classes. So Jukani the next volunteer knows where to go further.

They were very happy with getting the test results back, even when it was a score of 15 percent. So we can use that for making them excited about next semester. The women blamed themselves also for not always being there or not being on time. So at the end I think it was a good thing we did it. We all learned from it and we can start with fresh energy.

HIV testing day for the children at the babies' home.

This week we started with the HIV tests for all the children from the babies' home. On Monday morning three women arrived with bags full of equipment. We all helped to get the table outside and make everything ready; like filling in the names of the children on the cards. When everything was prepared, the testing then began. The children who were younger than 1,5 years were too young to be tested so they could keep playing. One by one all the children got tested. Most of them were very brave and didn’t cry at all! What we didn’t expect was,  that we had the results immediately. We are happy because the results were very good. Only one of the children was positive, all the others were negative!

But there was more good news this week. Last week we did a workshop about activities for the workers of the babies' home. When we got to the babies' home last Monday we saw instantly that the children were playing with bottles of water. We were thrilled because this was one of the activities we did as  an example during the workshop. Nice to see that people really liked it and used it right away.

Also in the workshop we made a schedule for every day of the week. In the schedule we wrote down which worker is doing the activity on what day. We also wrote down who takes care of the younger children when the teacher gives lessons to the  older children. The other workers were sitting and playing with the younger children outside so the teacher could give all her attention to the older  children in the lesson. 

On Tuesday, it was Sherifah’s turn to do an activity and she did very well! Sge choose to draw with sidewalk chalk. Lilian and the teacher helped her and it was a great success! The children and the workers had both a lot of fun and a good time. They also involved the disabled children! Josephine, Stellah and even Hussein were also (with a little help) drawing with the sidewalk chalk.

On Wednesday we first thought we had a little problem, because not all the people had time to do the activity; but it was solved fast! The other workers were very enthusiastic when we asked if they wanted to do the activity that day. Nice to see that everybody was very flexible as well!  

Thursday we brought the activity book to the babies-home. It was finally finished! The teacher, Angela and Juma were very happy with it! In the afternoon the teacher and Florence immediately choose one of the activities that we wrote down in the book and they did a ball game with the children.  It was nice to see that it was used right away!

After all, it was a great week with lots of good news! Hopefully it will continue!

Written by; Ildi Hummelink & Maartje Libbers, volunteers from Holland, working in the Arise and Shine babies' home. 

What some of our new volunteers think of the village!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Hi, I am Yukari, a new volunteer from Japan. I have just arrived here and had an introduction week in the Arise and shine Uganda. This is about my first experience of visiting Kibuye village.

                        This Tuesday I went to the village where Arise and Shine conducts several projects. It was a really long way. First we took a taxi from Jinja town to Kamuli town for two hours, and we had to take the motorcycle called boda-boda for around 30minutes from the town to the village. Although we have “villages” in Japan, they can never be the same as Kibuya. There is no electricity, no running water. So it will be a great experience for me to join the projects here!    

The primary school in the village is going to be closed for holiday soon, but we fortunately could meet children of the school before that. They had a sports day on that day and all the students were in the ground. When we got there, children were running toward to welcome us, and they showed us their dance. I was really amazed that how good they could dance for their ages.  

It was just a one-day trip, so there must be a lot to see and many people to meet. I am really looking forward to meeting them and working together as a member of the Arise and shine!!

Candle project

Hello, I'm Kazuo, the volunteer from Japan. I'm doing internship here in AASU from the beginning of  October. I have experienced a lot of new things that I've never in Japan since I came here. The life in Bandali village is one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever experienced.

There are some projects AASU does in the village, such as adult literacy, beads project and HIV session etc. Each volunteer who works in village takes their own project. For me, the project I'm now responsible to is Candle project.

Candle project is one of the community outreach projects. AASU involves people in village and make candles then volunteers/stuff market them. The profit from the sales would compose of income which helps people in village.

In recent weeks I have  got experienced in making candles. The way how to make candles is not so difficult and anybody can master it. But it needs some certain tools and time. It takes around 3hours to make one set of candles from start to end. As candles are very fragile, we have to take much care when we take them from the tube. It is great time to see the vividly colored candle come out of the tube.

 One day, I and the teacher Deo in village came back to Jinja and tried to sell candles. The way we took to market candles is, very plain and simple, that we gave a brief explanation about the product including the background of AASU to mainly the people who are in market along the main street with showing the products. I was worried if they accepted our product at the beginning. But contrary to my negative expectation, we could sell most of candles we had in a day! It was delightful surprise for me. 

I think the colored candles were unusual for people and probably attracted their interest. It is also possibly thought that the background of the product and AASU brought about their sympathy somehow. Generally selling candles to people succeeded.

Then we also went to some hotels and negotiated with them to lend us some space to promote our products. It is integral for our community outreach projects such as beads project and candle project to get the fixed route we market them in order to get continuous profit.

Fortunately one hotel understood our objective and agreed with us to put and sell our products at its lounge. I hope the products made by AASU's project will be exhibited and sold in every hotel in Jinja near future and many visitors to Jinja recognize them as the best souvenirs.

 Prepared by Kazuo

Education and relaxation

Last week I went to the village and took something educative with me: a poster of the  human body and the names of the different body parts stated on it in English.

It was great to see the enthusiasm of the children while we studied the different parts of the body in English. The children liked it a lot and learned something at the same time. The class was interactive and it was nice that I had the opportunity to do this.

During the adult literacy classes I used the same poster to teach adults in the village the names of the different  parts of the body. At a certain moment I noticed a crowd of people standing interested around something in the classroom..... and that something was the poster of the human body with the names of the different body parts stated on it. Great to see how something small can make a crowd gather around it. At the end of the class we practiced the different names of parts of the body in English. After that I asked several students to come to the front and write down the right name in  English  for each part of the body  I pointed at on my own body. This was at the other side of the class, so the poster was not visible for the student in front of the blackboard. This was a funny situation because the practice they had was minimal and thus it was logical that some of the students did try to get a peek of the poster with the correct answers on it. The students that sat behind the tables betrayed the students who wanted to pick and were laughing, the student in front of the class had to laugh and I was also having a great time. The students picked up the names of the different parts of the body very fast and this was nice to see! Next week  we will make a rehearsal and the week after an exam on this and/or other topics would be great in order to take care, and examine to what extent, that the knowledge stays in the head of the students.

Great was also that my buddy brought a soccerball for the kids of the village. It was amazing to see how happy they are with this gift of my buddy. I had the honour to take the ball with me to the kids and they were cheering from excitement and starting running towards me. I had the great privilege to play soccer with the kids from Kibuye Bandali in Uganda. An experience that I will never forget!

This blog was prepared by:

Amar

addition to the Arise and Shine family in Jinja.

Hello everyone,

We are privileged to inform you that we got a new baby boy by the name of Khadil.

He is such a cute baby but so wasted away from malnutrition and by the time we got him he was at the verge of death and thank God we got there on time to save him. But still your prayers are still needed as we walk baby Khadil back to  life.

It was a long Journey to the village where we got baby Khadil. We left the baby home at around 8:00 am in the morning and we got to the village at around 12:43pm.

The stepmother was so happy to see us as she gave us a warm welcome. We didn’t find the father of the baby  at home so we had to give him a call and had to wait  for around 30minutes before he came back home.

On seeing us, he was so very excited. We exchanged greetings and right away started off interviewing him about the baby’s condition.

We discovered that the mother of the baby was very sick before giving birth . She had a terrible cough , was  hospitalised for it but there was not much improvement till the time she had to deliver the child.

She managed to give birth but was still ill. After giving birth,Khadil's mother was then brought back home but the situation just worsened and the relatives had to come and pick her up from her husband's place to her own family. She was taken away to their place for extra care after finding out that the husband had failed to take care of her condition.

After only a period of two weeks the poor lady passed away leaving little Khadil behind with the father and stepmother. It’s so sad but at times life is so very unfair and that’s the sole truth about the little one. He was brought forth in this world in pain. He’s never enjoyed any bit of happiness ever since he arrived.

After the mother’s death Baby Khadil’s life was completely torn apart. He barely had anyone to feed him and most of the time he would be left for along time without feeding.  The little chance he got to feed was fed with warm water because the family could hardly get access to milk and also since the step mother has also got a baby relatively the same age has got no sufficient time to take care of him when she has got a baby of her own to take care of. Thank God we were able to get there on time.

The time we got there, baby Khadil was starving to death and on inquiring from the stepmother whether he had fed or not, she told us that they had not been able to get any milk so he had to wait for the milk in order to get him fed.

Poor little thing! He was bowling and gasping for breath at the same time.

Right away, we requested the step mum to boil us some water so we could mix him some baby formula. We had moved well prepared almost knowing the situation. We carried milk, baby clothes and diapers just in case we needed them.

So as she boiled the water we asked for a basin with water so we could have him bathed. One of us bathed him as we waited for the water to boil. We had him dressed in the clothes we had carried and he was refreshed.

Soon after that the water was ready and milk was mixed and the baby fed. His day was made.

Soon after feeding the baby drowned into a resting mood and he was quiet, relaxed and went to sleep. So we prepared to leave for the baby’s home and the children were so happy and excited to have an addition of a baby. They all came and crowded around him and went, “baby baby baby……….. “and didn’t not even want to go to sleep.

More to the news, on the 31^st of October we received a donation from one of our volunteers Christopher . He bought our disabled children a wheel chair! Fahad has never been this happy! He was so excited to have the new wheel chair and each time he’s put in the chair he goes all smiles.Before we had 1 wheel chair which was usually shared between Stella and Fahad. But Stella always fights for it and Fahad usually accommodates her and lets her take it. We are so grateful for the second wheel chair as both Fahad and Stella now have one. Life only gets better!

We are also thankful to all of you who are making donations so we can build a new pit latrine for the Arise and Shine school! Thank you for your support, with out you Arise ans Shine can not live to do it's work.

Am calling upon all of you to donate through the web site or the blog as we can get to deal with the bank charges all at once if we donate online otherwise we are charged for every transfer made to the bank. Thanks again for all your support.Your help will take us a long way!

Thanks for following us!

more activities, raising money for the babies' home!

Last week we went to ‘St. Jude trainings center’ to give information about STD’s, syphilis and the Afri-pads. Our main goal was to sell the Afri-pads, to earn money for the babies’ home. The money from the sanitary towels is spent on the babies in the babies’ home. We think that’s a very good goal, so we’ve tried as best as we can.

To prepare our presentation, we made some posters with keywords. Sometimes it’s difficult for the students to understand us, because of our Dutch accent but with the posters they can also read the information.

We started with general information about sexually transmitted diseases and the A-B-C-D formula. The A means abstinence; keeping away from sex is the safest way to protect one from STD’s. If one can’t abstain, then be faithful to one partner, that’s the B in the formula. The C stands for condom-use. You always have to use a condom; otherwise you can reach the D in the formula. The D stands for Death. When you don’t have safe sex, you can risk sexually transmitted diseases, which can lead to death.

We also talked about syphilis, because it’s a common STD, but most people have a limited knowledge about it. We talked about different stages of the disease, the symptoms, the diagnosis and the treatment.

At the end we talked about the Afri-pads. We showed the menstrual kit and we have explained how it works. The girls were enthusiastic, but a little shy. We asked the girls if they had questions about the subjects. For them, it was hard to ask what they want, they were a little ashamed. We have noticed that it’s not common for the girls to talk about these issues. We tried to make them comfortable with the situation and the subjects. We told them that’s common to talk about and that they could ask anything. It was good to see that some girls raised their hands and asked what they wanted to know.

We already sold one of the Afri-pads. One of the employers of the trainings center asked the girls to repeat what we’ve told about the A-B-C-D formula. If she answered correctly, he would pay the menstrual kit. The girl was a little bit nervous, but she remembered what we told, so she could explain it to the other girls. She was excited when she received the Afri-pads. That was really nice to see. The employer helped us to make the situation comfortable for the girls. We’ve learned from him how to talk about a not common subject with this target group.

A lot of girls wanted to buy the Afri-pads, but they had no money with them. We’ve made a new appointment for next Wednesday, so we hope we can sell a lot more menstrual kits.