THE EXPERIENCE OF SINGAPORE VOLUNTEER

18-24th December:
I spent 3 days in Kamoli-Kibuye village and i have seen and felt things I never had before. Good planning is the key to survival here; always have enough water and food. Water, electricity and food was easily available in my country, here they are none to waste. Definitely, I learnt things about myself and start to appreciate things a little more.
 
I was looking forward to making an impact on the community, but it was the holiday period, for the villagers too so there’s only so much I could do. Nevertheless, how much I want to achieve here is pretty much up to me. I learnt Lusoga and Luganda in order to communicate and teach the villagers more effectively, and it was really helpful when it came to Adult Literacy Project. 
I was glad that Arise and Shine has came up with Wood-Saving Stove Project and a tree-planting initiative to help the environment. It has long-term aim and was sustainable too. We did some weeding; though it was just a few trees, I was pleased to do my part for the environment. 
I genuinely want to do part for Uganda and Africa, but it seems like my duration and period of volunteering is not an ideal one. Looking at how things are going now, I hope I will get an invaluable insight and exposure to different projects and experience such that I have a better idea of making an impact the next time when I come to Africa for volunteering projects.

goodbye babies home.

Yesterday  was our last day in the babieshome. We want to thank all the workers of Arise and Shine, because we had a great time with them. We learned a lot from them and we are very glad that they wanted to learn from us as well. We taught them a lot and we tried to help them with improving the activities and the hygiene in the babieshome. We hope the new volunteers will continue our work, so we all encourage the health and the development of all the children.

We celebrated our last day with a lot of fun. We invited Andrew with his guitar, he played music for the children. We danced a lot and all the children liked it, even the disabled children and the babies. They were all smiling and had a great time. While Andrew was playing, we painted the faces of the children. It was very  funny, they all liked it and wanted to see themselves on the pictures. We also brought drinks and candy for them, so they were enjoying the party. After the music, we started with giving presents. We brought a lot of toys, clothes and other materials from Holland. There were a lot of presents, so every child could open one. We also brought some presents and cake for the workers, because we appreciate all the help, advices and the warm welcome we had.

We are sad to leave all the friendly people and the lovely children of Arise and Shine. We are sure that they are doing a great job and that they can achieve a lot more in the future. We wish them good luck and they have enjoyed our stay as well. Thanks a lot! 
To see the beautiful smiley faces of the children opening their presents, please follow the link below;
https://picasaweb.google.com/102967361898215432541/IdiAndMaartjeSGoodByeParty

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