Just an update on volunteering so far. We have been in orientation for most of the time, so we haven’t actually started our placements. I ended up asking for a change in assignment. I felt really strongly that I wanted to have a different experience from Chris’ here at CCS. We will be volunteering together two days a week at Moshi Disability Network, and then Chris will be with the womens’ AIDS group and I will be working in an “informal school” called Kilimeheywa. They way it was described to me is “a school where students go that are hungry, desperately hungry for education”. These are mostly teens 12-18 year olds who are orphans or who come from extremely poor families that can not afford the public government schools. Uniforms, book costs, lunches and other expenses total about $250USD yearly and these kids are not able to go to school because of this. The school is run by volunteers and was started 1 year ago with 4 kids and a volunteer teacher under a tree. The school now has 50 - 70 students, and is in a house that was bought and renovated by a former CCS volunteer who went home from her placement and fundraised a donation. They teach math, english, biology, geography and civics.
…. taking a long time to get postings out as about 30 people are sharing a PC. We are now done our first days at our placements. All went well and we’ll have to give more detail tomorrow. Most of the group is going on safari this weekend so we will hopefully have some time to spend on the computer to write more.
Hope all is well and we are missing you all at home a lot.
xoxo
Paula
Paula i think a lot of people are away on holidays. I’m surprised there are not more comments, but keep up the good work. Love you , You will have a life time of memories
Vida
July 28th, 2007