Hello everyone! Thought it was about time I updated this blog haha. And seeing as I have plenty of time on my hands (thanks, self-isolation) I thought I’d better update you on my volunteer placement in Uganda. I only got back a couple of weeks ago, but it already seems a lifetime ago!
For those of you that are confused, at the beginning of February I headed out to Uganda with an organisation called Restless Development. Restless focus on youth empowerment, and work in a few countries around the world, I just happened to be placed in Uganda. I was on a programme called ICS (International Citizen Service). It is a 10-12 week long placement abroad for young people. You live in a host-home in a local community and basically are representatives for the organisation and work out there. Then when you get back from “placement”, you then complete a six month long Action at Home phase where you bring awareness of an issue to your local community. Funnily enough, this phase has been put on hold for a minute while we go through a casual global epidemic (eek) so more updates on that to follow!
But for now, let me update you on my first month in placement!
After some last minute hugs with the family at Heathrow, we flew out to Entebbe to our new home for the (supposed) next three months: Uganda! Our first week was spent in a town called Jinja where we received foundation training. This involved learning some of the practical skills that we taught to our community such as organic pesticide making and charcoal briquette making. We also did skill training such as finance management, cultural sensitivity and awareness and safety and security. And a run through a very comprehensive code of conduct haha. Then halfway through the week we got to find out our host homes! For us, there were about 45 UK volunteers and then a similar number of Ugandan in-country volunteers too. The Kayunga district is split up into four sub counties: Kangulamira, Nazigo, Kayunga and Kitimbwa. Some of the sub counties were bigger and had 27ish volunteers in total, whereas some of the other districts barely had half that. So really it was a lucky dip! I got placed into Kitimbwa, the poorest but also one of the newest sub counties to partner with Restless. My host home was me, Thalia (my UK counterpart) and Sharon (my Ugandan counterpart). I was over the moon with my subcounty, there was a fab mix of people I’d already made friends with but also people who I’d never spoken to before. The rest of foundation training was spent on team bonding skills and just recapping some of the key lessons from the week. Oh, and HIIT workouts and far too many games of cards on the roof haha. Then time to move to placement!
charcoal briquette making 
netball 
kitimbwa town 
kitimbwa team 
making friends in the village!
We piled into our buses and took the long old journey up to Kitimbwa. It was slightly bittersweet saying goodbye to my friends who weren’t in my sub county but I was also beyond excited to bond with my team. My sub county also happened to be the furthest away from Jinja, so it took around two hours to get there. Thalia, Sharon and I were first to get dropped off in a little town called Kyerima. On ICS, you call whoever you’re living with family names, so I had a host mum and dad, one host sister and two host brothers as well as all the local kids who seemed to have a second home at our house! Our host family were very welcoming, my host sister was especially excited to have some “mzungus” (white people…not offensive, don’t worry) to stay! I got lucky as another group of ICS volunteers lived right across the street from us, as well as a second group who lived a two minute walk away! This meant they were always hanging out at our house and some of my favourite memories from this trip were just playing cards at ours in the evenings!
Anyways, we settled into our host home that night and the next day the meet and greets began haha! We started off by meeting the local councilors and just introducing ourselves to the local shop owners. The next day, we visited the two schools that Thalia, Sharon and I would be working at for the next few weeks. Everyone was so welcoming and excited to have us there.
my host sister 
making more friends 🙂 
mosque behind our house 
thalia and I buying supplies!
The next few weeks were a bit of a blur, to be honest. We had two hours a week with each school so we tried to maximise our sessions with them. The core of the curriculum we were teaching was sexual and reproductive health sessions, so we covered everything from menstruation and puberty to gender roles and self-confidence. We taught classes aged between 10 and 15 years old, so the debates we held in class were interesting and showed how important good role models are for the children. It was really encouraging to see that all of the teachers in our classes were outspoken advocates for gender equality in particular, they were always first to correct the kids if they said that boys deserve more education than girls, or that a girl’s only role in life is to cook, clean and provide for her family. Over the four weeks that we worked with the schools, we built really good relationships with them and it was honestly quite sad to say goodbye to them earlier than planned.
Our youth groups unfortunately never really took off. Due to some logisitical planning errors on Restless’ behalf, we had to quit one youth group and by the time we’d got the second one up and running we then got, you know, casually evacuated out of the country haha. But at least we got to teach some basic entrepreneurial knowledge and also how to make exercise books, so hopefully some of the young people remember these skills and go onto make and sell their own books.
We held a community mobilisation event which was a raging success! We had nearly 150 people turn up and play football and netball and hear us talk about Restless and introduce ourselves to the community. Building relationships with the community was key to progressing and making an impact. And we all had a lot of fun!
Life in our host home was a relatively simple one: collect water from the borehole in the mornings, clean, plan and attend sessions. Then in the evenings, play with our host siblings and have the other ICS volunteers over for football or cards. Thalia, Sharon and I worked well together and they became like my second family! And it was always nice to talk to someone about the insane amounts of carbs we were consuming…who knew you could get bored of rice and potatoes?!
And that was February in a nutshell. There were lows, but there were many more highs. I think having spent three weeks in September in Tanzania meant I managed to have reduced culture shock, as I personally found them to be pretty similar countries in terms of cultural tendencies and food especially! I got on so well with my sub county, February was a fab first month!
Stay tuned for the next installment!
Love,
Charlotte x
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