An Adventure to Remember

It has been an incredible ten days. From restorative time spent on the beautiful tropical beach to sweating buckets whilst teaching in classroom – the whole adventure has been one to remember.

Every Global Expedition team is different, depending on the purpose of the mission and the skill set of the individuals in the team. Some trips are more aimed at education because of the expertise within the group and others are around manual labour to make improvements to the home/school.

During this particular trip we were privileged to have a mixed group of people and skills, from media to medicine, Karine, a lovely GP from Scotland came and got stuck in with teaching Biology at the school as well as completing health checks on as many of the children as she possibly could. In addition she ran sexual health talk and first aid training sessions for the young people and staff respectively. A few months ago, a local company gave us some brand new underwear. We took this with us to Sierra Leone and enjoyed giving this to the girls after their talk about growing into ladies. They were so thrilled with their brand new undies.

While we were at Heaven Homes we spent quite a lot of time supporting the school. Morag led some teacher training sessions on topics the staff requested and Neil carried out 3 days of Rubbish Science workshops, using water bottles to create fly traps and nurture seedlings. 

Whilst in the country we had the amazing opportunity to meet with the Minister of Education and tell him all about the Rubbish Science project. Hopefully this will lead to a wider teacher training session during their national INSET next year.

The entire collection of experiments and observations is designed to create a new way of thinking, not saying what you think is the correct answer but encouraging scientific reasoning and further questioning, fair testing and gaining evidence. After three days, the class was really beginning to get the hang of this.

Things at the homes are stable and the living environment is new and improved. During our visit, Eco Bank carried out some renovation work on the homes, laying a beautiful tiled floor and decorating them to feel more homely. As part of their nationwide CSR they also upgraded the communal kitchen, given the aunties running water and a raised fire pit stove. The place is looking lovely and we were so happy to be there for the grand opening to say few words of thanks.

As well as improving the homes, Eco Bank made improvements to the school library which has added value to the learning environment in multiple ways.

Each time we visit, we see small improvements and this is so encouraging. Our next aim is to fund a feeding program for the children at the school to ensure they have one meal each day. So many of the children from the community come to school hungry each day and this would certainly help. If you would like to contribute to this project, please consider becoming part of our Keep a Child family by giving a small contribution each month. We don’t specify how much you should donate but we do hold this philosophy that is everyone contributes a small amount, together we can make a big difference.

I’m looking forward to returning in April with a completely new team. This time my plan is to encourage creativity and teach some brand new skills. I’d like to give the children the best chance possible to succeed, whether they are academic or looking for more vocational skills. I’m taking my jewellery making knowledge to share with them as well as singing, drama and any other skills we can offer as a team. If you’d like to join the team, get your application in as quick as possible as there is still space.