Blog courtesy of Dayle W. Photos from Natalie B.
Hello there! We are now back in the city of Kabale after an enriching
week working with the Edirisa UK Special Needs Education Centre
(SNEC)! Edirisa UK is a charity in the UK with a community based
organization in Uganda. The four main areas they focus development in
are education, clean water, health and sanitation, and sustainable
development. They have many projects, but we spent our time with SNEC.
SNEC is a home to almost 60 children with numerous disabilities and
other learning needs. As well as housing for these children there are
also volunteer houses, a health shack, and a primary school.
We spent our days switching between working with the children or
working in the garden. We split into two groups: Gwen, Sarah, Eric, &
Gus in one, and Matt, Kristian, Chris, Natalie, Nikolle and
myself (Dayle) in the other. Each group rotated between either working
with the children or gardening from 9:00-1:00 and then vice versa from
3:00-4:30.
Along with our service work we also got the opportunity to cook all of
our own meals for the duration of our time at SNEC. Before we came our
cooking superstar Nikolle came up with an entire meal plan and
shopping list for all of our meals!
Being able to live on the property of SNEC was such an incredible
experience. We all got to live in a mattress lined classroom right
next to the classes we worked in. We would wake up in the morning to
the kids laughing, talking, and even running down the hill to greet
us.
Disabilities varied greatly here, but one of the main disabilities was
being deaf. It definitely stretched all of our comfort zones working
with these children, and at the same time we had so many great
interactions with these children through facial expressions and hand
gestures. I know Nikolle and I had a fun time using our minimal sign
language knowledge (both of us know the alphabet!)
The biggest thing we were able to do during our week was purely play
with the children. It did not matter the we had minimal language
communication. Gus and Eric were still able to use their soccer
skills, Chris was able to play crazy games of tag, Sarah was able to
teach math, we were able to teach drawing and Kristian was able to
practically adopt an adorable baby girl.
We all had such a rewarding time at SNEC, Natalie even said yesterday
she wished we did not have to leave.
Next is the canoe trek and then we are off to Rwanda! Less than a
month left until we will be able to share all these stories with you
all face to face!
