Testamonials

Volunteer at Help Africa.

Im from Denmark, 23 years old girl. I did volintering at Help Africa for 10 weeks. Here is my experience from the last 10 weeks.

My time as a volunteer at Help Africa has for me been a great experience.I chose to start with having four weeks set out from home, with the possibility of extending my work in Kampala. The work consisted of two different things, teaching at Kawuku Parent School but also work at Help Africa's office. After 4 weeks, I chose to be six weeks longer, with a few free days to experience a little more of Uganda.

I had to teach the children in P.5 and P.6, an age group between 10-14 years. In collaboration with school leaders at the school, I had to find out for myself what I wanted to teach in. The school would like to teach the kids to use laptops, so I suggested that I should have one day a week where I taught children in computer use. The school had been donated 5 laptops and those are the laptops I used during the lessons. I wanted to teach more than only once at week, so I was given another lesson a week. The lesson I could decide myself, but it had to be in English. In these lessons, I made some different projects with the kids. I taught for example in one project about "Happiness", where I played some songs and the students had to write poems and draw about them.

Every Saturday I went, along with Mariam and Christabel, to the school to have some time with children outside the classroom. These Saturdays created for me a really good relationship with all the children, as it was quite another thing to play games and talk to them instead of teaching them.

The work in the office in Kampala consisted mostly of updates of the website, as the Danish part of the site was not completely updated in relation to the English part of the website. I have also translated all the children's stories, so they are now able to read in Danish.

During my time in Uganda, I also visited the families who are supported by Help Africa. Most families I visited live in Katanga slum. It was really nice for me to see how their day was going. It was easier for me to work with the kids after I had seen where they came from and knew their background. The families were pleased to see me and I was offered a lot of different things to eat from them. They seemed very happy that I was there, which made ​​me feel welcome.

Uganda has well taken care of me and I am sure that I will return at some point. I am very grateful for all the staff from the Help Africa that has helped me. It has been a pleasure to work with Mariam and Christabel. If someone has any kind of questions about my stay in Uganda, then you are very welcome to contact me on my mail: sofievandborg@gmail.com. This of course also applies if you sit and consider becoming a volunteer.

Sofie Vandborg - November 2013

 

Drawings from the kids - Happiness

 

 

Birgit and Lejf Madsen - Having a sponsor kid

We are sponsors to a child in Helpafrica called Sebatuuka Alex, who is 16 years (I think). We started our sponsorship with him in December 2009. Kim Madsen asked if we would be sponsor family to Alex. The first time I got to know about his story, I got a very warm feeling in my heart and a little tear in my eye when I met him in Kampala May 2010. It was a fantastic moment to meet him. Sponsoring Alex has been a great experience because we have seen how much we can do for these poor kids and how grateful they are. Their smile. Alex is a very nice and polite. He is very clever about using laptops, mobile and things like that. He was a great help when I was in Uganda. He likes to play football, but has problems with his legs. He is doing well at School and is going to be a prefect. When he is not at School he lives at his Grandmother and she takes care of him. We have got a “new” son and that gives us a special feeling of responsibility, and a special relationship to Uganda. We feel that he is more comfortable with his life and now is a young man that has plans for his future.
We hope that we can help him to be successful in his life, to support and coach him in his plans. (Maybe a successful Forever Distributor too) if he wants.
 

 

 

 

Birgit and Lejf Madsen.
29th AUGUST 2012.