I'm assigned to a child development center attached to a Full Gospel Church. My site (hereafter known as "the project") is a Compassion International project. Compassion International, in case you didn't know or didn't want to click the link, is a child sponsorship program. They work internationally in many different countries pairing individuals, families and groups up with children in need. Compassion gives sponsored children school fees and birthday and Christmas gifts. Throughout the year sponsors may also decide to donate "family gifts" to children and their families. Compassion has really helped out many of our children and their sponsors have been great sending pictures, stickers, cards and "family gifts." We have a couple of the older youths who support themselves due to their parents dying and have been able to build houses for their siblings and themselves through Compassion's and their sponsor's support.
So a few pictures:
This is where I do some of my filing (in the next photo you can see the other filing cabinets where I do the rest of my filing). Since my counterpart left at the beginning of April, I'm now in charge of the children's folders, which basically just means updating them with school term reports, health reports, etc.
This is a good view of the desk I sit at (when I'm not filing). The little notebooks on top of the filing cabinets are what the children use to draft letters to their sponsors. They write four letters a year.
Well that's about it...
Oh! I almost forgot! I also "teach" several of the people at my organization computer-related stuff (I'm not a very good computer teacher). Right now we're trying to get the basics of doing math in excel. I've "taught" them adding, subtraction, multiplication and division. I attempted percentages, but yeah...fail. So in a couple weeks we're going to attempt percentages again. I'm also going to type up some exercises they can do to practice if they really want to.
The end.
5 comments:
where are the children you pair up with people? What about a youth club? Health meetings? Just independent stuff you do free of an organization
The children are scattered all over (theoretically within 3 kilometers from the project...but I think some are farther). I'm hoping to start some life-skills training (assertiveness, healthy relationships, self-esteem, HIV/AIDS/STD awareness and prevention) in a few weeks. I thought of maybe starting a debate club, but I don't have ANY experience with debate clubs...so I'm keeping an eye out for that info!
Hi there - I randomly came across your blog while googling weather in Uganda. haha.... you have a really interesting blog.
I sponsor a child through Compassion in Uganda. What's it like working with COmpassion there?
My kid is suppose to be in a village that is 21km south of Bushenyi. That wouldn't be anywhere near you by any chance, would it? Just curious.
Cheers,
John
Hi-
Fellow PCV in Botswana here, looking to visit Uganda in July 2010. Having a lot of trouble booking gorilla tracking at Bwindi - government tourism booking people and tour groups not returning my emails. Any hints? Anything is much appreciated.
Like your blog too, and I feel your pain of being stared at nonstop. All you can do is smile and give a thumbs up!
Best,
Patrick
pgallagher1 at gmail dot com
John - Bushenyi is on the other side of the country from me! Compassion is ok. I'm not really doing much right now since it's mostly a lot of paperwork that the staff does during the day.
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