What we will be doing in Mityana…

In most places everyone in the family has to collect water. Sometimes up it’s 2 or 3 miles to the well or river and they bring the water back in 20 litre jerry cans. To really experience what it’s like to carry a jerry can full of water we will ‘have a go’ at Mityana Secondary School when we join the school for the day and find out what it’s like for our peers.

Bryony’s trip in 2008

We will experience a typical school day, different classes, subjects, daily routine, accommodation, sharing problems & possibilities with our peers. We’ll join them for lunch, assembly and have a lesson in Lugandan. We will also see what a lesson about agriculture involves and spend time comparing notes.

From Mityana Secondary we will walk across to the Junior school and take part in some of their lessons.

We will also visit Affinet – where they teach girls to cook, use a treadle sewing machine and boys to do carpentry. This training gives these young people the opportunity to raise an income back in their villages. We’ll also spend a day at Namutamba hospital. It’s run by two German physios and we will spend a day there learning about what they do. How children return home with injuries mended, broken limbs strong & healthy and wheel chairs abandoned. Burns are healed after painstaking care & love has been shown not only to the children but their parents too.

There’ll also be time to visit the orphanage, a rural school, the hospital and talk to people there, gaining insights into third world issues but also learning about what they have to teach us.

The school we are supporting through our youth groups here in St Mary Bourne is called Ziira. There are no school buildings as such….They are taught under a huge mango tree or in make-shift classrooms.

Bryony’s trip in Mityana 2

The St Mary Bourne 08 team have so far raised £3000. We are hoping to double that by the end of 2010. And the great news is that the walls are now up to the top of the windows. We would really appreciate your help.

This is a unique opportunity for us and we are aware that it’s a chance in a life time trip. Here’s what a few learnt after the 2008 visit: “that I am able to communicate with people I barely know”, “to keep an open mind about things”, “that giving even the smallest thing can make someone happy”, “that I have way more to give in life and how much I need to assess my life” and “at first I was completely overwhelmed” –“ I found I would often think about things at night, but it also helped to talk in our journal sessions.”