A Good Problem to Have: Expanding our School in Uganda

Our small little school is having some problems: It is proving too popular and too successful!

Our students are graduating from our preschool into primary education and by all accounts are doing extremely well.

As a result, more parents are wanting to bring their kids to our preschool so that they have the springboard necessary for launching into the public system. Our school roll was 16 students but this has ballooned all the way out to 53.

So we are expanding! Two additional classrooms and being constructed as this article goes live. Our newly appointed teacher’s assistant Jane Namataka will help teach the additional students.

Stay tuned for more updates! 

 

Meaningful Volunteer Welcomes Jane Namukuta to our Ugandan Team

Meaningful Volunteer is delighted to welcome Jane Namukuta to our Ugandan team.

Jane will be an assistant teacher to Esther Nabukonde in our School for Andy.

Jane has always been a dedicated supporter of our efforts in Uganda and often volunteered her time freely to help on various projects.  With our upcoming expansion efforts, Jane seem liked an obvious candidate to move into a formal staff role.

Jane lives her mother Edith and extended family and hopes to complete her Public Administration course in the near future.

 

Partnership with Educate a Child

Meaningful Volunteer is delighted to announce a partnership with Educate a Child. 

Educate A Child, is a non-profit organization that started in May 2009 in Seoul, Korea.  Educate A Child (EAC) has a mission to help children in impoverished areas in the Philippines attend school.  

EAC does outreach work to find children in the surrounding communities who want to continue studying but have been forced to stop due to lack of money.  EAC also identifies current students whose families are in financial difficulty and at risk of dropping out of school for financial reasons. 

EAC and Meaningful Volunteer will be pulling resources to help people in the Philippines, Uganda and Nepal.

Stay tuned for further updates about this partnership. 

 

Devastation in Nepal

earthquake.jpg

A massive earthquake has devastated Nepal.  The death toll has risen over 3000 with Kathmandu hitting especially hard.

Thankfully, our staff and students are all safe.  They all know someone who has been affected though.  Everyone in Nepal is hurting right now.

We have partners that we know and trust in Nepal.  We know that they will do what it needed right now.

You can donate to one of these partners by following this link.

Any help you can give would be great.

Namaste

 

New Classroom in Uganda

Where we came from

In September of 2011, Meaningful Volunteer completed the construction of a solar powered school in the small Ugandan village of Buyaya. The school was built to honor Andy Manley who died tragically in a house explosion.

The school acts as preschool primarily and also offers computer and English literacy classes to older students.

Since completion of the school we have: 

  • Added a rain-fed water system 
  • Flattened out some land to provide a playground for the students 
  • Constructed a guest house for volunteers and staff 
  • Started numerous livelihood projects such as briquette making and tailoring 
  • Seen numerous students graduate and move onto school elsewhere 
  • Served countless meals to hungry children

Where we are going

The school has been very successful. The locals love the school and the educational boost that it is giving its children. 

Now we are experiencing growing pains. More children want to attend the school than we can provide. So we have made the decision to add another classroom. 

The local community has offered to provide the labor free of charge and we only need to raise money for the building materials. 

This will amount to $US 2,000. We hope you can help us with this endeavour and help us to continue to make a meaningful impact in Uganda. 

 

Remembering Andy Manley

Andy Manley died tragically in a house explosion in 2010.  Andy was a great supported of Meaningful Volunteer.  We have built two schools in his honor.  One in Uganda and one in Nepal.

Our school in Nepal held a puja in Andy's honor.  A puja is a type of prayer that can be used for many purposes.  

In this case the puja was to bless Andy and to guide his mind to a higher state of rebirth and liberation.

You can see more pictures from the Puja below

A Thousand Mile Football Tournament

Article 24 of the Declaration of Human Rights states that:

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure [...].

This basic right is often denied to young children.  They often work long hours on the farm, or caring for younger siblings, and they don't get a chance to play and just be kids.

Kate Nicholls set up to change this by biking for a thousand miles across the United Kingdom.

Kate raised over a thousand dollars to provide the School for Andy in Uganda with:

A flat section of land to build a proper football pitch

  • Soccer goal posts
  • Boots and kits
  • A ball bank

Kate raised over one thousand U.S. dollars and this will be more than enough to cover the costs.

The biggest challenge will be to flatten out some land.  This is trickier than it sounds as the school resides on the slopes of Mt. Elgon.  

Construction will begin once the rainy season ends.

The children were so excited about their upcoming pitch that it was decided to have a football in anticipation. Check out pictures from the tournament below. 

   

A Thousand Mile Bike Ride for the Right to Play

Former Volunteer Kate Nicholls is doing something truly amazing. She is biking over a thousand miles to give kids in Uganda the Right to Play!

Kate plans to raiser over $1,000.  You can donate to her ride here.  There are some great perks you can claim as well.

From Kate:

On the 24th July I will be starting my attempt to bike a thousand miles spanning the UK, from the furthest southern point in England- Lands End to the furthest northern point-John O' Groats in Scotland.   Check out my proposed route here.

I am doing this to try and give children in Uganda the Right to Play!

I volunteered in Uganda in 2011 where I helped to build a solar powered school.  The kids we worked with and got to know were just awesome, but their days seemed to change little between back breaking labor, collecting water, tilling the land, and well... not much else!

I helped organise a football (soccer)  tournament when I was over there and they just loved it! It was great that they got a chance to be kids and have fun, what all children have a right to do. With your help I now want to take it to the next level.

Here is the plan:

  • Flatten out a section of land at the solar powered school for the children to play on.
     
  • Install goal posts.
     
  • Set up a Ball Bank
    A crate of footballing equipment (balls, cones, bibs and whistles) which the school can use and also sign out to local schools. 


 

Some Volunteer Testimonies

Volunteers are the lifeblood of Meaningful Volunteer and we love them so much!

Here are a couple of testimonies from some recent volunteers.  Feel free to contact us if you want to talk to them directly.

“Before coming to Nepal my life experience was stagnant it seemed. I had a wonderful job, friends, and activities yet felt unfulfilled. There was something missing, and at the time I didn't know what it was. 

Now that I have been here four months, through Meaningful Volunteer, I can tell you that it was exploration, community, and unconditional love. The people in Rithepani as well as Women's Skills Development Organization have treated me with the utmost respect and offer a sense of belonging I had never felt. The culture is oneness. They call people not by their name, but by their relation; brother, sister, son, daughter, and so on. 

To share in this experience with other volunteers has made it even more rich. We have all expressed how inspired and loved we felt. I am forever grateful and will always cherish the smiles and laughs, as well as the lessons learned. My advice is to stay open and say yes, you never what where the road will lead. 

If you are interested in seeing the world, and gaining a new perspective on life, this is an experience I would not pass up. Besides Rithepani, which has immense beauty (Himalayan range, rivers, waterfalls, agriculture, wildlife, foliage) there are infinite possibilities to explore. Kathmandu (Swayamboudhanath, Pahupatinath, Patan, Boudhanath, Garden of Dreams, Thamel), Pokhara (Devi's Falls, Gupteshwor/Mahendra/Chamera Caves, Sarangkot, Matepani/Yamdi Monasteries, Phewa/Begnas Lake). And if you are wanting to go to Lumbini (birthplace of Buddha) I highly recommend that or trekking through the Himalayas. 

Best wishes.”

Russell Vargo
“The month I spent in Rithepani, Nepal was an incredible experience. The people of the village are generous and kind. When it came time to leave I realized how connected I felt with so many people. I couldn't tell anyone how I felt but somehow we all seemed to connect. I knew nothing about the culture before I arrived and I am still pondering the experience I had, immersed in a small village, but not far from the tourist area of Pokhara, where we could escape to for a real cup of coffee.

The environment around Rithepani is amazing. I had never seen land like this. There is a river that carved a canyon through the valley and the village sits at the edge of the upper edge of this canyon looking across the valley. The first few days we were overcast because we were at the end of monsoon season. One day a snow covered rock appeared sitting on a cloud. As the clouds cleared the entire horizon filled with the Himalaya mountains. It looks like you could just walk over to them, but they are three days drive away. They are so immense they are hard to comprehend. They are just there, and beautiful.

My host family were very concerned with my welfare, and I felt no threat or concern with my personal safety from anyone in the community. It took a while for some members of the community to ask questions. Considering I didn't speak their language I was surprised that I connected with as many people as I did and I was impressed with how many spoke some English, enough to have some meaningful exchanges.

Living with a family in their home was a new experience for me. I really had no idea what to expect. I found out we eat Dal Baht and was surprised at the variety I was served. I was always served meals first and it was strange for me to have to be ready for my meals on time so the family could eat on time. I learned how to use a squat toilet. I didn't think about it before I got there but it was the first question I was asked, if I had any problem using one. I learned. I wasn't able to communicate all that I wished to, but I was able to accept things like being served toast in the morning even though I really didn't want it. I had a room to myself with a lock on the door, and felt the lock protected the family from me accusing someone of theft more than it protected me from any theft.

I think the community was very curious about this American walking around with his camera. I felt that there was very little time that I spent alone, even when I was alone. The music from the speaker at the temple is still playing in my head. I still have more stories to to learn. I am still reviewing the video and photos I shot and someday soon there will be a story about my experience in Rithepani.”

David Evans


 

German Volunteers Working Hard in Uganda

Two German brothers decided to dedicate two months of their lives to helping the villagers of Buyaya, Uganda.

Johannes and Thomas Reinhart, both from Großrinderfeld Germany, are currently on site in Uganda and working very hard.

They are helping with the harvest, doing some maintenance on the school buildings, and helping to run classes in the school.

Click here to see more pictures of the great work they are doing.

Keep up the great work guys!