UHST Blog

The Trust
Home
Becoming a supporter
Grant-making policy
Contact/Trustees
Humanism

School Needs
Community setting
Supporting children
School resources
2010 Appeal

Uganda Humanist Schools Association
Aims
Constitution
Contact

The Schools
Humanist Academy
Visit Report Nov 09
Visit Report July 09

Isaac Newton High
Visit Report Nov 09

Mustard Seed

International Friendship Week

July 4th to 9th, 2010

Dear Supporter

A number of our supporters have enquired about the possibility of visiting one or more of the Humanist Schools in Uganda.

We have discussed this with the schools through the Uganda Humanist Schools Association and they are very keen to host visitors as part of an annual"International Friendship Week". We piloted the first Friendship Week (See )in November 2009, and it proved to be a great success.

The idea for the next one in July 2010 is for those interested to make their own way to Uganda and meet at the same Hotel in Kampala, where there will be some introductory talks about Humanism in Uganda and about the schools. The group will move to a hotel near the schools on Sunday. Visitors will have an opportunity to contribute to or lead activities - according to your personal interests and talents.

The schools favour participatory activities which give students an opportunity to listen to, practice and improve their spoken English and to learn other skills. The sorts of things we envisage include short illustrated talks on topics of interest and a range of supporting activities, such as discussion groups, debates, music, arts, drama and sports. One idea that has already been proposed for June 2010 is for the visitors to help the students to create a school newspaper, and/or radio or video diary. There will also be an opportunity to discuss the work and needs of the schools with students and staff.

It is clearly a long way to go for a week so we expect people may want to combine the trip with a wild life safari. One possibility is to share an escorted safari, of which numerous are offered by reputable travel organisations. Or you could, if you prefer do your own touring, either before or after the school week. There may also be the possibility of staying on in one of the schools to help out.

You will need to arrange your own travel insurance and flights.

Initial enquiries show that cheapest flights at that time of the year are around £550, e.g. Manchester-Amsterdam-Entebbe with KLM.

A 6-day safari costs around 1200-2000 US Dollars, depending where you go and the standard of accommodation you choose.

Hotel accommodation is around £20 per night. We are willing to make reservations for the "International Friendship Week", but ask you to pay for the hotels yourself. You will need to make your own reservations for outside this period - we can provide booking details for the hotels we are using. We will not be able to handle any money ourselves and Uganda Humanist Schools Trust should not be seen as the trip organisers, so we cannot accept any liability should anything go wrong.

The schools are willing to organise minibus transport and daily lunches with local food, shared with staff and students. You will need to pay the schools for this directly at the start of the week. A donation to the schools of £200 should enable them to cover these costs and, if you would like to make a further small donation to help the schools, it would be very welcome.

Participating in the Friendship Week activities will give you a good insight into rural schooling in Uganda and a feel for their development and funding needs. The students will benefit from having an opportunity to speak with first language English speakers.

It will be an amazing experience.

If you are interested please get in touch with us.

We will prepare a briefing sheet on the trip once we know the level of interest.

There may be a question of numbers. As the schools propose to hire minibuses for the week, then it would be useful to have either 10 or 20 participants, and we may need to operate a waiting list until we reach the even 10s.

Best wishes

Steve Hurd
01782 750338
info@ugandahumanistschoolstrust.org