At the second half of 2014, I was compiling our 2014 Annual Report which gave me a welcomed opportunity to look back on what we’d achieved as a Foundation in 2014. I came across a story from one of our Uganda Project volunteers Catherine Paglia in which she wrote, ‘We can’t feel guilty of being born somewhere, but I do feel guilty of taking more from this earth than I give back. I got given an education which is everything…
Unlocking Compassion through Experience ‘ Going on a volunteer trip like this means breaking away from your creature comforts. Everyone on this earth should do it and if you’re given the opportunity – run with it. For our agency, it was a positive move getting involved with the Foundation for this reason alone. We did a lot in fourteen days like visiting health clinics and schools to donate goods, assisting at an orphanage and building a house. I never thought…
Want to see what the Uganda Project is all about? Fifteen Year Old Moo Kain shares our incredible 14 day journey through her eyes.
We want to say thank you to all of those who got behind the 2014 Uganda Project and donated their time, money, goods and encouragement. With your support we distributed over 200kgs worth of clothes, school materials and hygiene kits to children in need, donated a term’s worth of porridge to 360 children in a rural village who frequently go without food, donated 12 desks to a school with minimal resources to enable 36 children a seat to learn and…
This is my third trip to Uganda with the Kain C+C Charitable Foundation: the inaugural trip in 2009, in 2010 and again this year in 2014. When this year’s trip began, I knew that much had been done over the last five years but I was interested in answering one simple question – what has actually been achieved? My initial attempts to answer this question did little more than confirm how long it has been since I last travelled to…
Much to our dismay…today was our final building day. We arrived on site armed with our man and lady trowels and regular coating of 30+. During the night scaffolding of shapes and sizes had been raised to allow us to polish off a few final high rows before lunchtime. We began the morning with our routine boot camp brick throwing exercise. A combination of core twists, bicep curls and brick burpies. This unfortunately resulted in the first minor injury on…
Sunday in Gulu is rest day. So we traded in the trowels for 7 village bicycles (rented from owners attending a church service). We discovered that a Gulu bike comes with optional extras; brakes, seats, power steering and sturdy gear structure. As Jano quickly figured out, she should have paid extra for inflated tyre tubes. Our tour guides for the day were fellow builders turned Gulu guides, Steven and Patrick who took us on a one-hour adventure around town. We…
To our great relief, we arrived on site today with our pride intact – no markers moved, thus no walls knocked down and politely rebuilt over night. We had passed our first test! With one day’s building under our belts (and the sort of confidence which only comes from the knowledge that one’s work had not been completely re-built overnight) the team developed some rythym and building proceeded apace. Whilst Jano picked up where she left the previous day, somehow smearing more…
Even the heavy, unseasonal overnight rain flooding the road East out of Gulu could not prevent our unproven team from embarking upon its first day on the tools today. Positions were quickly assumed: T-Hen, Nobbs, Percy and Jano on the Eastern wall; Jonty, Moo and Rosco on the Northern wall. By lunch time the more intricate and difficult Northern Wall was already two courses further advanced than the Eastern Wall. Our welcome lunch time break confirmed what we had long…
Today we had an 8 hour journey from Kampala to Gulu. We’d like to say a lot happened on the journey but unfortunately, we’d be stretching the truth. Then again, when you start to look around you and drink in the sights, the smells, the sounds, the visceral overload.. you find there is so much to take in. Here’s just a few casual observations…. It’s not uncommon to see two men and a goat on a scooter Outside Kampala there is space…