What a truly amazing 5 weeks I feel truly honoured to have led such a talented team on a wonderful volunteer experience.
Our training week was lot of fun learning all the games and understanding the ethos and methodologies behind World at Play. During this week I learnt so many new games and ways of working from the trainers but also my team mates. As leader I observed my team a lot and checked in with them but it was a beautiful thing to see the team get close and comfortable with each other very quickly through early morning swims, card games and little inside jokes forming. It was a great time to suss out everyone’s character, strengths and weaknesses and for me to take time to fully understand my role as leader. The last evening of training we went for a tasty meal at a stunning Indian restaurant in Kampala. This was great fun and lovely to see all the team sharing dishes, chatting and laughing. On the way home spirits were high and the team played the Ed Sheeran song Dancing in the Dark and the team all joined in singing (some x-factor talent amongst us), this truly was a special moment and I thought this team is going to be just fine together!
Our journey to Kamwenge and Club Afreka our home for the next 5 weeks was long but again the team chatted, slept and played games. We stopped for food and the team laughed and shared stories. On the Sunday we had a chilled day and spent the afternoon planning the first week of sessions and cooked dinner together.
The Monday morning we were all up early for our first day to travel to Rwamwanja, I felt the excitement, wonder and anxiety amongst the team of how our first day will go and what we will be met with. It felt reassuring having Eric and Oliver with us who had been involved last year and being able to ask them questions to help understand everything a little better. We all filled up on a hearty breakfast at Afreka, filled our water bottles and started our journey to Rwamwanja Refugee settlement as a strong and prepared team.
On our arrival we met with Finn Church Aid our partners for this project, we were introduced to Patience who would work alongside for the whole project and be our link with all the schools and other partners such as Save the Children and Caphas the manager of FCA in Rwamwanja. It was great that Patience had a timetable developed for the 6 weeks we were due to be there and had copies for all of our team and it had been sent out to all the schools. We did brief introductions and then Patience took us on a mini tour of some of Rwamwanja. We stopped at the vocational college where interviews where taking place for the biyearly enrolments of 250 students. I was truly impressed with the college, they had some interesting courses on offer including, tailoring, mechanics, ICT, sandal making, hairdressing and agriculture. The college was open to local Ugandans and refugees to apply. This gives these different nationalities and cultures a chance to meet understand and learn from each other. The students who successfully get a place study and learn their trade for 6 months and then our supported to find a job and maintain employment. As a youth worker I was so impressed and felt the UK could learn a lot from this model.
We then arrived at Baraka ECD at 10am and the session was due to end at 10.30am, as a team we quickly decided we would run the session for 45mins as that would still give us enough time to get to our second session at 11am. We requested 40 ECD children but ended up with the whole school of 104 children aged 2-6years. As a team we adapted quickly and spilt the team into 3 groups and ran a worthwhile and fairly good first session. When we were back in the van we all had a chat of how we felt, built each other’s spirits up and prepared ourselves for our next session. We moved onto Nkomo Primary and delivered again really good sessions for our first day. I remember that night doing our reviews after dinner and just thinking how incredibly proud I was of my team.
By the end of week 1 the team had grown so much, everyone had a chance to work and lead with each other but more importantly we were bringing joy, fun and learning to hundreds of kids and young people in Rwamwanja. The review sessions each night went well with the team learning from that day and adapting sessions to ensure we were delivering fun and educational sessions.
Over the next few weeks, we delivered so many amazing fun worthwhile sessions to thousands of children and young people. Each session started with everyone in a large circle, initially with Oliver leading songs and chants with the groups but as the days went on and we learned from each other and team member’s confidence grew everyone was leading the opening circles chants and songs and introducing new songs and chants. We even had the mzungos (Swahili for white person) leading the chants in Swahili.
We introduced so many new games and sports. I loved teaching the young people tag rugby and rounders. It was amazing see even over the space of even 30mins the young people becoming more aware of the game, the rules and strategies they should use to help them win. Group games helped teach the young people about team work, discipline and learning new skills.
It was amazing to see the young people’s confidence grow during sessions and the joy they experienced when it was their turn to be in the middle or have a turn and the excitement when they maybe succeeded.
Tug of War or as we liked to call it Tug of Strength was an amazing game to do with the older primary kids right through to vocational students. We always used this to end a session, we would split the group and encourage the two teams to come up with a team name and get them to chant it, as leaders we really encouraged heathy competition. We had some amazing team names such as Team No Sleep, Crocodile, Tiger, Lion, Wolves and my personal favourite Crazy team.
We usually did best out of 3 and tried to ensure teams were even, when either team won Tug Of strength it was amazing to see the jumps for joy, pure delight and the teams hugging and embracing one another. Even the vocational students who had been quite shy with one another when they won were jumping up and down, cheering and laughing with one another.
It is amazing to reflect and think of the friendships that have been built through World of Play sessions, young people building trust in one another, breaking down barriers and allowing these young people to be children have fun and enjoy playing with one another.
I have been lucky to volunteer all over the world but I can truly say this was the most amazing team I have ever worked with. We all complimented each other beautifully, the love, care and laughter we shared was phenomenal. We had so many inside jokes, we shared so many incredible memories and moments together I will cherish for the rest of my life. We truly were a happy family.
I think as a leader and volunteer the most special and almost indescribable memory is that feeling when as a team we got back on the van after delivering a perfect session. The buzz and energy is a feeling like no other, we would all be so hyped, laughing and telling each other about our session talking about special and funny moments, chatting about the kids in the group and all the different characters. It is truly a euphoric feeling and in that moment you understand that the work you are doing and the WAP model is truly magical and making a beautiful difference in children and young people’s lives who truly deserve it.
Holly, Team Leader