This week’s blog is from Olly, the winner of our Share Your Adventure blog competition. Read about Olly’s experience volunteering in Kenya at our partner school, St Trizah below…
I was incredibly excited about my trip to Kenya and practically could not sleep the night before; I knew it was going to be a great experience and could not wait to make an impact on some of the children’s lives, but nothing could have prepared me for how amazing it was. Everyone we met throughout the entirety of the trip was so incredibly welcoming and friendly towards us.
On the first day of volunteering, we were greeted by a show performed by the children, involving lots of singing and dancing that they had prepared for us. Our volunteering was at St Trizah’s school where some of the children boarded. The school was in the process of moving from an old site to a newer site so lots of our work involved making the new buildings suitable.
During our week volunteering, we dug and built a new toilet block, painted the inside and outside of the classrooms and taught the children, which was my favourite part. We got to work with a fantastic team while doing the building and painting, so it didn’t really feel like we were working as it was nice getting to know the team and joking around with them. Teaching the children was also an amazing experience; we split into groups of two or three and each took a class and taught a range of subjects including maths, biology and English. The children were all eager to learn and incredibly good at English for how young they all were.
We spent a lot of time getting to know the children which was the highlight of the entire trip. Over the week, we became more and more familiar with the children and built bonds with all of them. We did a range of activities with them such as football, cricket and blowing bubbles but their favourite had to be playing with the parachute.
After our week of volunteering, our activity adventure was a two-day safari in the Maasai Mara which was an incredible experience. The journey from our hotel to the safari was very long, but the incredible views along the way helped the time pass and it was easily worth it. During the safari itself, we were able to see four of the big five, as well as zebras, wildebeest, hippos and an alligator. Also, the views on the safari were phenomenal, especially during the sunset.
My favourite memory of the entire adventure has to be the final day when all lessons were put on hold and we were allowed to spend the whole day playing with the children, finishing the day with a performance from them. Overall, the entire experience was life-changing and everyone felt so disappointed to be going home, so much so that a few of us have decided to join the trip to Zanzibar in 2023 which I absolutely cannot wait for!