Volunteering. Placement Nakuru, Kenya. Summer 2009. Rebecca Hutchinson, Leven School

Background

The idea of travelling to Africa had appealed to me for a number of years and for a variety of reasons. Firstly, a colleague of mine had been to many different countries along the continent’s east coast and had always talked very enthusiastically about it and stating that she ‘loved’ Africa. Last year she had also visited Kenya and despite the bad publicity the country had at the time because of the riots, she had had a very pleasant trip. Secondly, as keen athletics supporter and seeing the dominance of Kenya’s runners over the middle and long distance events I became more interested in visiting this country and learning more about it’s people. Lastly and by no means least having been a Primary School Teacher for the last fifteen years, one of the days on the calendar that I enjoy especially, is the day that is biannually given over to Comic Relief and more recently to Sports Relief. It has always been a great day in school where, as well as dressing up in ‘red’ or trying to ‘look good in a bin-liner!’ running the equivalent of a mile around the school field; I have been able to spend time with the children in my class learning, interactively, about children of similar ages living in different parts of Africa, their schooling, family, hobbies etc. This has always been followed by a superb evening of entertaining and informative television. I, like the celebrities was eager to meet these people myself; I wanted to get to know them a little better as well as visiting their fascinating continent.

Despite all this desire that I had for wanting to visit Africa; it wasn’t an easy decision to make. I had seen an advert in the NUT magazine in September 2008 which advertised ‘meaningful travel’ and had decided to investigate further. After much deliberation, discussion and weighing things up in my mind I finally booked my flights and paid my deposit in March 2009.

The company that I used to book my experience were i-to-i life changing travel, the company I had seen advertised in the NUT magazine. They are a company that specializes in volunteer travel. i-to-i . Deciding which country I wanted to visit was not hard, I needed help to know where in Kenya? I think I would have had an interesting time wherever I went and had no preferences. The i-to-i website has a questionnaire for its customers to complete in order to scale down your choices to a select few on a ‘best fit’ basis and then information is given about each of the various placements, after that it is up to you. My choice was influenced to some extent by flights and other travel plans, so Mombassa, for example, was not an option for me this time.

I selected to be placed working with children in Nakuru. Nakuru is Kenya’s fourth largest town 1850 metres above sea level, home to Lake Nakuru in the Rift Valley Area of Kenya. I was placed at the Filadelphia, New Life Africa International, a church, a school, an orphanage and a crisis centre founded in 1669 by Pastor Ford who still resides and works there to this day. The compound provides an education to 509 children from the local slum area of Langa-Langa with 90 children living there.