The terrible hardships we suffered as a group while stranded by the volcanic ash cloud (remember that) in Entebbe, Uganda, last April are still etched on our combined consciousness....day after day after day of golf, food, barbecues, beach visits, shopping, drink, reading, meeting and enjoying time with the local people, sleeping, laughing and playing games including one called 'mafia'...well, we bore it well and have survived, more or less unscarred emotionally.
Don't worry! NO Redearth money was spent and fortunately, BA have been refunding the additional expense we incurred.
On out return, we had to get down to the urgent business of fundraising to pay for the training we would be doing in July/August, back in Masindi.
A number of our supporters, Pauline, Sylvia, Beth, Suresh, Claire to name a few, moved mountains in persuading people to either ride in the 100km London to Oxford Bike Ride for sponsorship or donate.
We had a wonderful day, raising a record sum for us, over £6,000 towards the costs of running Redearth. FANTASTIC!
Lynne suffered 4 punctures as she muttered darkly across the hills and dales of the Chilterns. Cleverly, she always contrived to get one of these punctures at the foot of a very long, steep hill. The recovery vehicle would collect her and her bike, and take her to the repair mechanic where she rested and sipped her drink while watching the mechanic work.
Three of our group were so engrossed in the event that they did not notice that the other 7000 riders went one way while they chose a different, more personal route. They must have ridden 25 km more than everyone else....but they finished together. Catherine was so relieved on reaching the end of the ride, she burst into tears of disbelief, obviously having believed she would never see her family again
Over the past months, we have also approached schools, universities, Rotary, businesses and others. Some of these have an interest in wanting the education standards and life chances of children in the developing world to get better, hopefully helping those communities to gradually become independent of aid, prosperous in their own right. We are very grateful for the support we receive and hope it will continue.
The only valid doorway out of poverty is education.
We returned to Masindi for a month in July/August to train the new cohort of 18 teachers. We also visited, monitored and fed back to the previous cohort who ended their year with 2 further days of training delivered by Mark and Caroline.
From there we returned to Kampala where we delivered 3 days of training to a local NGO, Ka Tutandike ('Let's get started' in the local language) on Reading for Pleasure. They had asked us to prepare and write a course that addressed this issue in Kampala schools. Psrt of the training was demonstrating how most of the learing aids that are needed in schools do not need to be bought, but can be made out of locally found materials for very little, if any, cost. We trained a combination of the community, teachers and children from the schools whose teachers were trained.
It went well and was very well received by the NGO and the local chief inspector of schools. We have been asked to return to do more.Now we are preparing for a fundraising event that we hope to combine with 'mufti-days' in schools. With the support of head teachers, the children and their families, we hope to replenish our funds in preparation for the continuing work of Redearth Education in Masindi.
Before long, it will again be time to cajole our supporters to once again burnish their bicycle clips to join us on the open road to Oxford through the lovely English countryside
