Team Uganda! A volunteer’s perspective.

Student experience 8th October 2019

Second year Environmental Science student Emma Bishop told us about her experience volunteering in Uganda during the summer of 2019.

Community discussion

This summer I was lucky enough to be part of Team Uganda 2019. It is a 4 week project based in a town called Jinja, in Uganda, working with the charity S.A.L.V.E International (Support And Love Via Education). This is a small charity that works to resettle street connected children, but maintains education at the heart of their work. During our time in Uganda we were separated into three teams, all with a different focus; climate change, drugs and gender. I was involved in the climate change team, due to my background in Environmental Science and we were given the focus question ‘how can we reduce the problem of littering in the community’.

Firstly, the project included 1 week in the ‘holiday camp’, where we were able to meet and do activities with the children that S.A.L.V.E works with. It was shocking to hear some of the stories of these children, as it to put it simply, it is illegal to be homeless in Uganda.

The focus then shifted to our actual projects, we had two days to collect our research, which involved questioning the members of the communities we were working in; Nakabango and Namulesa. We then had to collate the information which highlighted how much of an issue waste management is in these communities (a large scale problem as there is no waste collection, so all rubbish is burned in people’s back gardens) and plan our community discussion, which was set up to allow members of the community to discuss and present their ideas to us. Next, we were able to plan our actual project, including budgeting how much it would cost.

Community clean up in the community of Namulesa

After-school club at Nakabango High School

The idea we presented was to set up an after school club in the local high school, where we could then take the children out to carry out a ‘community clean up’. This was a huge success, as we were able to both educate the children on the dangers of littering and also encouraged them to take a more active role in caring for their environment. Despite being told it was impossible due to the lack of Government funding, we were able to organise the rubbish picked up from the streets to be collected and recycled with a company called ‘Waste to Green’. They also suggested making it a monthly thing, so alongside our Ugandan volunteer Uthuman, the after-school club and litter pick will continue to run, even though Team Uganda has finished.

The whole experience was a massive eye-opener for me and I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate. I would recommend anyone to apply for volunteer projects within University, as in addition to everything else it really helped me put my course into practice and understand the usefulness of my degree.

The work S.A.L.V.E does is invaluable and for more information on their what they do please have a look at their website https://www.salveinternational.org/salve-explained/what-we-do/.
Team Uganda 2019 – it was a blast!

-Emma Bishop (2nd year Environmental Science)

You can find out more about volunteering with Team Uganda as a University of Manchester student here.

Read the Team Uganda blog here.

climate changelitteringmake a differenceSALVESALVE internationalTeam Ugandaundergraduatevolunteervolunteeringwaste managementWaste to Green