This Friday (25 August 2017) we’re taking a group of girls from The Shine Project to Zambia, Africa. It’s been a year in the making and we can’t quite believe it has come round so quickly! We’ll be heading to Kapiri Mposhi to help out at the Vinjeru Trust School.
Zambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing lots of challenges so it’s a great privilege to take the great community spirit of South Leeds over there and volunteer and get stuck into community life. As part of the work we’re doing over there we’re taking 120 reusable sanitary kits for girls in the local high schools through a project called Days for Girls. Check them out, they do amazing work and we’re exciting to be part of it!
We also wanted to say a big thank you to all those who have sponsored us and helped us hit our target of £10,000. Many people sponsored us on our big Yorkshire Three Peaks fundraiser, The White Rose Centre allowed us to do a fundraising day, a special thank you to the staff from Depuy who did a big fundraising challenge and donating generously to our target and also the Wades Charity who gave us a grant. The trip wouldn’t have been possible without lots of different parts of the community pulling together so thank you!
Before we head off we thought it was time you heard from the girls who are going on the trip…
“In just a few days, we’re going to Zambia after months of preparation. As a team of 5 young people, Casie Mawson,15, Chloe Dennison,15, Ellie Gawthorpe ,15, and Summer McCormack ,15 and Kaytlin Thompson, 19 we have been getting ready for a trip to Zambia with The Shine Project.
“We’ve had lots of things to do to make us ready such as: fundraising, research, shopping etc. The hardest thing for us all would be searching for clothes appropriate to wear and respectful towards African culture, the search has been very stressful for us all. Although we are all very nervous to go over to Africa, we are also very excited and unsure what to expect, but we are looking forward to meeting new people from different backgrounds and cultures to our own, and it will be a life changing experience for us, as we will be living differently whilst being over there.
“Another thing we’re looking forward to is spending 10 whole days with a great bunch of people! We feel most nervous about the flights, and not knowing what to expect, especially food wise, the food will be a challenge for us but it’s a challenge we’re all willing to handle.”
Watch this space for a full report on our return!
This post was written by Kate Alty using our Create an article for South Leeds Life page.
