Andy doing the conga with children at Sure24
We recently took a group of young people and team members from The Feel Good Bakery to Nakuru, Kenya to volunteer at Sure24 a children’s home and school for vulnerable children rescued from the streets. Whilst there the group worked hard leading a sports programme, drama workshops, creative workshops and practically by helping the development of the school facilities; sanding walls, painting classrooms and planting trees. Alongside this the group had to socially interact with the children and young people spending time with them after school making friends, and learning about each others lives and culture.
A few of the girls, Skye, Bailey and Amanni that came on the trip had some reflections about their experiences:
“Seeing how hard the Kenyans work – was a real eye opener. They really work “blood, sweat and tears”. They work so hard and get so little – but were still happy. They work hard as a community – and are so welcoming. They were brilliant dancers! I loved the church community, they had wonderful voices.– It was easier to be yourself in Kenya.”“One of the best days was the safari day. It was a good day to reflect on what we had done in the week, to understand what we had seen and experienced. Something they all agreed on was the development of their friendship –they had not known each other well before going.”
Some of the challenges the girls had faced – being out in heat, unable to get ‘cold’ drink of water to drink was difficult as we were not used to this.
“When we did the practical work it was hard to see any progress when sanding walls because it was so slow, but we realise there was no choice for the Kenyans as they had to do this to make their environment better, so we learnt to get on with it. We had to remember that we were there for a reason – and just had to get on with hard physical work in the heat, so we got to know what it felt like for the Kenyans. If we had to do this at home we might have given up!”
“The market visit was hard work – we found the sellers very intense as they were desperate to sell their goods. It was really clear they needed to sell things to feed themselves and provide for their families. This is a different experience for us we’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What impacted me the most was how socially rich they were and we seem socially poor”
Bailey having her hair one by some of the girls at sure 24
Big thanks to Lara, Teze, Wendy and Leo from Standard Chartered Bank ( below picture) – who fundraised so hard and made this amazing trip possible! It was brilliant they were able to travel from across the world to join us for the adventure as well!
