A group of eleven students and three staffers from a Yorkshire high school will soon embark on a volunteering trip to Uganda, in Africa, thanks to the help of a school travel service and East African Playgrounds, a Ugandan charity that builds playing spaces for children within the country.
During this trip, the students – who all attend Calder High School – will have the opportunity of helping members of the charity in the construction of some of the thirteen play areas East African Playgrounds builds each month. In this effort, they will be aided by some of the local adults EAP trains to become welders and builders, then employs in the service of their cause.
To be able to cover the expenses inherent to this trip, the Calder High students engaged in a series of fundraising activities. Chief amongst them was a car wash service, for which the students charged £5. A bake sale complemented this initiative, with both events being sponsored by the local branch of a travel agency and school travel service.
The director of said agency stated that it was the students themselves who came to him with ideas about how to raise money so they could take advantage of this opportunity. The sixth-formers’ ideas were deemed ‘brilliant’ by the head official, who also declared himself delighted with his agency’s partnership with Calder High School.
African volunteering programmes are among the most popular exchange options for school and university-aged students nowadays. The opportunity to enjoy a different sort of life experience while helping a worthy cause seems to appeal to many young people, which has led a number of agencies offering school tours to add this sort of option to their portfolio. Calder High School’s programme is only one of many taking place across schools around the world.
About Equity School Travel:
Equity School Travel offers educational trips worldwide, with a wide variety of subject matters.Find them at http://www.equityschooltravel.co.uk/
Contact Details:
One Jubilee Street
Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 1GE
0044 (0) 1273 648 248
tours@equity.co.uk