2022/2023 winners reports

 

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Katie Bell - Malawi

 

I volunteered in Blantyre, Malawi in a primary school for a year from September 2023 – August 2024. Read below about my experience!

As a 2-week-old baby, I flew to Malawi with my family and lived there for three years. I had always been eager to return, so after finishing school I took the opportunity to go back to Malawi with the charity Project Trust. Project Trust is a Scottish charity which has been
sending volunteers abroad since 1967 to various placements.

September 8th marks the day I left cold Glasgow to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. I flew to London to meet the other seven volunteers, and we then set off to Ethiopia and onwards to Malawi. There was a mixture of excitement, apprehension, and nerves as we were all unsure of what to expect. We arrived at Chileka airport and were surprised by the size of the airport as it was so small, then on the bus we drove to Blantyre in complete silence as we absorbed the bustling markets, vibrant colours, scorching heat and the sheer chaos of Malawian life. The reality had hit us that after a year of fundraising and preparing we were now actually here and there was no going back…

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The next day Mrs. Chirwa came to collect me and my partner to go to our new home in an area called Namiwawa. For the first three months I lived with a host family, the mother was called Lillian Chirwa and her husband Winston Chirwa together they had three children who were all in their twenties as well as many noisy chickens and a dog Zena.


Below is a picture of the room we lived in:

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As you can see, we made a tent with a mosquito net, and a fan placed between us to combat the unbearable heat of the hot season which would reach close to forty degrees most days. The heat, combined with mosquitoes constantly eating you and singing in your ears and the occasional sound of gun shots made it quite an interesting set up, however all part of the fun! The experience of living with the Chirwas was an amazing start to the year as I had the support of a kind family to ease to me in. I ate typical Malawian food each day – Nsima (a maize porridge), chicken, beans, and vegetables - which I miss very much now. I learnt the geography of Blantyre and how to navigate my way around the town to places like the school, the markets and where the other volunteers were staying. I became familiar with the word “mzungu” (which meant white person) and began haggling for everything as I was charged mzungu price. I got to know with the way of life while living there, from how to shout down a minibus and began to learn how to speak to people in Chichewa. I was able to get to know the family and discovered where their home village was in Malawi and how Mrs. Chiwa started Sparrows Primary School and had been the director of the school for many years. She made me familiar with the education system in Malawi and I discovered that although there was primary school education available to all children, very few children moved into secondary school or even university as there were major hurdles to overcome and also because most families could not afford to pay for it. Below are some photos of my time spent with the Chirwa family:

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In December, my partner and I moved into our accomodation place for the remaining 9 months. This was nice as we had some more freedom like cooking for ourselves and space. There were the fairly regular power and water cuts, however I got used to them and tried to always have a head torch and a tub of water at the ready!

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The school I volunteered at was called Sparrows Nest Primary School and it consisted of a nursery section then a primary section of seven grades. The school was located on the most beautiful campus just below Soche mountain, so I was able to enjoy a breath-taking views every day. There was a lady outside the school selling mandasis (a fried Malawian pastry) for 100 kwacha or 10p, so I had a fantastic set up! To get to school I woke up at 5:30am and then walked twenty minutes over a field (seen to the right) to the main road which was where I boarded the school bus. The walk was quite entertaining during rainy season as it made crossing the river very challenging, balancing on a precarious wooden bridge! The school was called a private school, this was different to a standard UK private school and it meant the parents were expected to pay a small sum each year to support the school for materials like books.

I taught grade 3 and grade 4 at Sparrows; in grade 3 there were 25 children and some real characters in this class! The age ranged from seven to ten years old. I taught grade 3 maths throughout the year as well as doing part time maths tutoring with some of the learners who were struggling. In grade 4 there were 45 children whose ages ranged from nine to thirteen years old. I taught them maths, science, expressive arts and also did part time tutoring with a few learners who were struggling. I spent majority of my time with grade 4 throughout the year, they were an amazing class full of hard working, smart and kind kids.

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The way the Malawian primary school system worked was you had to achieve a certain number of points at the end of the year to move onto the next grade, so a few learners were resitting the grade and occasionally many times. This in addition to other factors like support from home resulted in such a variation of ability in both grades, to the extent that some of the kids were able to answer difficult maths questions and some who did not know there three times tables. This was a massive difficulty when teaching as some kids fell far behind then became frustrated and upset, whereas some found it easy and lost focus. This meant I had to change the lessons so they catered for everyone, giving challenge questions as well as extra support.

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The maths course for both grades was great and it covered topics like long multiplication, division, fractions, time and money. In the science course we covered topics like energy, different technologies and their uses, marketing, parasites, photosynthesis and vertebrates/ carnivores. Lastly, expressive arts was a combination of art and drama and throughout the year we had great fun doing things like making musical instruments and performing plays. I did notice that a lot of pressure was placed on the kids to perform and be successful at such an early age, and the content they would learn was sometimes quite advanced for their age in comparison to the UK.

I worked Monday to Friday during the year with a break for the Christmas and Easter holidays. On typical school day I would wake up at 5:30am, which was tough as I am not a morning person, then have some breakfast and get to school for just before 7am. Then lessons would start, and I would teach from 7 to 12, then we had lunch for thirty minutes. After lunch I would do around 2 hours more teaching as well as doing some tutoring with a few pupils who were struggling with maths. The school day ended at 3:15pm, then I would board the school bus and either go to town, the gym or meet friends. When I arrived back home, I would cook dinner which would be painfully repetitive normally pasta, vegetables or vegetable pasta, then lastly I would do lesson planning for the next day. Every Wednesday afternoon was a sports afternoon, and the entire primary section would head down the road to the field to do dancing, running, football or other fun games. In Malawi it would get dark around 6pm every day, so most people tended to go to sleep much earlier and then be up early around 4am to do washing and cleaning to start the day.

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During my time at Sparrows School, I met some amazing people who I will now have lifelong friendships with. I visited the teachers’ homes, meeting their families, attended funerals with the staff, planned events like sports day and Christmas closing ceremonies, taught them Scottish dancing and learnt so much from these incredible people. Aunty Veronica was a teacher who I became close to throughout the year. She taught me so much like how to cook a delicious chip meal (to the right) certain phrases in Chichewa. I hope
to return to attend her wedding next year.

The kids and staff were fascinated with the UK, seeing pictures of my life in Glasgow and for the kids especially, understanding the concept of snow. There is a culture of sharing everything in Malawi so the kids would often ask for the food I brought in, and in return offer me something… which one time was “Ngombi” a fried insect which I was hesitant to taste however the kids insisted. At the school everyone found it hysterical when I spoke Chichewa, so I would learn expressions to use in class when the children were misbehaving.

My role as Aunty Katie at Sparrows was the most incredible experience and it was the saddest farewell to say with lots of tears after 11 months of teaching. Below are some photos of my experience while volunteering at Sparrows Primary School.

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Within the group of the eight Project Trust volunteers, some were working at orphanages for kids who parents died of HIV, During weekends and holidays I visited and spent time with the kids there.

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I was very fortunate to have family friends in Blantyre from when I lived there as a young child and spent lots of time with them as well as the Malawian friends I made. Other activities consisted of going to our favourite shop called DAPP which was a charity shop that sold branded clothes for under a pound, going to the gym, watching the Blantyre Bullets playing football or going on nights out.

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I loved travelling and being able to experience new places and cultures, as well as meet new people and hear many stories. Some of the places I travelled to throughout the year included Lake Malawi (and yes I was did get sick with the parasite) Zomba, Mount Mulanje (the 3rd highest mountain in Africa), Liwonde, and many other places. Then for the final few weeks I travelled to Tanzania and Zambia with friends and family. I ended the year with two of the other volunteers, Sophie and Leo, on an amazing adventure to Victoria Falls which was worth the 30 hours on buses, and we camped right next to the falls. I was able to see many incredible animals throughout the year including being chased by a baboon one morning, which was a close call! I will miss transport around Malawi as it was either in the back of a truck, a bike or on a ridiculously full mini bus. Daily life was always very exciting with the unexpected always happening and dealing with Malawi time which would normally result in an extra 4 hours wait for any scenario. There were some challenges throughout the year, however I am sure these experiences will benefit me in the future and I have learnt from them.

In comparison to the western world, Malawians live a happy life and value what really matters. They have so much love and I love the care free way of life. Every day I met so many kind people with smiles on their faces despite the hardships. Malawi is called “the warm heart of Africa” which summarizes it very well.

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Malawi is the most beautiful country with the friendliest people I have ever met. I will cherish the experience I had, and memories made this year. I hope to return as soon as possible, and after university, I want to work there as a doctor. I am incredibly grateful for the support I received from my family and friends, my school and charities for this incredible experience.

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Joe Coley - Kenya

 

Dear Mr. Mason,

 

I hope this email finds you well.

 

I am writing this email as an update of my trip to Kenya. For the first nine weeks in the country, I worked in a local primary school a short distance from my host Peponi School. while Peponi school is similar to Cheltenham College in its outlook, facilities and its community, Ndini Primary School could not be more different. The contrast is quite stark and my work at Ndini has therefore meant so much more to me. Children as young as eight arrive having waled a considerable distance along dangerous roads, commonly unaccompanied, and often on empty stomachs. Parents are financially poor in a way that i have never experienced. The facilities at the school would not justify being described as the bare minimum. Children have to share pencils and textbooks are shared between 3 - 4, substandard and badly kept. The classes average the size of 60 and children are cramped onto very rough and inadequate desks. The floors are uneven, windows have no glass and the only resource available to teachers is a chalk board and limited amounts of chalk. I have spent my time working with the children as a sports coach. Often I have about 200 kids in my care and I am lucky if I have 2 footballs and a skipping rope. Despite these challenges I have loved my time working with these children. Their enthusiasm for what they are doing amazes me and their smiles are infectious. They all try hard and listen carefully to my instructions, despite the occasional language barrier. I have developed my ability to communicate as a necessity and to say that I am out of my comfort zone is an under-statement. I have learnt a great deal, not only about the challenges faced by the children of Kenya but the greater challenges of this great nation. It is a land of humor, good will and sheer resilience. The people have nothing and they make the very little they have count. The children and the teachers of Ndini have had a true impact on me and I will do all I can to return to continue to contribute. I was fortunate enough to have some time in the classroom where I taught Math and Science, The experience was similar and communication and command was demanded. I loved it and the reward of children understanding what I have to been attempting to explain with one piece of chalk and my own invented resources was brilliant. By contrast, my afternoons have been spent at Peponi School coaching cricket. I am on safer ground and, with conditions, facilities and enthusiasm similar to Cheltenham, I am enjoying what I am doing. However, the contrast has had an effect on me. I have now moved onto a school designed to support children with special needs. The Kenya Community Center for Learning was set up in 2001 and has made quite an impact in the local area. It is better resourced than Ndini but they have to face their own financial challenges. They have more teachers and more relevant qualifications and I am learning more about the actual skill of teaching. I don't feel quite so abandoned to my own fate in front of a sea of children. However, it is still early days and it is difficult to judge any that a Gap student might have. Ndini have stopped school for their National Examinations - the KCPE - and our reward from them was the sincere and grateful thanks, accompanied by plenty of smiles and singing from both children and teachers.

 

I am looking forward to the next month which I am sure will be full of similar experiences and hopefully different ones. I have yet to visit the coast and I hope to be successful in my attempt to climb Mount Kenya. I will write in early December to continue my report.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Joe Coley

 

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Harry Dawson - Kenya

 

 

July 2024

 

Having had a few months to reflect on my time in Kenya since my return, I wanted to give you a further update since my one in January of this year. As mentioned then, I had just arrived in the Masai Mara National Reserve and had been working at a camp on the banks of the Talek River, after spending three and a half months in Ruiru, Kiambu County, working at Ndiiini Primary School, Kenya Community Centre for Learning, and Peponi Secondary School. I stayed on in the National Reserve for a few more weeks before moving to the Mara North Conservancy, where I worked at Serian Original and Serian Nare Camps for 3.5 weeks, before finishing my time in Kenya in theOlderkesi Conservancy bordering the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania. 

 

Firstly, my time working in Ruiru, on the outskirts of Nairobi, was incredibly rewarding, and a fantastic way to improve my confidence in my ability to operate in a new country independently, whilst also being fortunate to be hosted, and have incredible opportunities offered to me regularly, for which I am so grateful. Despite both parts of my time in Kenya being so different, this first half certainly made the second half seem much more achievable.

 

Having Peponi Secondary School as a base, I was fortunate that they were well connected with local schools in the area, and provided me with an opportunity to visit these other institutions, which were all very different. I, alongside another student working with me at Peponi, cycled to and fromNdiini primary school every day, where we taught English, Maths, Music, Humanities, Science, and PE to groups of up to 70 children at one time, ranging in age from 6 to 15. This presented me with considerable challenges, from the language barrier, although I must say many of the children's English was very impressive for their age, to the need to adapt from one lesson to another based on each class’ and individual’s needs. Unfortunately I came away from my time at Ndiini without many photographs, but I have attached below a few images to perhaps give one an idea of the environment we were in. Whilst our time spent at the school was exhausting and intense on the whole, we also made ourselves useful during quieter times by marking end of year papers before the Christmas break, and trying to learn a little Kiswahili from the children, who were so keen for us to learn. Many a break time was spent with the children amused at my (lack of) pronunciation - it’s the effort that counts! - I have since managed to learn a decent level and its something I’m very pleased I pushed myself to give a go and I am keen to continue to improve, despite the lack of people to converse with at home in the UK!

 

After Ndiini finished their term for the holidays, we were no longer needed there, and so we moved to Kenya Community Centre for Learning (KCCL), a small school, funded by donations from the parents who are fortunate enough to help, and who also run the school, from teaching to standing on the board. KCCL has around 100 children with learning or physical disabilities, including dyslexia, autism, and cerebral palsy, from the ages of 6 to 21, and they provide specialist care to those that need it most. Whilst unfortunately there are many more children who would benefit from being at a school like KCCL, rather than in the state system, the very presence of KCCL gives many children opportunities they could never previously have dreamed of in life, by providing the best education for their needs, harnessing the best qualities in the children and young adults, and giving them the confidence that there is the chance of an independent life for them post education, and being a small part of this made this time all the more special. At the school I worked as a teaching assistant in a class of 6, ranging from 12-16 in age, with a real mix of abilities, from one boy studying GCSE level science, to others who struggled with literacy. Managing this was not easy, and again required patience and adaptability, but with Mr Fondo, the class teacher, I helped to prepare the children for their December tests and acted as a scribe for a few of them whilst doing these. Outside of the classroom I helped teach music to a few of the children, who were preparing pieces for their end of year party, with Daniel (15), who had autism and suffered from anxiety, learning to play the recorder certainly a highlight of my time. 

 

During my time in Ruiru, whilst my mornings were spent at Ndiini and KCCL, my afternoons involved sports coaching at Peponi, to all years aged 13-19. I spent most of my time on the cricket pitch, coaching both girls and boys of varying ability, but also helped out with football, coaching the u15A&B side at a couple of tournaments, and with strength and conditioning and athletics. I also was given the opportunity to support on some schools trips, including a visit up to Nyeri with the year 10s, where unfortunately extremely heavy rain hampered our hiking plans but we still managed to take the students on a nature walk in a protected area of forest home to the incredibly rare Hinde’s Babbler. 

 

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After a week to relax on the coast after the end of the school term, I flew to Ol Kiombo airstrip in the Masai Mara and joined Naibor Camp over the Christmas and New Year, to help with hosting guests, and supporting the two camp managers with whatever tasks they needed doing. It was fantastic to meet many of the local Masai and learn about their traditions and customs, and equally special to be in such a beautiful part of the world. Whilst here I also furthered my knowledge of the local and national culture and landscape, as well as the wildlife found in the Mara, to gain a personal understanding and also to improve the service I could provide to guests. 

 

Heavy rain made it tricky to reach my next destination, but after a day’s delay and a long detour, I eventually joined the team at Serian Original, where I would again help with hosting guests, as well as with the maintenance, groundskeeping and housekeeping teams. The ability to get involved with all sides of camp life was very insightful, and meant I have formed some lifelong friendships with those I met. Nahim, who is my age and is off to university in September, like myself, was a member of the maintenance team. It was fantastic for me to bond more with a mix of people, who helped me greatly with my Kiswahili in return for some training programs for their gym! I still talk to Nahim often on WhatsApp, and hopefully will be able to return to Kenya in years to come and can catch up with him. Before my departure I was lucky to be taken out on a very memorable game drive, which was undoubtedly one of the best bits of working in this environment, and around this time I also, with another member of staff, Ben, made a new bench for the gym - some DIY I hadn’t seen myself doing but then there wasn’t much I knew I’d be doing before I got there. 

 

Unfortunately I soon had to move onto my last destination - the Olderkesi Conservancy on the Southeastern border of the National Reserve, where I would spend a few weeks at Cottar’s Camp, which was an utterly amazing experience. Cottar’s Camp is one of 10 Global Ecosphere Retreats in the world, which is testament to the dedicated sustainability team who have combined innovative measures with the limited resources they have to ensure they have a positive impact on the local area from a financial and developmental perspective, whilst also maintaining the precious habitat which is home to thousands of species. I got the chance to research this when I was putting together an educational document which could be adapted for guest use, but was mainly for staff, to help them understand the wider scale impact of the things they were doing, and to encourage them to become even more invested in helping the natural environment around them. As I have an interest in sustainability and am going to study Physical Geography at university it was brilliant to see how this could be applied in this workplace, and promising to see it was being taken so seriously. Whilst here I also joined the carpenters and the maintenance team to build a new deck for a temporary tent which was going up to accommodate for a big party of guests, and added new water drainage and removal pipes in order to reduce the impact of the temporary mobile camp. I was lucky to assist as a spotter in the vehicle on a few game drives, allowing me to talk to guests and share with them what I had learnt, as well as helping their chances of spotting the wildlife they had come to see. 

 

My time in the Masai Mara was an unforgettable experience and I gained so much from it, in terms of both knowledge and the relationships I made. It also aided me in getting work experience with a Marketing and PR company which focuses on destinations in Africa and the Indian Ocean, allowing me to take what I had learnt ‘on the ground’ and see how operations were being run behind the scenes, as well as putting what I knew about different camps into editing educational content for agents and tour operators.

 

Thank you so much to the Bulkeley Evans Scholarship Fund for supporting my time in Kenya and ultimately making all of these experiences possible. 

  

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Elizabeth Stunt- Georgia

 

Dear Mr Mason,

I have completed my gap year project and arrived back in the UK this week so am delightedto be able to write my report for you and the Trustees of the Bulkeley-Evans Scholarship

Fund. My biggest thanks to all of you for choosing to support me throughout my time in Georgia.

In my application I set out my main objective as working closely with an arts collective which is part of the Caucasus Culture Exchange (https://www.caucasuscultureexchange.org), with the aim of serving the culture and arts of minority ethnic groups in the Caucasus region. I am delighted to say that I feel I have met this goal, and then some. For the first four months of my year, my main role was looking after and helping homeschool the kids of the family which founded and directs the Caucasus Culture Exchange (CCE), and by supporting them daily through childcare I was able to support the projects being pursued by the CCE. The family has five children with ages ranging from 3 to 13 with another one on the way, all of whom I absolutely love. I helped with all the sides of homeschool, from maths to grammar to ancient history and greek mythology. I really found a passion for spending time with kids and watching them and helping them learn and discover new things about the world. Several times I stayed with the kids for longer extended periods of time so that the parents were able to travel to pursue the projects they have going on at the CCE. I am a firm believer in supporting people who already have the skills, which I do not have, to do something and learning from them through observation.

One of the projects I have supported through childcare is an ongoing recording project with a small ethnic people group up in the mountains of Georgia. The people group only has 3 villages in Georgia with another slightly larger population living over the border to the North in Russia, with a total population globally of just under 3,000 people. As I discussed in my application letter, many of the people groups in the Caucasus Mountains are losing much of their cultural heritage, including their arts and identity. As such one of the most exciting projects carried out by the CCE over the last year has been building relationship with the only poet who writes in the language and cultural style unique to this people group and helping him record them, write them down, publish them and share them with his wider community, thus supporting the arts of this tiny nationality in the remote mountains of Georgia.

 

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There have also been several trips to Azerbaijan to another ethnic minority people group, native to the mountains there and to the North in Russia. This people group is a little larger with a population across both countries at around 55,000. What has come out of this project in Azerbaijan is a series of mini-documentaries, each one focusing on a specific local art form, many of which are unique to these mountains. The project is currently in post-production and I am very excited to see the final results once they are released. Many of the art forms are ones that I grew up seeing and hearing about where I grew up in the Caucasus Mountains just North of the Russian border so I am doubly excited and privileged to have been able to serve and support this project.

Another project that I heavily supported through childcare is the establishment of a mums and babies group at the CCE. It is run by the mum of the kids I was working with, who is a certified professional midwife and whose passion is serving women in homebirth, birth education and maternal health. She believes in supporting mothers and families in order to help cultures thrive. I feel incredibly honoured to have been able to work closely alongside her for the four months I was with her kids every day. She is an incredible, gentle but passionate woman, who has taught me so much wisdom about the world and the humble ways in which we can serve other people on a daily basis. It was a privilege to work with her. The mums group has been meeting every ten days since it started in around October and is now a thriving community of women, both local and expats, who bond over the highs and lows of early motherhood, an experience shared, I imagine, across all cultures. The sharing of culture, passions and life that happens at the mums group is completely in line with the values and goals of the CCE and it was so much fun for me to be able to look after the kids while it was going on whilst also learning so much from the women themselves.

 

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The CCE is also home to a gallery and coffee shop both of which exist with the goal of supporting and giving local artists a space to shine and feel at home in. I have worked in the coffee shop as a stand in barista throughout the year as well as having one shift a week while I was working with the kids in the autumn and winter. This was a really great experience for me as it taught me a lot about hospitality and gave me the opportunity to learn new skills. It was also really fun to be able to help and serve at the CCE in more ways. Part of that role was hosting the front of the gallery. The gallery is a space which very purposefully and intentionally exists to serve and host local artists. We had several exhibitions over my time in Georgia and hosted around 6 or 7 artists local to the countries of the Caucasus. One exhibition was particularly interesting. The artist was from a minority people group in Dagestan which is in the Russian part of the Caucasus and her exhibition was part of a NGO she manages which helps women experiencing domestic violence and abuse. The exhibition was poignant and challenging and it was amazing to be part of the team hosting it.

A project during February which was very different to all the others but which I enjoyed immensely was the building of a professional recording and editing studio in the CCE building. It was built so that the artist that the CCE is engaging with can have a space to record in and equip them to produce and share the art that they make with their wider community. One of the problems faced by artists from the minority people group in the mountains is that there are not many of them and often their villages are very remote making it difficult to get their art out there. This is one of the factors that contributes to a lot of the minority community arts dying in a rapidly digitalising world. The studio will help artists, primarily musicians, but others as well, to be able to continue sharing their art.

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For the second half of my time in Georgia I was one of the artists in residence at the CCE as part of a cross cultural arts training program. The program focuses on equipping those participating in ways to serve, support and nurture a community and their arts. We had class twice a week on how cultures interact with art as well as how we can helpfully engage with them. Alongside the theoretical training we also had practical chances to learn through actually serving the artists in the communities around us. The CCE building is often a place where artists gather to share ideas and work on projects together. As part of that environment and as one of the artists in residence I was able to engage with many of the people who came through, hearing about their projects and being part of the busy artistic environment that nurtures such a wide range of artists, including myself.

By far the most exciting project that I was personally involved in was a series of songwriting workshops to help young Georgian musicians write in their own traditional styles. This was such a fascinating experience for me as I am neither from a musical background nor Georgian so much of the training I had been receiving had to come in very strongly. The theoretical knowledge we had discussed extensively in class in short boils down to learning to observe a community's arts, respect it, engage with it and ask them the right questions which help them to think about their own arts. We were never the ones teaching about the local music style. This is important because I believe that only people from within a particular culture or people who have spent enough time in one can make art, in this case music, that truly comes from the heart of the community. We were not part of Georgian culture so what we were doing was more like facilitating their art, helping them think about their own music. In short we were teaching them to teach themselves: to become aware of a cultural knowledge that they already have from a lifelong exposure to it, and to create from that deep, personal and often unconscious knowledge to make the music that they wanted to be making and which truly reflected their culture. It was an honour to be part of this project and to observe the joy that writing songs and making music in their heart culture brings to people.

 

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A few unexpected projects also popped up as the year went on. As I worked with the kids in the autumn, I became aware of how isolated many kids of expats end up when living abroad. These kids often get called Third Culture Kids or TCKs for short. They are kids whose parents are from one culture but they grow up in another culture, thus often not feeling like they fit into either one and creating their own ‘third culture’. They often end up feeling underrepresented and unseen by much of the world around them. As someone who grew up outside of my parents’ culture I am a TCK. There are quite a few expats in Georgia who are there to help and support the people of the Caucasus and who often cross paths with the CCE and as such I came across a lot of TCKs too. As I worked with the kids in the autumn I realised how little opportunity many TCKs have to be involved in the more collaborative artforms, ones that need other people in order to work, such as making music as a group or acting. Because of this, and because as a TCK I wanted to be able to help my own global community I carried out a few projects in my own time outside of the time I was working with the CCE. I started a small acting club for any TCKs in Tbilisi that I knew (by the end of the year I knew quite a lot) and we performed a short skit, that a friend and I wrote, at a church talent show. Whilst the scale of this project was very small it gave the kids and teens who came a chance to collaborate and create with other people. Most of them had never had the chance to act before and I believe that those that came really enjoyed it and really appreciated the opportunity to give it a go. Another project I carried out with the TCKs who I knew in town was a short film project. I wrote a script based on my experience as a TCK and found a cast and crew to shoot it. It was very important to me that the whole cast and crew were TCKs as I wanted to make a piece of art that represented us as a community well and which gave those involved a go at making such a collaborative piece of art. I am immensely proud of the final result and of all the TCKs involved in making it, it is probably the piece I am most proud of out of everything I have made as an artist. One of the CCE’s core beliefs is that in order to serve artists we must be thriving artists ourselves. As a result, whilst receiving training in how to serve and support artists, particularly ones from underrepresented communities, I was also able to carry out art projects of my own, one of which was the film project mentioned above. These did not directly tie into serving the people groups of the Caucasus mountains but I have felt myself grow and flourish as an artist as I never have before this year. I feel like I have truly got to know myself as a creative and uncovered things I did not know about myself. Through working with all the artists around me, in projects at the CCE and by embracing the creativity within me in my own time I have discovered a real sense of calling in my life and a strong passion to be an advocate for the arts, particularly the arts of underrepresented communities, and have found the arts to be far more important than I ever imagined. They give a community a sense of identity, a shared story and mutual understanding in a way nothing else does. This year has taught me so much and has given a sense of direction and drive as I step into what is next. Thank you so much for your support this year, it has helped make this year possible and I am incredibly grateful,

Blessings,
Elizabeth Stunt

 

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Rory Middlemiss - Honduras

 

I flew to Honduras with 14 other Project Trust volunteers on August 7th 2023 and cannot believe that I have now lived here for 6 months. I am based with two other volunteers, Jack and Paul, in a rural village called Yamaranguila, located in the Intibucá Department up in the mountains. It is the main coffee district of Honduras so all the fields are currently covered with small green trees budding with red ripe coffee beans. Being up in the mountains has its advantages as it is usually around 25 degrees, rather than the 35 degrees you find by the coast. But we arrived in the rainy season so one of the first things I did was to buy a jumper as it was really chilly in the mornings and evenings. As I write this report, however, we haven’t seen a proper rain for about two months although it is still surprisingly green as we are surrounded by pine trees and, of course, the coffee.

Jack, Paul, and I are living together in a small bungalow in the centre of Yamaranguila, about a 30-minute walk along a dirt road from our school. We do our own cooking and washing (by hand as there is no machine) and struggle with intermittent electricity and water! We are a 20-minute bus ride from the nearest big town, called La Esperanza, where we mostly do our shopping. I hadn’t realised quite how time-consuming sorting out our meals would be and I have had to learn to bulk cook and use the freezer so that I don’t spend all my time shopping for food. I take a packed lunch to school every day and have been rapidly learning Spanish so that I can shop in the local market which is cheaper than the actual shops in town.

I volunteer at the Abundant Life Christian School (ALCS), a bilingual school with students from ages 5-18. I spent the first 3 months of my time here teaching maths to grades 4-7 as their teacher was on maternity leave. Luckily, she was still living close by so she helped me to prepare the lessons each day and to make sure that I was teaching according to the syllabus. I never realised how time-consuming marking every homework and test was and am full of admiration for my teachers back home.

In November, I started to teach Reading to Year 5 and I have found this extremely rewarding. At the moment we are reading the book “Wonder” by R. J. Palacio and I love how versatile the subject is as I can incorporate a whole range of additional activities into my lessons. One of my favourite lessons was right before the Christmas holidays. I had set homework for each student to write their own Christmas story and each student then read this out in class. They were all very entertaining and I learnt so much about Honduran Christmas traditions, for example eating tamales. Tamales are a traditional food made from a mixture of corn dough and a filling of pork or chicken, rice, olives, potatoes, peas, and raisins, wrapped in a banana leaf, and then steamed; they are delicious. I also taught the Year 5 Christmas dance which was incredibly challenging as I have absolutely no experience as a dance teacher. Every grade had a dance and they were performed to the whole school and parents just before the holiday break. It was great fun and I was very happy that none of the year 5s dropped their hats during the dance!

I have also become the designated cover teacher for ACLS, which means that, outside of my teaching to Year 5, no day is the same and I have taught almost every subject to every Grade from 4th-12th. One of my more challenging cover lessons was invigilating a test in Social Studies, which is one of the two subjects taught here in Spanish. I felt very sorry for the student who came to ask me a question about the test as I was more lost than them! 

The main school sports are football and volleyball and I now appreciate the global outreach of football as everybody knows the results of the Premier League. Volleyball is also extremely popular and the students have been teaching me how to play. It is, however, surprisingly difficult and I wish I could say that I was improving, but it seems that every time I play I find new ways to mess up! However, I have joined the volleyball team at school and train with the older students twice a week, which I have really enjoyed, and am slowly learning the correct techniques. I have also really enjoyed getting to know these older students and learning more about their daily lives. For instance, I was recently invited around for supper by one of the students and also to look around their coffee farm. I felt very lucky to have this personal experience and really enjoyed being in a home environment, especially as his mother was an amazing cook!

Outside of school, I have really enjoyed immersing myself in the Honduran culture which is very different from life in the UK. Due to roughly 300 years of Spanish colonisation, some places here are reminiscent of Spain; for instance, Trujillo and Gracias were the first city- capitals when Spain colonised Honduras and are full of Spanish architecture and have lovely, cobbled streets. Honduras is also rich in Mayan history and, for Thanksgiving, ACLS took all the teachers to visit the Copan Ruins, one of the most important sites of Mayan civilization. We had a guide and I really enjoyed learning about this incredible UNESCO World Heritage site. For instance, the Mayans were fascinated by the stars, and astronomers in Copán calculated the most accurate solar calendar produced by the Maya up to that time.  

Since I am a food lover, I have taken every opportunity to try all the new foods. Hondurans love baleadas, which consists of a tortilla filled with frijoles (beans), and often eggs or meat. Other local specialties include Pupusas, a thicker stuffed tortilla, and Catrachas, tortilla with frijoles and cheese, which are equally tasty. Overall, I think it is fair to say that Honduras is powered by frijoles as they seem to be eaten by everyone at almost every meal! The variety of fruits and vegetables at the markets has also been a great pleasure for me and I am always stocking up on plantain, pineapple or papaya. At the coast, you can find some amazing fish as well as mangoes and coconuts; the taste is incomparable to what you buy in the UK.

Overall, I feel that all these experiences are making a lasting impact on me and I am loving being exposed to a totally new culture. I am also full of admiration for my teachers in the UK as I never realised how difficult and tiring lesson planning, marking and teaching can be; on the positive, however, seeing the students improve is so rewarding. I am also learning to appreciate and be thankful for the simple things in life and to enjoy moments of downtime by drinking local coffee and eating excessive amounts of baleadas and pupusas. Sometimes it feels that life doesn’t get any better than that!

 

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