Expeditions
To download an application form click here.
To download the "Fundraising for your Expedition Place"
PDF click here.
Each year, Reach the Children UK organises volunteer-funded expeditions to countries in Africa to do various service-orientated projects working with and for the children most affected by HIV/AIDS. The projects are based upon coordinating appropriate requests from in country with the volunteers available.
They are generally 10 to 12 day expeditions and involve lots of hard, but rewarding work with the schools, orphanages or organizations that have requested our help with their projects. These can range from installing water storage facilities to painting classrooms, or teaching life skills such as, sewing, welding, first aid and oral hygiene to the children.
Volunteers that have been part of previous expeditions have said that they have seen the life changing effects on the children they go to serve but also on themselves.
Click here to see what others are doing to raise funds and support for Reach the Children UK.
In 2005 we worked with Kwa Watoto Centre a school in the slums of Kayole on the ourskirts of Nairobi. The team taught life skills to the children and beautified some of the newly built classrooms, providing an environment to encourage learning. We also provided books and pencils for the children as well as sports equipment, and took 1200 toothbrushes donated by Gillette/OralB to help teach the children dental hygiene and care.
In 2006 we returned to the slums of Nairobi and worked with a child care centre and an orphanage. A Dentist and her dental nurse joined us and examined the teeth of over 250 children, making a detailed record to provide ongoing care. At the care centre we installed rain water collection and storage facilities for times of drought, repaired and painted fences and play equipment. At the orphanage we painted rooms, inserted light sections in the roofs, installed rain water collection and storage facilities, provided running water for toilets and showers and installed a kitchen with a special juko stove which is both energy efficient and far safer means of cooking for the children.
2007 saw us taking the team to Chyulu, near Tsavo national park in the dry Southwest of Kenya here we worked with 2 primary schools to install vital rainwater harvesting facilities to help the children keep healthy by ensuring there is enough stored water for handwashing facilities throughout the dry 9 months of the year.
Special hand washing stations were installed nr the toilet blocks. In addition to our dental hygiene classes where each child (approx 800 per school) was given their own brush and instruction. Paediatric first aid was taught to teachers and older children. We also taught sewing classes and donated sewing machines, supplies and instructions for ongoing projects within the school curriculum.
There was no expedition in 2008 due to the political unrest in Kenya, after the elections.
Read an extract from a report by Expedition participant Richard Marsden
I decided to laugh fortunately and following a quick move of the water tank, with the assistance of 30 very excited school children, we had a fully working rainwater collection system capable of collecting 6000 litres of water. The purpose of our visit suddenly became very clear to me, I wasn't here to save the world like I'd thought, I was here to make a difference to 200 hard-working secondary school children. They can now drink more water and wash their hands properly after going to the toilet, both as a direct result of what we had just done. That feeling for us, as well as them, was simply amazing!
That exact feeling was experienced again 2 days later when we finished another rainwater collection system at nearby Bukura Primary School, only this time 800 children were going to benefit! My involvement in the rainwater system this time was minimal; my real challenge this time was teaching the teachers how to use the new PC's we had just installed for them.
My first question to them was "how much have you used a PC?", my answer came a few minutes later when they asked me about how the animal is involved. He was referring to the mouse I kept mentioning. However after 2 hours perseverance and many questions, examples and demonstrations they were able to open documents, encyclopaedias' and so on, I then started on the internet with them. That however would take a long time to explain!
These examples don't really do justice to the experience of the 10 days we had in Kenya, having run a triathlon and a half marathon to raise money beforehand I thought that the hard work had mostly been done already, how naive I was! It wasn't even the sawing, drilling and climbing up and down ladders that I found hard. The hardest part was saying goodbye and not being able to do more for them.
In summary my best moment was undoubtedly when I was described as a lion due to my brown and hairy forearms, being hairy had never felt so good! My saddest moment was when I nearly reduced a child to tears having broken the news to him about his favourite toy animal. He had asked me where they live and if I had ever seen one, I told him that unfortunately I hadn't seen one and I didn't know if anyone ever will. When he asked why I didn't know what to say - "Well the T-Rex has been extinct for a long time now . . . . . let's play with this lion toy instead!"
Richard Marsden
Project Director
Admiral Voice & Data (Solutions) Ltd