HIV Prevention Volunteering in Kenya

I avidly recommend volunteering with Agape for many reasons! First up, the UK staff provided ceaseless advice and support during the preparation for my trip, ensuring I knew the specific details of my stay before I even set foot abroad. During my time in Kenya, the Agape team became like family. I completed an HIV counselling/testing program that equipped me with necessary skills that I then took into the community. Agape provided me with great independence, which I found SO rewarding.

I felt I could really delve into the Kenyan lifestyle, not being shielded from any realities. Agape offered me a genuine experience through which I made valuable connections and friendships with passionate Kenyans and volunteers from around the globe. Agape value transparency, a hands-on-approach, and voluntary work that promotes public needs not simply ‘voluntourism’.

After finding myself with 6 weeks to spare in the summer I decided to go to Africa to do some volunteering. After searching through google and researching a number of charities I decided to go with Agape. I worked directly with Gee to get the trip sorted, with a 10 day turn around from booking to flying out to Kenya. After landing in Kenya I was picked up from the airport promptly and taken back to the Waithaka volunteer house where I was met by the house mamma Florence, who is amazing! Breakfast and dinner is great, local Kenyan food and the house consists of the basic amenities along with a TV and DVD player. As there is a curfew keeping yourself entertained is a important, we generally played card games, monopoly, drinking games and watching movies. My first full day consisted of a tour around the local area and a trip to the main shopping mall and local market. You can buy most things locally around the house, such as water, food, DVD's (burned from downloads) and alcohol. On the first day of placement I was taken to Saint Dorcas Children's Home by one of the guys from Agape (Little Bony), where I was introduced to the head teacher and each of the classes. The St. Dorcas Children's Home is relatively small with children from all backgrounds, the age of the children ranged from 4-20 and they were all so excitable and lovely, it made the days fly by! You get lunch provided which is the same as what the kids eat, generally maize, corn and beans. After a day or two you are given a class to teach. I found myself teaching Class Five (10-11 year olds) English, Maths and Science. It was fantastic and it gives you such a great opportunity to bond with the kids and have some fun in the classroom. During my stay I did a number of excursions; Kibera Outreach Day, Maasai Mara Safari, Hell's Gate, Mount Longonot and then the two excursions included; City Tour and IDP Project. Kibera is a good opportunity to see just how much of a struggle it can be living within the country and despite the hardship so many people have are so positive and make the best of their situation. A bottle in the street gives the kids something to play with for hours. You get the chance to meet two families who are extremely welcoming and happy to talk you through how they ended up where they are. You will also go to a workshop where they make items out of animal bones, the employees are all from Kibera and helps get them off the street and earning money. Safari is a great experience, you get to see loads of different animals in their natural environment, we managed to see 6 of the super 7 (Lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard, hyena and cheetah), missing out only on the rhino. If you do the four day, you will more than likely see the a rhino. The accommodation is great, as is the food and you can stay up late in the group drinking and playing card games or just sit by the bonfire. Hell's Gate is probably one of the best excursions you can do, it consists of a bike ride, cycling past zebra's, warthogs, gazelle and antelope. This is followed by a hike through a large gorge with a small amount of rock climbing. The views are phenomenal. You then get to relax in a sulphur spring pool before heading off to lunch. After lunch you go on a boat ride around lake Naivasha where you see a lot of hippo's. Mount Longonot is a hard hike up the dormant volcano, at the top you get some fantastic views both into the crater and the surrounding areas of lowland, forests and lake Naivasha. Masaai Tribe is not for the faint hearted and you need to have an open mind. You pick up bottled water on the way but that's it, don't expect showers, toilets, a cooking hob etc. this is living the Masaai way with a fantastic hike (around 7 hours), children that are infatuated with you, going out hunting, milking a cow etc. It's definitely worth doing if you can live without modern comforts for a few days! City tour is a good little tour visiting a crocodile farm, elephant orphanage, giraffe sanctuary and a park with friendly, wild monkeys. During the tour you get to hold a crocodile, get a kiss from giraffe and have monkeys climb over you whilst you hand out some peanuts to them. IDP is a tour around the project where the charity is helping build homes for the displaced families currently living in tents. They have already built a school, a number of houses, a chicken coup and started on a medical building. It's great to see just where the additional money goes from the money you pay. The guys in the house - Florence, Izzo, Jo, Joseph, Tabby, Little Bony - are amazing and will always look after you, as well as taking you out on an occasional night out. I would thoroughly recommend going out to Kenya and I'm already planning my trip back for next year to work at the IDP project.

So far I'm having a great time! Things at the volunteer house is wonderful, I'm sleeping and eating well. It was great to be placed with anther volunteer Betty who I Facebooked before coming out here.

I'm certainly learning that volunteering is what you make it. I can see that for people who are used to travelling a lot tend to be more open with meeting people, speaking to people and in general using their initiative to make the most of the spare time.

Me and 3 other volunteers organised with our school and headteacher to do like a "fruit and fun" morning yesterday (a Saturday) from 9 til about 11:30. For just £2 something we got 100 bananas, enough for one for every student and about 30 other kids, some of them street kids. We also got some juice and the headteacher provided water so we had a massive pot of juice so every child could have a drink after hours of playing games. My experience teaching at summer camps definitely helped as I was confident enough to get all the children into a big circle and sing some songs I'd learnt at camp. We hope to do this kind of "fruit and fun" Saturday morning every Saturday which perhaps future volunteers could continue with.

I'm very interested in helping to fundraise for my school here. I didn't really bring much from home so I'm eager to see if friends and family could post things like old school uniforms and stationary which could really be so useful. A friend of mine works for Disney, and he says he will be able to send a whole load of Disney stationary, pencil cases, notebooks etc so I can't wait to receive his package, but I haven't yet got an address to send to him. I want the parcel to be addressed to me preferably so I can check the stuff first, for example if there's only enough for like half the kids I want to be able to distribute it fairly. I suppose I'll ask Isaac or Joe about it so we can get that cracking. I've heard something about high tax on receiving packages particularly with clothes. Isaac mentioned getting volunteers to bring things but I think it would be a lot of hassle sending everything to each volunteer.