First Post from Burim in Uganda!!!
Mar 22, 2014
Burim arrived in Uganda on Tuesday. Flying to Uganda means an overnight flight with a few stops and plane changes, and arriving in the middle of the night. He arrived in Entebbe on Tuesday at 4am. Burim then traveled to Kampala (the capital of Uganda) and spent the day there getting supplies and taking care of things like banking.
He arrived in Gulu on Wednesday and after working out the details on a place to stay for the duration of his time in Uganda (we didn’t want to stay at the same place as before because we were robbed), Burim started setting up meetings with schools and the youth volunteers.
This is the blog Burim wrote about his meetings:
First I went to Gulu Public Primary [elementary] school. Their music teacher had already registered 60 children for our program. I will go there twice a week to do music education (writing and reading music) because that’s what they are lacking, and also singing and playing instruments as well. Also I am going to train the teacher, so when I am gone he will teach the kids at least one day a week using our instruments.
Then I went to St. Bakhita school–this is the school that asked us to come and work with their children who were born to child soldiers. This school is outside of Gulu, and when I went there they welcomed me with lunch and drinks and they were very happy that I am back in Uganda and back to their school as well. The meeting went very well, they have a new person who is in charge of the administration and academics, But the founder was also there to make sure we do things right. This school now has 3 programs:
1. Nursery school
2. Primary school
3. Teachers college
We decided that for the nursery school we will do fun songs and play games and use hand motions and play different things to entertain them, and just have fun and help them feel good during that time, but not to teach them notes or anything because they are young and can’t write or read yet.
Primary school (where the children who were born to child soldiers attend) is going to have our full music program with everything we do–writing and reading music, playing instruments, and singing.
At the teachers college, I will train them in Music and when I leave Uganda these student teachers will continue teaching our music program in both the primary school and the nursery. For now I will meet with these student teachers on Saturdays, but during the school break I am going to meet with them at least 3 days a week to help them get ready to teach our music program. They already know teaching skills and writing lesson plans, so it will be easy for them to get ready to teach music.
I met with the Youth Volunteers and they are so excited to start our training and teaching together again. We have some Youth Volunteers who have graduated from High School and are working, and they still want to volunteer during their free time. It was so nice to be with them again- I have really missed them. Next week I’ll be visiting our programs in Labala and Pabo–I can’t wait!