Arriving in Uganda took a little bit of preparation. To enter the country I had to get a Yellow fever Jab and fill out a visa application.I remembered that I had to take anti-malarial tablets one week before flying out. As you have probably guessed, being organised is not one of my strong suits, so if somebody like me can do such a thing, then it proves that every person who reads this can do something similar.
To volunteer on a program with IVHQ (International Volunteering Head Quarters), I was required to provide a criminal background check, insurance details, flight details and other such requirements. IVHQ is a company that has numerous destinations in the world for people to volunteer and through them I was able to achieve my goal and volunteer in Uganda.
I was greeted at the airport by two huge smiles holding an IVHQ sign. One was employer Carroll and the other was fellow volunteer Danesh. Danesh was one of 18 fellow volunteers who I was to spend my three weeks with. These volunteers were from varying places around the world; Australia, Ireland, USA, Canada and Egypt and our age ranged from 18 to 70 years old. Each of the volunteers had their own previously arranged placement and this varied from; HIV/AIDS, work at the orphanage, working with disabled children, sports development at schools, working in hospitals, doing outreach in slums and working at a medical centre (which had a pharmacy, dentist, maternal clinic and nurse’s office.) Although we volunteers did not spend most of the day time hours with each other, due to being placed at differing locations, we created a strong bond and had many great moments playing cards, venturing into kampala at night or just sitting down and having great dialogues ( debating on who’s pronunciation of certain English words was correct! NB Obviously, the only Englishman usually came out on top).
Before setting off to Uganda I very much wanted to live with a local family, however having experienced such an amazing time with fellow volunteers, I would encourage anybody be open to either option, as both have great positives.
