Uganda 08 - final preparations...

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... are well under way. I'm writing this on the train going down to London to get our visas sorted at the Ugandan Embassy. Three weeks today we'll be on our way to Heathrow Airport. Correspondence with our Ugandan Brothers has been most encouraging in terms of how happy they are that we are coming and how easy it has been to sort out the multitude of details that need sorting when you yourself are acting as "tour operator".

We have been asked if we can go into an extra orphanage in Kasasa. So that's now 2 secondary schools and 2 orphanages that we will be working in over the 2 and a bit weeks.

Pupils at our school in Ibanda.

The money has been coming in steadily from my sponsored cycle in school, from parishoners and from the Justgiving.com web page which has certainly proved its worth. Our rock concert at the New Picket in the centre of Liverpool (staff band the Manic Street Teachers + 3 pupil bands) raised a tremendous £940. Kudos to Uganda 08 group member Paddy Brown for organising the event. I've been given a dvd film recording of us Manics playing and may put a few clips on YouTube just for a laugh.


The Manic Street Teachers after playing at the 6th Form Leavers' Ball.

I've started buying sports gear to take with us (tennis raquets + balls, footballs, training bibs, whistles, marker cones, etc...) and will start to order the audio-visual gear in the next few days (2 digital projectors, 2 dvd players, assorted film dvds, etc...). Football shirts + boots are coming in from our pupils in school.

We've one more fund-raising event this Friday organised by Simon Townley (Uganda 08 + Togo 07), which will also serve as a good bonding session for the group: an all-night, 12-hour video games + board games session. Yes, I know... sponsoring teens to do what many do anyway at weekends :-) But it should be fun.

We could still do with a fair bit more in terms of funds to donate to the 4 places where we'll be working, so if you are feeling generous, please go to:

www.justgiving.com/brojameshayes

and follow the instructions.

The rest of my sponsored cycle diary to follow...

Comments

umblepie said…
Just discovered your website. Well done. Small contribution towards target. BUT why do you allow link to OXFAM who are known to support abortion, contraceptives, etc? Even CAFOD has murky associations in this regard.
12:26 pm
Bro. Jim Hayes said…
Thanks for the donation and comments, umblepie + Hector the dog :-) To be honest, I was unaware of the OXFAM + CAFOD attitudes/policies you mention. I have always admired their work and got pupils (through Chaplaincy activities) involved in CAFOD campaigns.

However, I will look into what you say. In fact, my General Links are well overdue updating, so for now I will remove them pending further reflection (as I did when Amnesty International came out with their recent pro-abortion policy). Keep up the good work on your own blog!

God bless.

Bro. James

P.S. What part of Northern England?
1:26 pm
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