My Volunteering Trip to Kenya

Written in 2024 for Bournemouth University,Turing Scheme

Afters 4 years I have now finished my degree at Bournemouth University in Marketing Communications. Throughout my time at BU, I always made the most of international opportunities, such as going away to Antwerp for an Erasmus and moving to Sydney for my placement year. So, when I found out about the charity Play Action International and their volunteering opportunities in East Africa, I thought this would be an amazing experience to finish off my university years.

Play Action is a charity that aims to provide disadvantaged children an environment to play and grow in. Going to Kenya to build a school playground for children, whilst also learning about the local community, culture and language, and exploring the country through safaris and camping, seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Having never done any volunteering like such and having never travelled to East Africa, I was keen to explore these experiences whilst doing something good for a community, a school and their children.

I first found out about the charity after they followed me on Instagram. I then learnt more about them through my own research on their website and socials. I didn’t take long to convince myself, and a few days later I had signed up to their 4-week project in June-July 2024. I heard about the funding scheme shortly after signing up which was a welcome news. The process was really easy and just required some documentation completing and signing by all parties. The accumulative costs of such a trip, including flights, vaccinations, visas, adequate clothes and equipment, does add up, so it was great to get a little help to cover these.

June 23rd rolled round quickly, and then it was time to meet all the other volunteers at Heathrow Airport and throughout our journey to Kisumu. There was around 20 of us on this project from all across the UK. We hit the ground running on Monday June 24th as we arrived at our school – Ong’Adi Primary School in Kisumu East, with welcome speeches from teachers, community members, our team lead Morven, and dances from each class. Both staff and children were so welcoming. We settled into our room – a repurposed classroom – each with our own mattress and mosquito net.

During the week, we stayed at the school and worked on the playground, and on the weekends, we left for our excursions (safari & rainforest camping) and our rest weekends in the centre of Kisumu. Our weekday mornings consisted of manual work on the playground lead by our amazing team of builders – Hussein, Richard and Adam. We spent the first week digging holes, the second week was mainly cementing and screwing and bolting with some painting too, and the final week was dedicated to painting and the final touches. During our third week, we were privileged to return to the Kenya pilot school at Obwolo and rebuild its nursery playground. Due to it being too hot for manual work, our afternoons were dedicated to play time with the children, called ‘Creative Play’, organised by Adam. Throughout our stay we spent time with all the classes and made paper crowns, friendship bracelets, banana leaf mats, paper chains and also played outdoor games. The children were always so enthusiastic and whatever we were playing or creating, they were happy. Our final day at the playground, called ‘Open Day’ was a day full of celebrations, music, dances and speeches and an official opening of the playground. Seeing the joy in the kids as they ran onto the playground for the first time in 4 weeks was something I’ll always remember.

Not to mention the challenge of manual work under the African sun, adapting to life in Kenya was also a challenge and eye-opener of its own. At the school, the toilets were just a hole in the ground, we had outdoor bucket showers, no Wi-Fi, one communal plug socket in our bedroom and one communal tap outside. Water had to be purified before drinking, and meals consisted of combinations of potatoes, plantain, mash, rice, pasta, beans, peas and cabbage. It sounds basic, but it was delicious and really made me appreciate the importance of real non-processed foods to fuel manual work. For breakfast we sometimes had chapatis, a traditional Kenyan dish, a bit similar to a thick small pancake. We also encountered a lot of cultural challenges. The children were fascinated by our skin, hair and light eyes. Our shoulders, knees and midriff had to be covered at all times as this is a part of their culture. Outside of our time at the school, the transport and roads really stood out to me. The roads are full of potholes which is why most locals travel by motorbike or tuktuk, and their driving is pretty chaotic when coming from Europe. Anything we had planned or booked was also always late, sometimes by over an hour, which proved the reality of ‘Kenyan time’. As soon as we were on the road and spotted by locals, they would wave and shout ‘muzungu’ which is Swahili for ‘foreign traveller’. It stood out to me at first, but after hearing this term a hundreds time a day, I became more than used to it.

Returning back to Europe was definitely a reverse-culture shock. I instantly became a lot more appreciative of what most of us take for granted or don’t even think about – drinking water from taps, having a flushing toilet and a shower, reliable public transport, and even a stable roof over my head. This experience made me realise how little Eastern African countries have, but how welcoming and joyful the locals are, and how smart, enthusiastic and imaginative the children are. They made toys and games out of rocks and rubbish, and even made a drum set out of empty bottles of water for Open Day. I am definitely more aware and grateful of my upbringing and life situation now.

This experience has provided me opportunities to enhance my cultural understanding and awareness, learn a few words of Swahili, learn about Kenya and its culture and traditions, spend time with locals and school children, taste local food, enhance my intercommunications skills and adaptability, and build an impressive playground which is already and will ongoingly impact the upbringing and development of these children. I went into this experience with no particular expectations and an open-mind, and just embraced it all. I am so grateful for everything I learnt and experienced over the 4 weeks and would without a doubt do it all over again.

I would like to finish off this blog by thanking all the amazing volunteers who I experienced this with and who became great friends, our team leads Morven and Lynet, our volunteer coordinator Matt, our builders and Creative Play team Hussein, Richard and Adam, our on-site chefs Sarah and her kid Imran, and Winnie, all the school teachers and staff, particularly Teacher Aggie for teaching us some Swahili and showing us how to cook maize like the locals, and finally the charity Play Action International as a whole for making this trip possible. Over 2000 kids were impacted throughout Ong’Adi and Obwolo schools with our builds, and I am very proud to have been a part of this project.