The Journey to The Ark

The Ark is a disabilities day care centre for children in Soroti, Uganda. The centre is ran by UK charity Global Care. They provide valuable physiotherapy, personal care and nurture for the local children each day. Their aim is to help these children become more independent, to support their wellbeing and to educate them.

In 2018 Global Care partnered with us; Two Rivers Primary School. We are a school in Tamworth, UK for children with Special Needs. It was the start of a beautiful friendship! Global Care had asked us to help train staff at The Ark so they could provide a better curriculum; ultimately they want the children to gain places at local schools so they too could gain greater opportunities and be more accepted in their communities.

Filled with excitement and anticipation; fuelled by stories and a PowerPoint presentation of a beautiful country and a group of children much like the one's we care for everyday, we set about our expedition. Four teachers; Laura, Collette, Rosie and Linzi all took up the challenge.

First was to raise the money; with bake sales, raffles, tuck shops, discos, forest school events and bric a brac under our belts the total started to grow. Followed by a massively generous donation by Building Design Group Ltd who offered to pay for all the participants to go 😀 We can't thank you enough! This meant all the other funds we had raised could buy resources, toys and also wheelchairs and physiotherapy equipment.

All age stay & play at Discover Outdoors

Disco at Unite Youth Club

Coffee morning at the Salvation Army Coventry 

Next followed a busy 6 months of organising flights, injections, finalising our training and ordering resources. More importantly we taught the children at Two Rivers all about The Ark and Global Care. We held a Uganda Day where the pupils enjoyed cooking African food, joining in with drumming workshops, learnt African dances and listened to folk stories. Over the months they wrote letters and made gifts and pictures for their new pen friends in Soroti. The staff, parents and friends of Two Rivers donated toys, books and blankets in their droves. We could not be more thankful to every one of them.

Word got round Uganda that we were coming and the initial 4 attendees grew to 17 😮 There are people travelling from all over the country to hear what we have to say... I hope we deliver! Joining us are representatives from Abekko where parents run a playscheme for disabled children, Ngora School for the Deaf, Madera School for the blind, teachers from local mainstream schools and some Global Care staff in Rukungiri where they support children with physical disabilities in schools (they will be travelling for 2 days to get to us!)

The final step in our preparation was to pack the cases... Oh my word! It was the biggest task yet! With so many kind offerings and so much excitement around the training there was masses of lovely items that needed wedging in to our 12 cases 😣 it took 2 days, 2 sets of scales and 4 (a little bit stressed) teachers but we managed it... just! The children at Two Rivers have decorated cotton shopping bags which we will give to everyone who attends the training; not only a gift from us to them but they are also filled with craft and therapy equipment and a mass of information about the strategies we use to educate and support the wellbeing of our children.

So that's it... we're all set 🤗 a little excited, a little bit nervous and mostly just attempting to anticipate the unknown! None of us have done anything like this before, we really don't know what to expect and are all feeling a bit guilty and sad about leaving our families for a couple of weeks. But at the same time we are all really proud and passionate about what we are setting out to do. I just hope we don't loose any cases on the flight 🤞 2 days to go!!!