Uganda Volunteering Project: Play Action International

Hello from Uganda!  Apologies for the overdue update which you have probably been anticipating since my departure on 1st July.   I suppose a suitable excuse would be that we have embraced the digital detox even when Wifi has been made available. I can speak on behalf of the other twenty volunteers of our four week project group that we have enjoyed dissociating from our phones and avoided the compulsive scrolling through countless emails and social media feeds as we would do naturally at home. Since our group began the four week project north of Jinja at Nambale School, there have been other groups that have come and go who are involved with projects of different lengths: either two weeks or four weeks. Typically those on the two week projects are allocated smaller schools to renovate whereas those on the 4 week project are designated larger schools to construct a playground from scratch alongside local builders who are enrolled by Play Action International. In this way we hav...

Like all good ideas; this one was born in the pub, sort-of. In all honesty I’d wanted to do the three peaks challenge for years but I’d never found a good excuse to rope anyone else into it. So when we needed some method of fundraising it seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine doing some good with a fun challenge. I’ve never mentioned this to the other lads but I was always very confident in our success. We’re all young guys in good shape and I thought we’d prepared very well. The way I saw it the only potential hazards were the weather and traffic which were totally out of our control. Cue Ben Nevis and other than some keen wind and rain at the peak where I had to quickly throw some extra layers on to avoid hypothermia, we completed the stage at an easy pace in good time. Following that we mademore good time down the M74 and M6, which was the only part of the route which threatened serious traffic. Personally, confidence was sky high. That is until a voice piped up from the ba...

 3 Peak Challenge Photos  Hopefully these pictures will give you a fair impression of the extreme range of conditions we had to endure across our journey from Scotland to Wales through England.  As you will notice below, the number of pictures per climb decline as we became more disciplined with timings as the clock counted down as well as being sensible not to reveal our phones to the torrential rain and wind especially during Scafell Pike and Snowdon climbs.  Ben Nevis  Scafell Pike  Snowdon (This is the only photo we took at the summit of Snowdon mainly because we were already tight with our schedule for completion in under 24 hours and secondly because it was too rainy. The only moment of jubilation and satisfaction that warranted a capture was our four soaking bodies battling against 30-40mph gusts atop Mount Snowdon!) 

  3 Peaks Challenge Update: Mission Accomplished! We are very proud to announce the accomplishment of completing the three peaks challenge in 23 hours 44 minutes commenced on 23rd June 2023. Thank you for all your encouragement and support that really fueled us to complete this incredible challenge. Below are the key details outlining the timings and routes.  Further posts will feature personal accounts of the challenge which I strongly encourage you to read as we all had varying experiences and perspectives despite walking and driving the same journey! Photos will be published in a separate post. Ben Nevis (Scotland’s tallest mountain) We set off walking from the Glen Nevis car park at 6:30am and followed the Ben Nevis Mountain Path approaching the lake ‘Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe’ which approximately marked the half-way point. As the ascent progressed the views over Fort William became foggier until we reached the summit where visibility was poor after gaining 1,339 m in...