SUMMER SCHOOL

For the last couple of years we have helped fund a small group of UK volunteer teachers with special needs skills, to teach at a ‘summer school’ in Olympic Gardens.

This school is organised each year by UCS and is far from being a holiday.

It helps keep the children off the streets over the summer holidays and enables some extra tutoring for those that really need it most to stay in main stream schooling.

Conditions are harsh within the grounds of the church that the school is held, with over 150 kids to cater for each year, aged between 3 and 15.

Many of the children play football and cricket barefoot on the asphalt play area, to avoid wearing out their trainers, as they know they will not be able to replace them if they get damaged.

As a reward for good behavior small groups were taken each week to the British High Commission and allowed to play in their pool.

Some of these children have never seen a swimming pool, let alone swam in one. We also managed to teach some of them to swim.

For many of the children this contact from ‘outside’ the community, is often as important as the lessons they are taught.