My favourite parts

Gomez falling asleep on me.

My birthday.

Seeing the girls playing netball with real goal posts.

The girls praying

Living with mercy

The lake

Church

Not as good parts

Maybe just the food.

From a volunteers perspective at Tilianu i have had one of the best experiences of my life. It was completely different to anything that I have done before. I really enjoyed my first two weeks living in Mercy’s house as i felt like i was really involved all the time with the family and the orphanage. Although when we moved in to our own house i felt more settled, i think that my time at the Mercy’s really improved my experience of Africa and if possible all volunteers should try to experience it.

Another strength of the volunteer programme at tilinanu is that you get a free reign on what you wish to spend the money that you raised on, therefore you can really personalise your project. For example I went to Tilinanu with the idea that i wanted to do something with disabled children, and Alice was able to provide me with many opportunities to reach that goal. For example i was able to attend a clinic that provided physiotherapy for children with serapolsey, and i was able to get actively involved. I was also able to teach a child in the village that had severe learning difficulties and give him some one -on-one attention. I was also able to use the money I had risen to build the girls a play park and netball hoops. This was a really fun project as i was able to design, but, build and paint my own play park. It was brilliant.

My favourite part of my experience this summer was my birthday as we had a proper kid’s party with face paint, and I was even able to rent out a bouncy castle! It was a really good day, and the smiles and looks of awe on the girl’s faces made it one of the best days ever.
If you would like to ask me any questions please email me on katie.gerighty@live.co.uk