14 posts tagged “charity”

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Self portrait

Apr 29, 2008
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The other weekend I went to a big spring fair at Highnam House just west of Gloucester in aid of Gloucester Cathedral and a charity called Pied Piper. Pied Piper support all sorts of projects but have just visited my wife's special school and presented them with two minibuses. There were lots of things going on - morris dancing, brass bands, flower stalls, facer painting - all sorts. And of course you could go round the extensive grounds which have lots of flowers, lakes and especially lots of wooden sculpture. I really liked a group of yew trees which had died but instead of chopping them down they had been carved into beautiful sculptures where all the variegation of the wood comes out. There was also an exhibition of vintage cars along with a few cars like the DeLorean from "Back to the Future". I took a few photos of the cars, trying to get something slightly more interesting than the usual shot. In the middle of taking these shots I noticed my reflection was in a lot of the shots, so I decided to deliberately take one where I made sure I was actually looking at the camera. So I took the shot above with the camera held at waist height. Hope you like it!

Big Pink Friday

Jan 31, 2008
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Last Friday at school we had a Breast Cancer awareness day - we called it Big Pink Friday, since pink Friday is fairly common anyway. The kids were able to dress up in pink for a donation, and quite a number when wild, although overall involvement of staff and students was rather less than usual I thought. Here are a few photos of them (more here):

Fashion Rocks Uganda

Dec 2, 2007
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A couple of weeks back we had a big fund raiser at school called "Fashion Rocks Uganda". It was a fashion show to raise money for our partner school in rural west Uganda. We have visited the school several times and completed various projects. This last summer we provided materials for the building of a new science lab and spent time teaching in the school. We also provided various teaching materials. We have some Ugandans at my school in the UK but none from that school - they're all from the cities - mainly Kampala. Here's two video clips of the fashion show.

Previous vox posts linked to Uganda: http://chrisleigh.vox.com/library/post/nerdy-day.html - http://chrisleigh.vox.com/library/post/cheap-laptops-to-rival-the-olpc.html - http://chrisleigh.vox.com/library/post/youtube-counting.html - http://chrisleigh.vox.com/library/post/back-to-school-1.html - http://chrisleigh.vox.com/library/post/uganda---chilling-in-kampala.html (last post of this year's Uganda trip) - http://chrisleigh.vox.com/library/post/uganda---last-pictures-from-ibanda.html - (last post about Ibanda, our link school's location).

Nerdy Day

Oct 6, 2007
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Yesterday it was "Jeans for Genes" day at school with the theme of Nerds. I feared it might be quite negative - the school generally does not have that good an attitude to hard work and intellectual interest - but in fact, it was a lot of fun with the kids dressing up and trying to look as weird as possible. Other kids just wore mufti (non-uniform) and enjoyed the change. A couple of members of staff dressed up too, but not the number who usually do - perhaps staff are a bit too self-consciously nerdy anyway. No that isn't true really, although it might be the perception of some students. For example, the head of classics, who might be thought to be a greek freak (which he is) led an expedition to climb the three highest mountains in Iceland over the summer. And even someone like me who spends almost all his time using computers, is also involved in the cadet force and was on summer cadet camp and a community action fortnight helping a school in Uganda. And for the students, tonight we have a house singing competition, and we are taking groups of kids to the Cheltenham Literature Festival. So it's a right old mixture - which is probably as it should be.

Uganda - last pictures from Ibanda

Jul 14, 2007
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Dancing seems quite a key feature of Ugandan culture so here are some photos:

The pictures above were taken at an assembly at our link school, but everytime we go to a school we would be welcomed with tea and an assembly. Here are photos of the final assembly at the Ibanda Integrated Primary School where we were staying.

Our students (and teachers) loved the children; here are some photos:

Here are just a few more random photos:

Uganda - more pictures from Ibanda

Jul 14, 2007
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When we eventually arrived in Ibanda we were a bit late so we went straight to our partner school, Nyakatakura Memorial Secondary School where we received a very warm welcome from staff and students alike.

The following day we took some lessons in the school (and in the Primary school) which everyone seemed to enjoy, though it was quite an experience for our staff teaching such large classes, and slightly overwhelming for our students, but they coped very well.

Uganda - pictures from Ibanda

Jul 14, 2007
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We left Kampala after a good breakfast at Speke Resort, fairly early in the morning. Above are photos of shops and garages as we drove out of Kampala on the way to Mbarare and Ibanda. The following pictures are in low resolution because of the slow upload speeds (1kb/s typical).

We had a short break when crossing the equator - for the toilet and for a couple of photos, but not many because it was raining. At Mbarare at about 3pm we stopped for a lunch of chicken and chips at the Agip Hotel.

Vox Hunt: Enjoy The Sunset

Mar 13, 2007
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Show us your favorite sunset picture.
Submitted by B. Mag.

Satsuki sunset

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This was taken on my first night in Uganda, February 2005, from the cathedral at Namirembe, Kampala. I remember the continual astonishment on that first trip to Africa; it was absolutely amazing and truly life-changing. See my previous post for more information or explore Uganda.

Computer AId in Kenya

Mar 9, 2007
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Here's a video from ZD Net about a group cycling across Kenya to raise funds for ComputerAid which refurbishes old computers which are then donated to schools in Africa. It's worth watching and brought back memories of my trip last year to Uganda to help with the installation of computers in a couple of schools in the west of Uganda - situations very like those shown in this video. You can give to ComputerAid at this link. I'm going back to Uganda this summer with another team from school - you can see pictures from last year here.