"It really challenged my comfort zone, it allowed me to come home and really appreciate all the small things in life and all the opportunities that we are lucky to receive." Read 17 year-old, Siena's experience of her time as a volunteer reader with the Book Bus.
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| Siena with some of Zambia's eager readers! |
"During the summer of 2017, I spent two weeks in Zambia volunteering for the Book Bus. The charity works in various countries around the globe, encouraging children to go to school and enabling them to expand their education. The Book Bus aims to improve child literacy rates in Malawi & Zambia by providing children with books and the inspiration to read them.
My experience with the Book Bus was one of the most inspirational but also heart breaking, seeing the children in their environment, and getting an insight into a small part of their lives. These children are so eager to learn and read, but due to a lack of funding and resources, they cannot carry out daily activities in school that we take for granted.
Visiting two community schools and one government school, the difference in the learning standard and the facilities these children are able to use is astounding. The children are always so happy, full of smiles, enthusiastic to read and absolutely love the activities the Book Bus provides for them.
Volunteers join the Book Bus and work with the local Zambia team in the mornings visiting schools and holiday clubs. In the afternoon, we also visited local libraries to have 1 to 1 reading with the students to give some extra learning and reading time.
My experience with the Book Bus was one of the most inspirational but also heart breaking, seeing the children in their environment, and getting an insight into a small part of their lives. These children are so eager to learn and read, but due to a lack of funding and resources, they cannot carry out daily activities in school that we take for granted.
Visiting two community schools and one government school, the difference in the learning standard and the facilities these children are able to use is astounding. The children are always so happy, full of smiles, enthusiastic to read and absolutely love the activities the Book Bus provides for them.
Volunteers join the Book Bus and work with the local Zambia team in the mornings visiting schools and holiday clubs. In the afternoon, we also visited local libraries to have 1 to 1 reading with the students to give some extra learning and reading time.
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| Engaging children with great stories |
Touching my heart
Since coming back to the UK I have stayed in contact with one of the schools, which has given me the opportunity to see what the students are getting up to. I have also been able to fundraise for this amazing charity through using Just Giving, where all the money is donated towards resources and facilities for different activities, such as reading books, arts and craft materials, musical instruments, atlases etc.
Even though this experience was completely different to anything I have experienced before, and it really challenged my comfort zone, it allowed me to come home and really appreciate all the small things in life and all the opportunities that we are lucky to receive. It really does put life into a completely different perspective seeing such positivity in the children of Zambia.
The people in Zambia have really touched my heart, and are some of the happiest and friendliest people I have had the pleasure to meet and spend time with. The two weeks I was there was filled with many different emotions, through getting to know certain students better than others and working with the most amazing and professional team.
I would not change my experience for the world, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute."
