Chapter 1 and TABS travelled to Kenya

Chapter 1 and TABS travelled to Kenya

 

This year Chapter 1 sent 6 volunteers to Kenya for 17 days where they will be working at the TABS project site in a slum area in the town of Thika.

 TABS International is a UK-based Christian charity which promotes the spiritual , mental, moral and physical development of young people by providing opportunities for them to volunteer to work in Christian projects overseas. The Kenya project is organised by TABS and supported by Chapter 1.

 There is already a church and a basic school on the site in Thika, but eventually TABS plan to upgrade the school and add more classrooms, and build a community centre and workshop for training. The first priority is to make the site safe and secure  and so the 2011 volunteers will be building the boundary wall.

Our 9 chosen ones come from Chapter 1 projects in London, Leamington, Manchester and Cornwall. Unfortunately only 6 of them were able to leave for Kenya. They were chosen out of 20 applicants nationwide. The applicants all went to London for the final selection process, where everyone had to participate in observed and assessed activities, and undergo an individual interview.

Some comments from the participants: 

• 'People over there are working so hard just to feed their family. It made me realise that for me to be going to university is a privilege.'
• 'People over here take things for granted. We want lots of things, in Kenya the children were happy playing with ants in a bottle.'
• 'Over here you come home and expect to put on a big TV and throw away food you don't eat. In Kenya the level of need is so much greater.'

Chapter 1’s Operations Director, Rachel Sanders, summed it up: ‘In just under three weeks the change in these young people has been noticeable. They’ve developed and matured. They’ve worked as a team, and they’ve come back with a new perspective on their own situations. It really has changed their lives.’