This is my first Footprinter report as I prepare to set off for Rwanda to teach Maths and English to disadvantaged children.
My name is Jem, I am 18 and I live in Swanage in Dorset. I have just finished my A-levels at the Purbeck School in Wareham and I shall be studying Law at Durham University from October 2016.
I am very ready to leave the sleepy town of Swanage, and see places completely different from the familiarity of Dorset.
I am so grateful to Hazels Footprints Trust for helping me to fund this, although I am quite nervous about embarking on my trip, as I have never been travelling before. However, I am excited about the challenges to come.
I really want to make a difference to the disadvantaged and I think volunteering will be a wholly rewarding experience.
When people first hear the word Rwanda, they almost always link it in the same breath with the word genocide. In the early 1990s,the country was torn apart by the mass killings of as many as a million people and Rwanda is still recovering from the disaster.
I shall be teaching Maths and English at the Excel school in Rwamagana and working to help street children in Kayonza and Kabarondo.
These projects are run under the auspices of the Amakuru Trust, which is dedicated to alleviating poverty in Rwanda and has completed many charitable projects over the past few years. One of the trustees is my old Economics teacher, Mr Hayes.
While volunteering in Rwanda, I also hope to help develop the fledgling cricket community in the capital Kigali during any time I have free from teaching. I am a very keen cricketer myself and I would love to get involved in some sort of coaching.
I expect Rwanda will be a complete contrast to the UK, in ways I probably cant even begin to imagine. However, this sense of the unknown doesnt actually unsettle me. Rather, it excites me.
Although there will definitely be obstacles on my journey, I hope I can overcome them with a sense of determination and humour.
I cant wait to go and get started.
