Work for us in 2012!

We are looking for staff members to work in the UK and Uganda in 2012.

The roles are being developed at present but will be based on the following:

Uganda

Developing the projects out in Uganda to a higher standard, we will also be looking to employ researchers out in Uganda.

UK

Developing our fundraising team, looking at the future animal assisted therapy centre, developing the outreach animal assisted therapy in the UK with our 2 ponies.

If you are interested in any particular roles in 2012, or if you would just like to inquire then please contact us at info@yeboyes.org

The safe house

Unfortunately we found out that recently the police rounded up and imprisoned 300 children living on the streets of Kampala. 150 of these children formed part of Raising Up Hope for Uganda’s (RUHU) outreach project and we knew many personally.

The authorities claim the round up was done to help the children return to their families. However, the effects of detaining children indefinitely in holding centres across the country are disastrous. In addition to ruining the future of those that were taken criminalising these children also hurt those that are still on the streets by driving them further underground. This makes it so much harder to help and care for them.

Kajsa and K who are 2 previous volunteers from 2010 have very generously decided to help Patrick and RUHU by funding the first 12 months rent of a safe house for 70-100 children. The main priority at this stage is to create a safe environment where the children feel safe and are shielded from the daily beatings and harassment of the police so they are able to fully participate in RUHU’S outreach and rehabilitation projects

After three attempts the safe house was finally secured on 5^th July. The building has an office, a living room, two bedrooms (one for the boys and one for the girls to ensure privacy and safety), a toilet and even a shower.

As soon as the deposit was down some of the boys moved in, cared for by the older boys and Patrick. It was a joy visiting the safe house and witnessing the boys cooking, cleaning and helping each other. Today the house is home to 30 children and the number is still growing.

Nonetheless, many hurdles remain as the running of the house, the provision of food, first aid resources and educational material requires consistent funding. We cannot wait to see the house painted by the Yebo volunteers and hopefully a wall fitted to allow the girls to join as well.

Yebo hopes to continue to support and fund this project in the future and to work closely with RUHU to support these children with the work that we do.

Community and orphanage children at UWEC

On Saturday, 20 children from the orphanage and 20 from the local community that RUHU work with, along with Patrick, William and Julius – who helping the children develop their singing and dancing – came to UWEC to show the Yebo team the songs and dances they have been practising and to do some art activities with the volunteers.

In the morning, the children showed us the songs they have been learning since we last saw them. In the songs, the children sing about the environment and why they believe it is important that we protect animals and plants for the future. Hearing them sing about how they want to conserve nature was a very inspiring and moving sentiment to hear from such young children.

They also got the volunteers to join in with the dancing which everyone very much enjoyed – although the children seemed to be quite amused by some of our dancing “skills”!

After a delicious lunch of traditional Ugandan food, and a quick swim in the lake to cool off, the children collected flowers from around UWEC and together with the volunteers, and used them to make bookmarks. Despite the children never having done it before, they learnt very quickly and produced some beautiful bookmarks that will be sold at the show.

We will be seeing the children again on Wednesday and are looking forward to seeing how much further they have come with preparing their songs and dancing. Judging by the performances we saw today, it should be very impressive

The first Yebo children’s camp

11^th-12^th July – Community Children Camp

During  two days the volunteers have hosted the first Yebo children’s camp at UWEC for 20 community children. The aim of the camp was to allow the children to delve deeper into therapeutic activities and gain a better understanding of the connection between chimpanzees and humans. During the first day the children were able to closely observe the chimpanzees at UWEC by helping the keepers feed them fruit and also learn their individual stories. Play and learning was combined in a question and answer session where the children related the stories of the primates to their own backgrounds and traumas, which were often very similar.

After enjoying a nice lunch of beans, sweet potatoes and rice at the UWEC restaurant the children swam into lake Victoria for an afternoon swim before joining the volunteers in preparing the artwork for the upcoming show. Together the volunteers and children collected several boxes of shells from the beach. These will be cleaned, crushed and dyed for decoration on big plywood boards. Once the collecting of shells was done everyone sat down on the grass and engaged in therapeutic activities by drawing chimpanzees expressing particular feelings that the children themselves chose and had to explain.

In the evening, after the children had settled into their dorms and had a satisfactory dinner, a campfire was lit on the beach. The campfire started with a lot of hustle and bustle as the volunteers joined the children in playing Ugandan games, such as the cat and the rat, and singing songs in Luganda while also teaching the children the English versions. The first day of the camp concluded with a fascinating and inspiring talk about the role of rangers in national parks by Francis, the head of security at UWEC.

The second day began with a turbulent boat journey across lake Victoria to Ngamba Island, the chimpanzee sanctuary. While half of the volunteers stayed behind to continue preparing artwork, Alice, Laura, Trish, Helena, Kay and Kajsa and all the children together with Patrick braved the bad weather for two hours on a ‘slow-boat’, singing and huddling together. The aim of this trip was to give the children inspiration for conservation-focused songs to be performed during the show.

Once on the island Philip, the guide, gave the children a tour of the impressive facilities. This included a decompose toilet, a kitchen with an energy saving stove and the chimpanzee holding facilities that are used for sleeping at night-time as well as for brain-stimulating activities and research at day-time. Following this the children listened to a motivational talk by Zenox, during which they were told that they ‘will become what they believe’. This gave good results as the volunteers and the children subsequently composed a song and a poem about the importance of conserving the environment for our future.

After enjoying a lunch of peanut butter-sandwiches and biscuits the children joined the primate keepers during the afternoon feeding of the chimpanzees. This enabled a closer study of the particular behaviours of the primates in an as close to natural environment as possible. The feeding was followed by a drawing competition that saw everyone, children and volunteers alike, awarded with sweets that had been generously donated by a young German boy.

The true harvest of the first Yebo children’s camp was made visible during the boat journey back from Ngamba Island. Children, volunteers and staff all joined together to ensure that the songs fully carried forward the conservational messages that had been conveyed at UWEC and Ngamba. Meanwhile the volunteers that stayed behind had made great progress with preparing the artwork, including making the Yebo logo out of bottle labels!

‘The launch of the Yebo Wildlife Conservation Festival 2011’

The current group of volunteers out in Uganda have come up with an idea of having a show for the children to host in conjunction with UWEC at the end of the Yebo project in July.

This idea stemmed from having an art exhibition and also one of Yebo’s aims this year, which was to encourage the children to be able to make their own living by using their creativeness to make things to sell to people who are visiting Uganda.  This then evolved further when ideas were put in from all of the Yebo team, Raising up hope orphanage, as well as UWEC and Ngamba staff.

So preparations have begun to host a wildlife and conservation festival at UWEC.  Ideas were formed with regards to activities that the children could get involved in so that they were able to show their creative sides, by making things such as bookmarks and pieces of art work.  Things like this were also aiming to have a conservation message by the artwork being made from recycled bits of materials.  The children have also started preparing some songs , music and drama to show to the people who will be attending the show. These are all aimed at allowing the children to express their feelings and life experiences as well as a conservation message.

The volunteers have now drafted a letter and this will be sent as an invitation to people in Entebbe such as the Mayor and other people.  Reporters from the newspaper and television in Uganda are also wanting to talk to the Yebo volunteers to find out more about what is happening in the show.  It has been titled

‘The launch of the Yebo Wildlife Conservation Festival 2011’

Something that Yebo is very proud to be part of and work together with UWEC on. A poster was also created by a local artist and T shirts are being made by the volunteers for the day.
What an exciting time ahead for these children, the benefit for them will be to bring awareness to their generation and to allow them to have some positivity in their lives, for their hope to come alive and for them to learn new skills and opportunities that may lie ahead for them in the future.

The   Yebo and UWEC wildlife Conservation Festival will be held on Saturday 23rd July 2011 at 4pm. If you are in Uganda then please do come along, please see the details of the poster below.

Taking the children to Ngamba Island chimpanzee sanctuary 2011

Today we took 21 excited children on a long boat to Ngamba Island. During the two hour journey we played eye spy and the children sang songs to us. On arrival the staff of the island supplied all of the children with cups of tea and we all sat and chatted freely for a while.

When all the teas were finished the staff chatted to the children about what they wanted to be when they grew up and the importance of school. The children expressed their wonderful ambitions, aims and dreams such as a pilot or a doctor. The staff also asked the children what activities they took part in the mornings and were answered with many answers such as greeting the elders and saying their prayers.

Still engaged by the staff, the children described the differences between primates and humans. Some of the children had read about primates on the boat on their way to the island so enjoyed answering questions when asked.

The importance of recycling and environmental conservation was talked about and the children enjoyed learning a new song. The song was appropriately about how cutting down trees would negatively affect their future and the future of the chimps.

After this interesting session the children had their lunch. When finished they had fun splashing around in the lake, and playing in the hammock. After this relaxation period the children went to where the chimps had their afternoon feed. During this period we learnt some individual chimpanzee stories about how they ended up at the sanctuary. Ngamba island is home to 44 rescued chimpanzees at present, and consists of 100 acres of land. 98% is forrested, leaving just 2% for the people who visit the island.The chimpanzees live in a very natural environment and are monitored daily.

It was an amazing day for all of us and a very educational, yet reflective day for the children who we are very lucky to be working with.  These types of visits aim to be sustainable in the future through funding given by Yebo and programs set up by Yebo and the Ugandan staff at the sanctuaries and orphanage.

The members of the Yebo volunteer team that did not attend also had a very productive day, practicing and planning activities that can be used in future days with the children.We are excited about the next few weeks ahead.