Bombolulu Trip DP1 Reflection

Student Name	Yasmyn Ntege
Activity Name / Description	Bombolulu trip
Location	Bombolulu
Was it C, A, S or a combination?	CREATIVITY, SERVICE
Hours of CAS	12 Hours
Dates (Initiation – Completion)	January to 6th February

As ritual, each year, the DP1 class goes out as a whole to perform a Service activity in a certain area of choice. The area we chose this year was the underprivileged community of Bombolulu and we were addressing a multitude of issues. I went to the group focusing on the issue of Malaria and Cholera in the area of Bombolulu.

In the beginning, we got into the groups we showed the most interest in and I chose Malaria and Cholera because they are some of the most pressing medical issues facing not only Kenya but Africa as a whole as well. It is unfortunately, an immediate issue and threat to all of Africa’s inhabitants and if there were any way I could help in the plight to eradicate it or contain it, I would jump at the chance. In our groups, I took on a role of responsibility as I would normally call the meetings to order when we would stray away from the topic at hand and also took the initiate to write down all our points and change them into a PowerPoint so that we could present our goals to the rest of the class in an orderly fashion.

I liked how we all worked and cooperated well in our group. I feel like I enhanced my group working skills as usually I like to kind of take over the work by myself because I don’t like relying on people because they would usually let me down. This is not because they don’t generally come through but it’s because I have a certain style in which I like certain things done and when someone doesn’t adhere to that style it (for lack of better words) annoys me. But I learnt that it doesn’t always have to go my way and that I would have to adjust my attitude to be able to work efficiently in a group.

We decided that we were going to educate children on the importance of protecting oneself from those diseases and also practically show them a natural and sustainable method of preventing it. After dividing our roles, we did the research that each of us was required to do and came back to the group with feedback. My group had to research on the whole background of malaria and cholera and we found a lot of useful information that we will relay to the children at Bombolulu.

At Bombolulu however, we realised that the audience we had were a little too young to fully understand and appreciate the content we were trying to feed to them. It was a bit of a disappointment considering the amount o work we put into our workshop but we still tried to teach them something. As a few of my other group members filled recycled bottles with sand and basil (to make the natural mosquito repellent) together with the kids, I sat with them and engaged in art as a tool to educate them on malaria and cholera. Towards the end though, we were able to get a few older kids who had finished learning at other workshops to learn a bit more about Malaria and Cholera.

I got a chance to teach the information we had obtained and was satisfied when the kids were responsive. It showed that they actually were taking in this knowledge. Besides teaching, we also got to engage with the whole communities kids. It was fun afterwards as we were surrounded by children and played games with them, which lightened up not only their day but also ours.

Next time I think I would probably reach out to the right age group so that our message is carried across to mature people who understand the magnitude of the issues we are talking about. I would have wished to have fruitful discussions surrounding the issues and learn from the kids themselves as well. All in all it was a great opportunity and I also gained from the research I did.

SUPERVISOR: Mr. Vlad Gogelescu