Trim students make many friends on African adventure

Six students from Boyne Community School in Trim spent part of their summer in Uganda where they have a link with St Andrew Kaggwa School, Kabimbiri. Boyne CS and St Andrew Kaggwa, Kabimbiri, Uganda, have been linked together since 2008. The partnership has been under the funding and guidance of Worldwise and Irish Aid. To date, teachers from Trim have travelled to the partner school and teachers from St Andrew's have travelled to Ireland to visit Boyne Community School. In June, the six students - Patrick Lennon, Robert White, Daniel Farrell, Jonathan Hilley, Mary Smith and David Buckley from Boyne CS - along with two of their teachers, travelled to Uganda as part of a school linking and immersion visit to their partner school in Africa. During their visit, they took part in various classes and interacted with students and staff. They also organised a visit from the Irish embassy in Uganda for them to talk to the school about the work that Ireland does within Uganda. They played various sports within the school, such as volleyball and soccer, and taught their Ugandan friends some of the rules of Gaelic football and hurling. They also planted 120 trees which will help to combat their carbon footprint from the long flight and also will help to create a financially self-sufficient school. In 15 years' time, each tree will earn St Andrew's between €100 and €200. This money will help to feed and maintain the school. They learnt about various cooking methods and how to make steamed mashed bananas. They spent time learning about their agricultural methods and how they grow their potatoes, bananas, maize and kassava (a parsnip-like vegetable). The Trim group also organised a pen-pal exchange between the two schools for first, second and third year students, and investigated the various subjects and their curriculum to bring back to students and staff from Boyne Community School. Now that the students have returned to Ireland from their trip, they will be visiting each class in their school to tell them about the trip and the experiences they had. They will also be organising a website design competition for students to build their partner school a website. Robert White said: "I had so many fears and worries about going on the trip which my teachers helped me with before leaving. Now that I'm home and look back on the trip, I don't know what I was so worried about. It really was a truly memorable and life-changing experience." Jonathan Hilley added: "I couldn't get over how happy the Ugandan people were. They were welcoming, accepting and friendly in many ways, just like us Irish! Everybody had a really relaxed attitude to life, something which I admired." The students have extended a huge thanks to everybody who made the trip possible, especially Mr O'Callaghan and Ms O'Brien, who travelled with them.