Aine’s Story

Aine volunteered with Education Partnerships Africa and worked in a secondary school in Uganda, where our group undertook four projects. Our first two weeks were spent helping to build a concrete water tank that could be connected to the local water supply…

The impact was immediate as the children could spend more time in school instead of having to go and collect water.

Her second project was to install three energy saving stoves to replace the existing ones that had broken. These would save the school up to £350 per year. She also discovered that two staff had died in the past year from the smoke from the kitchen stoves which had caused throat cancer. The smoke was also getting into the food and was affecting the students. The new stoves produce 80% less smoke than the original stoves and with the ventilation that we added, it is our hope that fewer problems are caused in the future.

One evening in particular sticks in Aine’s mind. A Ugandan called David and Aine were cleaning the dishes after dinner when he said this to her: “We do not have much and what we do have is broken and battered. It is a hard life when you do not know whether you will have money to feed your children. But I know that God is with me always and he has given me the strength to carry on. When you feel that you have nothing in the world, know that you will always have God. He has brought me you, Aine, ‘she who has compassion'”

That is what Aine’s name means in Runyankole, (a tribal language spoken in West Uganda). Aine reports: “I have never experienced anything like the level of poverty, deprivation or the struggles that David has. But I am inspired that through it all, he is as faithful to God as anyone I have ever seen. Going to church in the local village in Uganda is an experience I will never forget. It was a room of people full of love and joy and peace and I am so grateful to have experienced it.”

Aine wants to say a massive thank you to the Catenians for the financial support that we gave her which has allowed me to volunteer for this project. Aine will continue to volunteer for Education Partnerships Africa and hopes to return to Uganda in a couple of years to continue the work that she has started. For Aine it was an unforgettable and humbling experience and she encourages anyone who wishes to do this type of work.