About the trip
This website records Amanpreet Ahluwalia, Heather Parker and Imlah Hall’s trip from Foleshill and Hillfields in Coventry, UK, to Gambogi, in Vihiga District in Western Kenya – in order to help start a link between Kitagwa Primary School there, and John Gulson Primary School here.
Kitagwa is a rural school, with around 450 children, almost all of whom are Maragoli and the majority Christian – John Gulson is an inner-city, multicultural school, with a majority of children of South Asian Muslim origin.
The school link has developed from previous visits to the area by Aman and Heather of the foleshillfields vision project, in July 2006 and over Xmas and New Year 2004/5 respectively.
Aman visited to work with the Emuhaya Group of the Disabled, a self-organised rural association of people with a range of disabilities – she wrote about her “Big Trip to a Little Village” here. Heather visited for two months as part of a longer trip with her family (and wrote about it here) in order to continue her friendship with Naomy Esiaba, a teacher and leader of African disabled women, who she met in 1995 at the global NGO Forum on Women in Beijing (as you do!) and who visited Coventry with her daughter Anne in 2000.
The connection with Kitagwa school was begun when Aman volunteering some of her time there in 2005, and taking some gifts from John Gulson, and the local secondary school she had just left: Sidney Stringer. Meanwhile, Heather and others have been running a summer term Global Citizenship programme in John Gulson School since 2001, with a diverse group of both local and international volunteers.
The foleshillfields vision project aims to build friendship and solidarity between the diverse communities in Hillfields and Foleshill – and between communities in our neighbourhoods and communities all over the world. Calling across continents this June will help us with both of these aims.
Check back often to read more!
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