We are delighted with this year’s inaugural tour week in Kenya. We were hosted by the Sirisia district team in Bungoma, and they totally spoiled us. We met dignitaries, were offered dinner in local houses, and met some extraordinary stakeholders offering us enormous support for the continuation of the programme.
We loved visiting Mount Elgon National Park and we coached 350 kids across 9 primary schools in rural and urban parts of Bungoma while working with some incredible volunteers, even getting our taxi driver (who was a qualified volleyball coach to get involved too)!
A huge thank you to Joseph, Fred, Mary, Evelyn and Joy and their teams for looking after us so well. See you next summer!

This was our 4th year in Jinja and the committee did us proud bringing 2 new schools into the programme and introducing a mentor scheme which allowed previous NDT participants and high school students to take part and develop future coaches. Three of them have qualified as umpires, they are coaching in the local prison, working with women’s groups in the area and are starting a partnership with a local homeless charity to offer netball to the kids there.

They helped us to run a shorter-than-usual 3-day training programme (due to Eid being on the Friday) and a magnificent 12-team tournament on the Thursday. It is amazing to see netball develop in the rural parts of Bujagali and even more schools joining our programme in Jinja town.

Our volunteers felt totally at home at Jinja backpackers (thanks Suse!), enjoying trips on the river Nile (sedentary and rafting), bungee jumping, bead making and visiting the local blind unit and playing Goalball.

A fabulous tour week which ended with a visit to the netball academy Mpoza has set up in the slum area of Kamwocha. He has developed four squads (senior womens, mixed adults, under 15’s and juniors) who regularly train on a ground they managed to source in the middle of all the chaos!

​A big thank you to Mpoza and the Jinja Committee for his hard work in developing NDT in Uganda – you’re doing a great job!

This year’s tour is still to be 100% confirmed but we aim to head out from 19th November – 7 December 2015. Please get in touch if you’re interested in joining us.

We heard about Mary on our pre-tour visit to Kenya in 2014 and were instantly inspired by her story. Within minutes of actually meeting her in July 2015 we were blown away by her passion to help young teenage girls to conquer menstruation. Due to the lack of access to sanitary products, girls are often forced to miss school and are more susceptible to infections and other devastating consequences.

It is not uncommon to find girls using leaves, old used rags, newspaper, bits of mattress stuffing or even mud to create some form of protection to use when they have their periods. Consequently this means they don’t go to school, they lose out on their development, and they definitely don’t do sport. Mary saves up her own money, and when she has enough, she buys sanitary pads and donates them to the girls. We want to help Mary to achieve her ambition of getting more sanitary pads to more girls in Kenya.

It costs 45p to buy a pack of 8 sanitary pads. Each pack can last the girl the full period.

If you feel passionate about this and want to help change lives make a donation by clicking on this link and quote “SANITARY PADS KENYA.” All money donated will go directly to Mary to purchase and distribute pads.

Here’s her story in her own words; we are so proud to know her.
“Am Mary Emoit from a village in Kenya found in Bungoma County named Kabkara. I grew up from Kabkara and schooled there right from primary school to secondary school then later I joined the university of Nairobi where am pursuing Bachelors of Commerce. I started helping a girl child from my village in 2010 when I visited home then I found one of my neighbour’s daughter had not attended the school and when I approached her she told me she was sick. I offered to take her to hospital now that I knew the parents well, while on our way the girl disclosed to me her problems. She said she was on her periods but unlucky enough she can’t attend school due to lack of sanitary pads. Apparently she calls it cotton and she told me the teacher is aware of her absenture and almost a few girls can afford cotton or even they use leaves to control the flow. I was really shocked because during our time we started at high school and it was provided by parents because it was a requirement.
I decided to go to the nearby shop that is 2km and bought the sanitary towels and brought it to the girl. The following morning when I visited the school to inquire for more I found Janet in her class. I decided to talk to the fellow girls and the story was same. Since then I have been donating pads to them through my pocket money. After three months I supply like 136 box of pads for them not to miss their lesson because I know there future is bright. I love charity since then because the moment I visit the girls they have never missed school unless I miss to support them and in their career they have really improved.
Although the number is increasing to 210 girls I may need help but so far am a role model to them and I have taught them to share the little they have.”
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