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Sally's adventures in Uganda

Sally’s always been a bit of a tomboy, playing with cars when she was little and taking an active role in sports – her proudest moment being when she was made captain of her primary school rounders team.

In her spare time she likes to do all sorts of interesting and diverse things from reading - travel books, history books, and religious history in particular - to bird-watching at weekends if the weather permits. Recently she’s taken up Tae Kwando to keep fit and learn self-defence. And the few spare moments she has between doing all these things are spent listening to the King himself, Elvis - surely the most beautiful man ever to have walked the earth!

Being outdoors and getting her hands dirty in the garden is what she enjoys when she’s not working in her current role in admin for Cheshire County Council, but she’s really only killing time until she can return to Uganda in Spring 2007.

Sally’s previous job was in the travel industry working for a small independent agency specialising in worldwide tailor-made trips focusing on wildlife. She gave this up in February 2006 to do Tsunami Relief and Turtle Conservation work in Sri Lanka, but this was a complete disaster and she came home early - absolutely gutted that the trip hadn't worked out.

She heard about the Soft Power Education (SPE) charity whilst on holiday in Uganda last July. She and her companions rocked up at a place called Bujagali Falls for quad biking and white water rafting. While she was off doing the rafting, there was an opportunity for others to spend a day helping to paint a local school with the SPE guys. The three girls who chose to do this had such an amazing experience - you could tell from their faces and expressions that they felt they had been involved in something quite special. This was what Sally felt she'd missed out on in Sri Lanka, so she came home and looked up Soft Power Education on the internet and it went from there.

Sally returned to Uganda with SPE in late 2006 and found herself at Budondo Primary School painting the outside of the school building. It was still term time and all the kids were around asking questions and telling the volunteers how good a job they were doing! As in the case of many of the other schools, Lukolo Muslim School can't afford to pay for books for the children so they paint murals on the classroom walls with descriptions of what they’re looking at by the side. Sally’s job was painting a diagram of the male reproductive system…!

She was also asked to organise and cater for two pre-school Christmas parties - wow, what an amazing experience this was! She was given a budget per child to buy a gift, biscuit, drink and balloon for the 150+ kids in each school so with help from fellow volunteers Margi, Caroline and Franz, a shopping spree to a nearby town was organised to buy all the gear. The children were delighted with their parties, games and toys, the headmistresses were over the moon with the volunteers’ efforts and it was very satisfying to see so many happy faces.

Enthusiasm and a willingness to work and get involved with the local people are the only qualifications that Soft Power Education requires of their volunteers. Sally’s found it almost impossible to put into words what she learnt from being in Uganda and the local people she worked with are amongst the happiest and most generous she’s ever met, with a very infectious and positive attitude towards life.

Because Soft Power Education is a small charity, it doesn’t have large overheads and every penny raised is put straight back into this wonderful community. They really are working with the local people, getting them involved, so all concerned are learning together.

Up until recently, Sally wasn't really sure what she wanted to do in the future. She just wanted to keep travelling and experiencing new things, but when she was in Uganda before Christmas she bought 3 acres of land overlooking the River Nile. Her plan is to build a lodge and market it as such, employing local people where possible. She has found her paradise in Uganda and feels so comfortable and happy there that she sees herself living there eventually. She would love to continue working with Soft Power Education and her ambition is to create a similar structure in the village where her land is situated.

The people who inspire Sally most are the ones that do things on a day to day basis and never really get any credit for their efforts - health sector workers such as nurses, MacMillan nurses and people who work in hospices. If she had to pick someone in the public eye then she would say Princess Diana was a great inspiration to her when she started her work with Aids victims. The myths surrounding Aids were rife when we all saw pictures on TV of her cradling babies with HIV. Her tolerance also taught Sally a great deal. Kelly Holmes is also a bit of a heroine of hers as well - to come back from all those injuries and then to win Olympic gold - what a bird!

Sally’s heartfelt thought to us all is:

“Never, ever let the fact that you have tits and a fanny (boobs and a front bottom is perhaps more polite!) stop you from taking on a challenge and going for it. Sounds like a cliche, but life is precious. You're only here once so GO FOR IT!”