This week Leaving Cert students across the country eagerly awaited the CAO college offers. While talk and excitement for most will be on whether or not they get their chosen course, one local student, 17-year-old Sophie Connolly, has decided to embark on a different kind of adventure.
In September the student from St Enda’s will travel to Uganda to work for 12 months as a volunteer with the Scottish charity Project Trust.
Project Trust was founded in 1967 as an educational charity on the Hebridean Isle of Coll in north west Scotland. Since then it has sent some 5,500 volunteers overseas engaging in projects such as social services, English teaching, outdoor activity, and community development schemes.
Last October Ms Connolly was selected by the trust to teach in the remote village of Kiwlangala at Children's Sure House School. There she will teach English, science, and maths to students aged between seven and 20. She also intends setting up a drama club, basketball team, and other extra-curricular activites for the students.
Ms Connolly will be accompanied by another volunteer worker who will live with her within the community, in a one bedroom bungalow, a house with no electricity, no toilet, no running water, and certainly no TV.
In preparation for her adventure Ms Connolly has a fundraising target of €6,800. With less than three weeks to go she has yet to reach that target. If you would like to donate you can do so online at: http://www.justgiving.com/sophieconnolly1/ (be aware 5 per cent of your donation is deducted by the website ) or by cash or cheque to Sophie Connolly, 15 Castlepark Ballybane, Galway.
