Friends Revisited, Friends Reunited

Easter in Gulu, this year, took on a strong, Australian flavour, with Jody, Dan & Myron back for a 12 day visit - their first, since they left Uganda, 18 months ago. 

Short visits require very careful planning. The clock starts ticking as soon as you land, so a serious, itinerary spreadsheet is essential & Jody is definitely an expert! Meetings, appointments, trainings & school visits were scheduled in, not to mention reunions, meals with friends and a tiny bit of relaxation. 

For us it was, of course, both great fun and extremely useful to spend time with Jody & Dan again. In their absence, Connect Gulu continues to thrive under Moureen's solid leadership. This is a great testimony to the years of training, mentoring, supervision and continuous professional development. Handing over project management can often present real challenges and difficulties. The Mobile Library project in Gulu is expanding very well, due to the improving reading levels among the children at participating schools. It was fun to hand over yet more bags of books brought from the UK to add to the Mobile Library stock.

The Read for Life approach of training and mentoring teachers is now being modelled by the Connect Centre in Lukomera, taking the phonics 'gospel' further out into Luwero District. Erick Kilama, with all the training and experience from Connect Gulu - is now the Manager at the Connect Centre in Lukomera. He is passionate about phonics and empowering teachers with great skills. More about Erick next month. 

There was great joy and celebration with the whole RFL/Connect team meeting up with Jody and Dan. Much laughter, shared reminiscences & great joy. The pictures say it all. All is well.