The coronavirus is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges that most of us are probably ever going to face within our lifetimes, as a myriad of events have been cancelled and life as we know it has been disrupted, with the large majority of us stranded in our own homes indefinitely whilst the key workers support our nation and do everything they can to beat this pandemic.
Georgia, a student at a local school, knows all too well the disappointment that comes with the cancellation of events and discouragement of international travel as the world attempts to get back on its feet. This summer, she was due to fly out to Tanzania, along with a small group of fellow students aged 14-16, to visit a KYGN partnership school in which they would volunteer for 3 weeks.
This trip had been the focus of a tremendous amount of work for the past two years, as the students attempt to finance this trip themselves through a large amount of fundraising. Georgia herself has been hugely involved in this effort, as she has continually been organising bake sales within her school; setting up stalls at school fairs from which she could sell products such as cosmetics kindly donated by a friend’s parent from their former business and handmade crafts lovingly donated to the cause by Georgia’s grandmother. She has been selling many of her unwanted personal items on eBay and also organised a sponsored event in which she ran an impressive 10km. In addition to all of this, the students have also been on a short training camp in order to best prepare them for the exciting challenge that they should have been facing this summer.
However, her efforts are sadly left in the hands of the ambiguity of the situation ahead. With the lockdown period of the coronavirus extending indefinitely for the foreseeable future, the school is unsure as to whether they will be able to reorganise the trip, especially as a number of students may be moving to different sixth forms and colleges after the end of the year. With the trip having been cancelled for this summer, Georgia has talked about how she is “disappointed” to be missing out on “a once in a lifetime opportunity” and is greatly saddened by the prospect that both them and the children at the partnership school will not be able to enjoy the benefits of their hard work throughout the year.
In previous years, the students on these trips have built a library for the school, which subsequent groups have made efforts to improve as much as they can. Whilst they were visiting this year, the students had planned to teach the children English, to engage with them by organising a school sports’ day and gifting the children the picture books that they have spent the last year making, of which the writing, illustration and creation was completed wholly by the students in a weekly session during their lunchtimes.
Georgia also spoke about how disappointed that she is to be missing out on enriching her knowledge of different cultures, as she had been looking forward to understanding “how different our lives are compared to other children’s lives around the world”, which would have allowed her to come to a greater understanding and appreciation of just how privileged we are in the Western society we live in. She particularly hopes that the school with which they had been in contact are managing to cope in the face of this global pandemic, especially with the severely reduced numbers of overseas volunteers and the income generated from these charitable endeavours.
In the current climate of this pandemic, we can only hope that these small communities will continue to get the help that they need despite the ongoing situation. Georgia’s case is just one example of the numerous issues that have been raised by the coronavirus, as it becomes increasingly clear that in a world divided by circumstance, we must all try to stay positive and think about how best we can help those who are at a disadvantage.
By Emily Parsons
