Zimbabwe CAS Trip

During the June holidays, a group of Year 5 students travelled to Zimbabwe on their CAS trip for yet another exciting and heartwarming adventure in Africa.

Service was a really crucial part of our trip and we had the opportunity to visit a range of different schools and communities. Firstly, we went to the township of Hatcliffe, near Harare, where we visited the local school to hand over donations that we had collected. It was eye-opening and really heartbreaking to see the poor conditions of the school and the local community. We were also given the opportunity to engage in conversation with members of the community about their life and daily struggles which really highlighted the differences between our lives and theirs.

The second service element was when we visited Humani school, where we had the opportunity to teach primary-aged students English, Mathematics and PE. This was quite challenging due to their basic level of English and we had to work hard to engage the students and get them all involved, but ultimately it was a really enjoyable and rewarding experience.

The final school we visited was Bunina School, which is a secondary school that we have been working with for a number of years. It was excellent to see that with the funds ACS International students has raised over the years, the school has managed to successfully complete a whole new classroom block which was a great improvement from the conditions of the classrooms they were in the previous year. We were tasked with helping to build a new office block for the school and finishing a garden area for their agricultural lessons – both were hard work but we made good progress throughout the day and hope the school will be able to complete them very shortly. We also put on a “Sports Day” for the students, playing lots of games including Netball and Football which was well received by the students and the local community.

Throughout the trip, we had were wowed on a daily basis by sightings of elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles and even had the very rare experience of seeing lions in the wild. We also were given a very interesting talk by the anti-poaching unit about the struggles they face to protect these beautiful creatures.

The trip culminated in a jaw-dropping visit to the Victoria Falls, where we all had a great time and got thoroughly soaked! After this, we had a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River with the hippos which was breathtaking! The last day finished on a real high with the adrenaline activities. Many of the students were brave enough to Bungee Jump, Gorge Swing or Zip Line over the Falls which was an exhilarating experience.

Zimbabwe 2018 was thoroughly enjoyable for both staff and students and an experience that will most certainly be remembered for a lifetime!

Ms Kerry Sibson