An impressive year away for the Ramsays

It has been quite the year for one Stonehouse family, who enjoyed an adventure in Africa.

Having crossed five countries and endured a lot of mosquito bites, Peter and Sarah-jane Ramsay have recently returned from a year volunteering with Kitega Community Centre in Uganda.

Peter and Sarah-jane Ramsay made the decision to take their three children, Samuel, 11 Nathanael, 9, and six-yearold Mara out of school to live in the community centre from July 2018 to the end of June 2019.

In Uganda they helped the locally-run NGO with various activities; Sarah-jane is a social worker and assisted with writing a safeguarding policy for the centre and ran child protection and welfare workshops for various community groups, while Peter revamped the centre’s IT systems and helped with business development, including auditing and business support.

Kitega Community Centre is a Christian organisation and it provides schooling and vocational training for both children and young adults with disabilities, and they also manage and run training for Village Community Banking groups (VICOBA).

Peter, who runs The Picture Framer in Stonehouse, said: “The children attended a local school three days per week and we all learned some Luganda and Ugandan sign language while we were there.

“Some of the children who attend the centre are deaf, but do not get any support with their learning in schools, so the arrival of a new sign language teacher during the year, who is also profoundly deaf, has been a real boost for the children.”

The Ramsay family also took time to travel to some other countries in Africa, including South Africa, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Sarah-jane was brought up in Kikuyu, Kenya, and the children enjoyed a variety of new experiences, such as eating grasshoppers, swimming with sharks, riding camels, snorkelling and playing with insects of all shapes and sizes.

Peter continued: “Despite the excitement of our travelling adventures, the best thing about the year was definitely the relationship formed with the children and staff at Kitega Community Centre.

“The love and friendship that we were blessed with from everyone involved at the centre far outweighed the small amount that we could contribute to the impressive work being done there.”

St Ninian’s Church in Stonehouse has supported the family during the year, and with the Ramsays will continue to be an overseas partner for the community centre.

The Ramsay family are available to give talks for any community groups, and anyone wanting to find out more about supporting the centre can contact them on facebook.com/ourbigyear or the centre directly at www.kitegacc.org.