...about us
The History
"The wannabeamazin idea started out back in 2005, after I had spent a short time working with orphaned children in Uganda. I spent the subsequent months travelling down Africa, trying to work out how I could return to Uganda and make a worthwhile contribution. My travels eventually brought me to South Africa, where I stumbled upon Marcus McGilvray, a HIV-specialist nurse who was developing a unique HIV prevention programme, whish used football as a tool to teach children valuable life skills.
Inspired by my experiences and quick-fire education, I arrived back in England and set about creating an organisation through which I could structure my own set of activities for children. I drafted in the help of Anna and Rick, who co-founded the organisation, and along with a few dedicated volunteers, slowly structured the organisation and programmes to as they are today. Two-years of hard-work later and we finally headed out to Uganda to begin piloting our work."
Karl Hankinson (Founder)
UK Staff
Click here to find out more about the people behind wannabeamazin in the UK.
The Bajjo Story
The village of Bajjo is in the Luwero district of Uganda. It was chosen as the site to launch the wannabeamazin project in Uganda after Anna (one of the founding directors of wannabeamazin) ran the London marathon for Advantage Africa - an organisation that funds locally-run charities in Africa.
One of the charaties in Uganda that had benefited from funding was SPAU - an organisation that helps single parents to overcome the challenges of poverty. In early 2008 SPAU opened a new school in a small village with a high population of single parents. That village was Bajjo, and the link with wannabeamazin was formed when Anna spoke to Advantage Africa about possible locations to launch our project in Uganda.
The UK team sent an advance party out to Uganda in early 2008 to visit possible project sites, including Bajjo. The final decision to commence work in Bajjo was made after taking into consideration the needs of the people at each site, and the current facilities available (in Bajjos case, this was non-existent!)
In June 2008 a 3 man team from the UK, Anna, Rick and Karl, travelled out to Uganda, to spend the next 7 months piloting (and re-writing) the recreational programmes, scoping the additional work, creating detailed work plans...and executing them! Another important part of the work was ensuring the project would be sustainable once the team had left. A local team was identified and given extensive training to ensure they had the skills to run the project successfully on their own.
It was an incredible 7 months, full of highs, some lows, a lot of frustration, but also a lot of laughter. Ultimately all the objectives were met and the team returned to the UK full of pride for what they had achieved.
The UK team remain in close contact with the Bajjo staff via regular telephone calls and reports sent by email from the programme manager (Vincent). Click here for the latest news from Bajjo.
Bajjo Staff
Click here to find out more about the local people behind wannabeamazin in Bajjo.