Twins Ella and Phoebe Dickinson swapped their home comforts for a completely new way of life when they spent four months volunteering in Uganda as part of their gap year.
The 19-year-olds, from Horsebrook Park, Calne, travelled to the capital, Kampala, to teach in primary schools and work alongside a Christian mission charity.
Ella, who is due to start a degree in African studies in September, said: “There is a poster on my bathroom wall which reads, ‘if you have a car, a microwave, a video, a computer, and this toilet has a cubicle door, you are in the top one per cent of the world’s population’.
“This statistic meant nothing to me until I spent four months in Uganda. Seeing how a small fraction of the other 99 per cent of the world live was shocking and truly eye-opening.”
Ella taught in a school in an area called Lusaze, which translates as ‘death has struck another one’, and spent her weekends running a programme for street children. She said: “It is a community filled with conflict, sickness, HIV, violence, alcoholism and witchcraft.
“Most of the houses in the community have just one 10ft by 10ft room, which a family of five to 15 people would sleep in.
“The tap that provides that community with water is downhill from a graveyard and is filtered through buried corpses to eventually reach jerry cans and mouths.”
However, the twins were surprised to find that, despite their problems, most people had a positive attitude to life.
“The people I met had an incredible resilience,” Ella said. “They faced hunger and thirst with no self-pity, worked with determination, and suffered with a smile.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here