In Easter 2016 I swapped my usual day job “tools” of pen, paper and emails for a shovel and a bucket on a work party to Moshi, Tanzania.  I had the great privilege of being part of a group of 16 people from Inverness. Our group comprised 5 people from St Columba Church of Scotland, six sixth year pupils from Inverness Royal Academy (one of whom was my eldest son Lewis), two of their teachers, two cheery “independent” leaders and me, the parent help!    This was not my first time on a Vine Trust work party. When I visited Peru…

In January of this year some of our volunteers had the privilege of assisting in the delivery of the very first baby born on Jubilee Hope. The baby was named William and a few months after his birth he made a second visit to Jubilee Hope. As you can see from the photo he is looking healthy and happy. William was born during our very first trip this year where another 5,581 patients were treated by the Jubilee Hope team and 3 volunteers from the UK. It proved to be a great start to the year and the programme has…

Ellis volunteered on one of our home-building expeditions in 2014. She used the opportunity to complete the residential section for her Gold Duke of Edinburgh. If you woud like more information about our expeditions and how you can combine them with your DofE please email expeditions@vinetrust.org I volunteered to go on my Vine Trust home-building expedition to complete my residential section for my Gold Duke of Edinburgh. This section requires you to go away for 5 days and 4 nights on an activity of your choice with people you do not know. At only 17 years old going on an expedition…

Our 18th Story a Week comes from our latest home-building team that recently returned from Tanzania. During their time away they kept a daily blog on Facebook that you can read here - www.facebook.com/TanzaniaBlogVT/ We have taken this blog and turned it into 'The Story of an Expedition' which you can read by clicking the image below. If you want to find out what an expedition is really like, why not sign up for our October 2016 expedition? For more info, visit www.vinetrust.org/volunteer/home-building or email expeditions@vinetrust.org Karibuni Tanzania! 

The story below was written by Helena Galloway about her time in Tanzania with one of our home-building teams. In all honesty, my trip to Tanzania in September 2015 was one of the best experiences I've ever had. It's all about the people: the amazing friends I made from SSE, The Vine Trust, the Tanzanian volunteers and the wonderful families we were building new homes for. Anyone who has ever been to Tanzania will tell you about how incredible the people there are - constantly smiling, infectiously positive and always ready to welcome you with open arms and have a…