Medical Expedition Blogs

Like me, you may have worked on board Amazon Hope in Peru and then booked on to Jubilee Hope, Tanzania, with a sense of curiosity about how the programme could work in a different country and culture. I was setting out with a friend who had been with me to Amazon Hope twice before, and 2 others who were completely new to Vine Trust. We had been informed that it would be different to, and much busier than, Amazon Hope. The staff gave us a really good introduction on our first evening on board, although we were all a bit…

Ronald Kebaso is one of the key healthworkers in Vine Trust's Jubilee Hope Medical Programme. Here, Ronald talks to the team about his time with Vine Trust, and the importance of the Jubilee Hope Medical Programme to the vulnerable communities on the islands and shores of Lake Victoria, Tanzania. “Prior to joining the Jubilee Hope Programme, I worked as a nursing officer in different health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya. They included health centres and referral hospitals from 1998 to 2008. I moved to Tanzania in 2008 to work with AICT, the national partner in Tanzania for the Jubilee Hope Programme. I mainly…

I have recently returned from Tanzania, where I was working on-board the Jubilee Hope Medical Ship on Lake Victoria. The ship is an ex-Naval vessel which was sailed on an epic journey all the way from Glasgow, around the Cape of Good Hope and up to Mombassa. It was then cut in half and taken by road to Lake Victoria, where it was rebuilt and sailed 36 hours across the lake to Mwanza. The ship has been operating out of Mwanza for 9 months, serving the island communities of Lake Victoria who would otherwise have little or no access to…

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…