Uganda

Ugandan childcare centres are understaffed and under-resourced.  Local staff often do not have time to give children the individual attention they need. As a volunteer, you can make a genuine and positive contribution to the lives of the children, playing with them, helping with meals, and possibly assisting with English lessons, art and sport. Expect your time with the children to be fun, personally challenging, humbling, and fulfilling.

While volunteering in childcare at Mutungo, we will stay in volunteer dormitory accommodation provided by our local partner. Accommodation will be single-sex and we will very likely be with other likeminded volunteers from throughout the world.

In Mukono, rather than working as a large group, volunteers will be split into small groups hosted in village and suburban communities. Generally, we will be involved in assisting in art, sport and social studies at local schools and working in community gardens, clearing land, or helping with harvesting. This is a fantastic opportunity for the group to live like locals and really get to experience the rich lifestyle of grassroots Ugandans.

Volunteers in Mukono Town will be accommodated in groups of 2-3 in village carefully selected home stays in the Mukono Town and nearby villages. All houses have electricity, although there is no guarantee power is on 24/7. Most do not have interior plumbing so you will have to get used to the Ugandan bucket shower! Meals will be taken with your host family and made from fresh, whole, slow cooked food.

In Mukono, rather than working as a large group, volunteers will be split into small groups hosted in village and suburban communities. Generally, we will be involved in assisting in art, sport and social studies at local schools and working in community gardens, clearing land, or helping with harvesting. This is a fantastic opportunity for the group to live like locals and really get to experience the rich lifestyle of grassroots Ugandans.

Volunteers in Mukono Town will be accommodated in groups of 2-3 in village carefully selected home stays in the Mukono Town and nearby villages. All houses have electricity, although there is no guarantee power is on 24/7. Most do not have interior plumbing so you will have to get used to the Ugandan bucket shower! Meals will be taken with your host family and made from fresh, whole, slow cooked food.

In Mukono, rather than working as a large group, volunteers will be split into small groups hosted in village and suburban communities. Generally, we will be involved in assisting in art, sport and social studies at local schools and working in community gardens, clearing land, or helping with harvesting. This is a fantastic opportunity for the group to live like locals and really get to experience the rich lifestyle of grassroots Ugandans.

Volunteers in Mukono Town will be accommodated in groups of 2-3 in village carefully selected home stays in the Mukono Town and nearby villages. All houses have electricity, although there is no guarantee power is on 24/7. Most do not have interior plumbing so you will have to get used to the Ugandan bucket shower! Meals will be taken with your host family and made from fresh, whole, slow cooked food.

If you are in the mood for a great wildlife safari that includes land-based game drives, and on-water wildlife viewing on the famous Nile River, then Murchison Falls National Park is perfect. Uganda’s largest national park is one of its very best. Animals are in plentiful supply and the raging Murchison Falls, where the Victoria Nile crashes through a narrow rock gap and drops dramatically toward Lake Albert, is an unforgettable sight. Situated at the northern end of the Albertine Rift Valley (aka the Western Rift, and the sister to the more famous Eastern Rift Valley in Kenya), Murchison is Uganda’s oldest and largest national park.  It is well off the beaten track for most tourists who have only heard of parks in neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania. This makes your safari less expensive, and less crowded.

See four of the ‘big five’ wildlife (elephant, lion, leopard and cape buffalo) just above the Nile River, then view the famous Murchison Falls, along with giraffes, Ugandan kob (antelope), and waterbuck. Expect to see huge pods of hippos, enormous Nile crocodiles, and plenty of the park’s 460 species of birdlife.  Combine your visit to Murchison Falls with a guided trek into the Budongo Forest tracking communities of chimpanzees, and then round out your search for the “fifth” of the ‘big five’ animals when you join with wildlife rangers tracking endangered white rhino in the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary.

On safari, we will stay in simple but comfortable twin-bedded tents set up permanently at Fort Murchison Safari Camp, on the eastern bank of the Albert Nile River on the edge of the Murchison Falls National Park.

Your safari will include:

• Entrance fees for Murchison Falls National Park
• Two guided wildlife game drives (dawn and dusk) in purpose-built safari vehicle
• Nile River wildlife viewing cruise to Murchison Falls
• Hike to the lookout area at the top of Murchison Falls

One of the most common forms of public transport in Kampala is the motorcycle taxi, known locally as a “boda boda.” Ugandan Walter Wandera started his Boda Boda City Tours of Kampala in 2009, and is now one of the most well respected tour and safari operators in Uganda. He is considered one of the most influential young Ugandan business owners, and has even given TEDx Talks on entrepreneurship.  The success of his company has been built on placing a high priority on safety (Walter’s has an impeccable safety record), driver training and sustainable, socially conscious business ethics reinvesting profits into community programs including health testing, financial literacy training, womens empowerment initiatives, student mentoring, clothing recycling, orphanage support, and wildlife conservation.

 Walter’s Boda Boda Tour of Kampala is the most popular city tour in Uganda, allowing you to experience Kampala’s highlights safely from the back of a ‘boda boda’ motorcycle. You become fully immersed in the local culture while driving around. There is no window frame between you and the world, so you can really hear, see, smell, and taste the sights and sounds of Kampala!

The tour lasts 3-6 hours and shows you Kampala from all directions and angles. It covers all of Kampala’s original 7 hills plus all the remaining hills – a total of 23!  Not only do you get to see all the best views of Kampala, but you also visit the most historical sights of Kampala plus hear the history of each location.

There is no set itinerary, however tour highlights include most of the following sites, and more:

• The Beverly Hills of Kampala
• Bahai Temple
• Buganda Kingdom Tour
• The King’s Palace
• The King’s Lake
• The New Scottish Parliament
• The Museum of Buganda Kingdom
• Gadaffi Mosque
• The best view of Kampala (360°)
• Views of organized chaos
• Enjoy the best local foods in town – banana beer and rolex

The Equator is an imaginary line that goes around the planet in the middle and other outer space bodies. It subdivides the planet into two, the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. In Uganda, the equator cuts directly through the village of Kayabwe, about 2 hours drive south of Kampala. 

We start our journey travelling on the Mpigi Masaka Hithway to Mpambire, famous for making Ugandan drums. We will then continue on to Kayabwe, where thje invisible equatorial line runs through Uganda. Our guide will explain some of the strange phenomena that take place on the equator, and demonstrate how water flows in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemispheres.

You will also have the opportunity to take your photo on the equator itself, standing/hopping/jumping from one hemisphere to the other.

Experience Ugandan culture through music and dance.   The multi-award winning Ndere Dance Troupe was formed in 1986 and is now considered the foremost cultural performing troupe in Uganda, famous for their high energy performances with up to 60 performers on stage.

Historically, African tribes did not have a written language, so much of the continent’s cultural history, knowledge, and stories were passed on to successive generations through the medium of performing arts, music, dance, story telling and poetry.  The Ndere Cultural Performance and Buffet Dinner takes place in their purpose built 700 seat auditorium at the Ndere Centre, and showcases dances from many of Uganda’s tribal groups, accompanied by traditional percussive, stringed and wind instruments. Dances from other East and Central African countries are also performed, with the history of each culture explained by a narrator.

The Boomu Women’s Group was formed in 1999, in a village near Murchison Falls National Park, with the aim of fighting poverty in the area by creating economic and social development while preserving culture and the natural environment. What began as a craft group after one woman began to win international prizes for her basket weaving has evolved into a wonderful community tourism project, with accommodation, a restaurant, unique guided tours and a well-tended garden. As a visitor, you’ll have the opportunity to visit with the local community, where you can partake in handicraft demonstrations, cooking tours, village walks, bird watching, music or traditional dance performances.

The activities of tourism operation have provided the village women, all of who are traditionally subsistence farmers, with an additional source of income. A percentage of the income also funds a school and local health clinics, mproves village access to water, and funds agroforestry initiatives.

The Boomu Women’s Group Experience enables visitors to experience the life of a real Ugandan village, without electricity, without running water, without the trappings of urban life. 

Spend the afternoon on a guided village walk, learning how traditional crops are grown, and harvesting food for your dinner. All food is locally farmed, fresh to the table. There is no refrigeration. Learn from local women how your meal is cooked, before eating the African way, with your hands.

In the evening, sit around a campfire and be told the same ancient stories that have been handed down from generation to generation in Uganda. Learn about the obstacles and difficulties the villagers face because of the lack of education, lack of infrastructure, population growth and pressure for food. (The average Ugandan woman gives birth to to 6-7 children in her lifetime). You will stay in a traditional round thatch-roofed mud hut known as a ‘banda’, where the shower is outdoor and hot water is supplied to you in a jerry-can.

‘Boomu’ means ‘togetherness’, and by the time you leave Kigaragara village you will have more of an understanding that it does ‘take a village’ to survive and thrive in Africa. 

Rhino were once found throughout Uganda, but their populations were heavily decimated by prolonged civil war, poaching and mismanagement of their natural habitat. Rhino have not been wild in Uganda since 1983, when the last of the three species of rhino indigenous to Uganda was shot by poachers in Murchison Falls National Park. Since that time, there have been no wild rhinos in Uganda.

In 2005, Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary was created by the Ugandan Wildlife Authority, and Rhino Fund Uganda, a specialist wildlife conservation NGO.  Ziwa is a private private 70-sq-km savannah and wetland reserve, 170km northwest of Kampala, that is protected by 2 metre high electrified fences and a team of approximately 80 anti-poacher park rangers who keep a 24 hour watch on the rhino to ensure their safety. 

Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary is currently the only location in Uganda, where rhinos can be observed in their natural habitat. The sanctuary has a population of 22 endangered southern white rhino, most of which were born in Uganda.  The long-term goal for these magnificent beasts is to reintroduce them in Murchison Falls and Kidepo Valley National Parks.

The best way to see the rhino up close is on foot, accompanied by armed park rangers. While tracking rhinos on foot sounds a bit foolhardy, the fact that every rhino group is in the constant company of armed rangers 24/7, means they’re well and truly used to human presence. On arrival at the sanctuary, you will be given a briefing from your ranger guide on how to behave while trekking, as rhinos can be aggressive if they sense a need to defend themselves. As the rhinos are free to move around the 7,000 hectare sanctuary, it is necessary to drive to the areas where the rhino are located, before setting out on foot to track and observe them. 

Your ranger guide will share different information on the behavior of rhino as you trek in search of the animals. Once a family group are located, you can stay a maximum of one hour in their presence, watching them at a close range while grazing!. Sometimes different families are within a short distance of each other, in which case you may get an opportunity to visit more than one group. You also have a chance of other animal sightings on your nature walk, include waterbuck, bushbuck, Ugandan kob (antelope) and very rarely, leopard.

Uganda is famous for its opportunities to spend time with primates and great apes. Many people cannot afford the huge expense of a mountain gorilla expedition; however a much more affordable alternative is to join wildlife rangers trekking into the tropical rainforest in search of chimpanzee communities.

Budongo Forest Reserve is managed both by the Uganda wildlife Authority (UWA) and the Jane Goodall Institute. Covering an area of 400 square kilometres Budongo is the largest mahogany forest in East Africa, home to the largest population of chimpanzees. About 700 chimps live in the forest. Of these, 6 groups totalling about 80 chimps have been habituated to human presence, making the Budongo Forest one of the best places in Africa to see chimpanzee in the wild.

Splitting into small groups of six people, you will be led by a ranger tracker to search for these amazing primates that share a DNA of about 98% with the human beings. Between May to September, you will have a 95% likelihood of viewing chimps. Between November to January when food is a little scarcer you will have a 70% likelihood.

 Once you find a chimpanzee family, you will have the chance to get incredibly close, watching how the giant apes interact, and how the infants play with each other. Spend a truly special, once-in-a-lifetime hour with the chimpanzees before your return walk through the forest.

On your return journey, your ranger guide will point out other fauna and flora in the forest, which is a habitat for more than 24 species of mammal, 360 different bird species, and more than 250 different butterflies. Apart from chimpanzees, you may also come across other primates including baboons, black and white Columbus monkeys, and red-tailed monkeys.

Considered the “Adrenaline Capital of East Africa” Jinja is located on the shores of Lake Victoria and marks the historic source of the White Nile River. Understandably, this pretty town with its crumbling colonial architecture is famous for water-based activities and offers a wide range of adventures that will get your heart racing, like bungee jumping, kayaking, horse riding, quad biking and especially water rafting.

The source of the Nile in Jinja is one of the most spectacular white-water rafting destinations in the world and for many visitors to Uganda a rafting trip is the highlight of their visit. Rafting companies follow international protocols for safety and are very experienced with first time rafters. You can expect plenty of thrills on the river’s many Grade IV and V rapids. Jinja can be visited as a full one-day trip, or experienced as a two-day weekend, camping beside the river, and joining other rafters at a classic African BBQ dinner.