The Great Primate Handshake – Volunteer in Africa, working to conserve monkeys and apes through film and educational content production

The countdown has started. We have been working hard over the past few days on our projects, wanting to achieve as much as possible before our time expires in Uganda. We really are running out of time now, and in order to accomplish as much as possible we have to carry on working hard until the last minute.

The video team today, packed a lunch and went to Kasiisi School. They wanted to film the school through the children’s eyes. They selected children at random from the school and gave them a camera. The pupils really enjoyed the experience and they did a great job creating their own content about their everyday life at school. It is hoped that in the future, we can expand and offer them the opportunity to create their own conservation-based films.

The education and web team stayed at the camp site. The education team were preparing the content that is going on to the web site and were also preparing a presentation for the children and teachers at Kasiisi about the work that they have done during the last couple of weeks. The web team still have plenty of work to do, however the new design of the web page and the animations for the children is nearly done.

During the afternoon we all went to the school to show them the work that we have been doing during this expedition. We gathered at the church, set up the projector and invited the pupils and staff to join us. Elle gave a brief introduction about The Great Primate Handshake and explained what the education team had been doing. I also talked about the web team’s work during the expedition. To finish our presentation, Laurence showed all of the videos created for Kasiisi. The Kids loved it! They were all laughing at each when one of them appeared on the screen and others were whispering and pointing at their teachers or friends. The teachers and staff members were very grateful with the videos and education content that we are providing them with.

We are all very proud of the work that The Great Primate Handshake has created and we will never forget the smiles on their faces and the happiness that we have brought to their lives. We are very grateful to Kasissi school for giving us the opportunity to work with them and we hope to continue the relationship next year.