They say goodbye is the saddest word but sadly it’s time for Team MASO (Midlands AIDS Service Organisation) to say goodbye! Anxious we were at the beginning of the placement but realised it was all for nothing!
We were brought together as one with an amazing programme, brought to us by Progressio. Looking back at how this amazing story started, we were once a team consisting of six UK volunteers and six Zimbabwean volunteers working together to bring a positive impact in the community. Sadly, now it’s the end of our placement, which started from April to June. We have all had a great run with our projects and events.
To my own advantage, I feel I have gained much more than I expected from this placement in terms of my own personal development. We all had our ups and downs but we conquered it all and now we are standing tall while we wave our hands in the sky and say goodbye.
We really enjoyed this programme, working with youths, the grannies, the orphans and vulnerable children. I now feel we have all made a great change in our surrounding community. It’s time for the UK team to go back to the UK and the national volunteers staying back to plan the way forward with their life. The UK team feels they have learnt a lot in terms of cross-cultural working and how Zimbabweans survive. They feel sad because they are not going to see us again when we have bonded and became one family.
We have all achieved our aims and targets and we feel so happy that we have gained more experiences through the UK team, mostly in project, report writing and computer skills. We are now busy preparing for our debrief meeting, where we are going to depart from each other.
My last words to this wonderful team are: “Continue to make the world a better place and always try to bring positive changes around you”. We will miss this placement and each other. The team is now waving their hands in the sky and saying “goodbye”. Until we meet again!
We love you!
Written by ICS volunteer Ruvarashe Kumbirai
