Graduation Day

A great day as we were really privileged to be part of the Graduation Day at the Tigers Club. The ceremony was to mark the successful completion of the Tigers Programme by 11 boys.

First thing in the morning three of the team helped to support the Health Education lesson at the Club House. The lesson was on the dangers of polluted water, and how they might find safe water. A fascinating experience to see how the nurse used the footballers they all admire as role models to make her points - If you want to be as good at football as Wayne Rooney, then you will have to look after yourself properly to keep yourself well.

By late morning the boys who had been playing football, and many more boys from the streets had started arriving in readiness for their lunch. The atmosphere was incredible as the excitement grew, with music and drums adding to the overall mood. The boys loved having their photos taken, and as our confidence levels rose, we were happy letting them take the photos themselves.

Around One ish, we were ready for lunch. However the boys were then called into the main hall for the Graduation Ceremony. At this point the Social Workers gave a touching recollection of the progress that had been made by all the Graduates, to the point that they were now ready to live independent lives. This time hugely demonstrated the great heart all of the staff have for the Tigers Programme. Simon the Programme Director was at pains to encourage each of the boys to say "You can do it!!" . By now many of the street boys were asleep, although as many wouldn't have had much sleep the night before this is not hard to understand. The boys then followed with their own speeches of thanks to Tigers Club and its sponsors. I think we all felt rather small, but thrilled to see the end results of the Tigers work.

Finally lunch arrived about 3.30 and we queued with the boys to share their meal, again a privilege. We were later advised by Nathan, that this was actually quite a good result and it could have been longer. The Ugandans sure love their speeches.

The day at Tigers Club finished with our group sharing in the Bible Club, enthusiastically attended by many of the street boys. Many of the boys came forward to thank our group for everything that we were doing for them. Again we felt tiny and there were quite a few tears.

Having spent quite so much time with the boys, it was with sadness that we left them knowing that we would be getting a good night's sleep back at the hotel, but that they would be surviving on the streets once again.