Spending 2 weeks on the Peruvian Amazon in July 2024, as part of my medical school elective, was an unforgettable and unique time that I never thought I’d experience as a student. It was a very useful clinical and cultural experience for both my personal and professional development, and one I know that I will look back fondly on for many years. I have always been interested in remote and rural healthcare, alongside a long-term desire to travel to South America, so when I discovered the Vine Trust and the electives they offered, I knew it was the perfect choice…

  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would be delivering a baby in the middle of the Amazon River in Peru!! But I did and I had the most amazing, magical experience of my life while volunteering with the Amazon Hope Medical programme in November 2023.   Initially when my friend asked me to join them on this trip I was very apprehensive as I had never travelled very far and I was scared of most things, planes, piranhas, snakes and spiders!! I knew this trip was going to put me way out my comfort zone,…

Saturday 31st of August  Wilson Shaw  With both house builds taken as far as we can help, and after saying farewell to the families, it’s time for some downtime whilst we await to travel home on Monday. The experience has been profound and touched me in ways I didn’t expect.  Whilst I was strangely able to compartmentalise and process the very challenging living conditions and heartbreaking back stories of the families we were helping, and those we were fortunate to witness getting the keys to the homes started by the high school visits earlier in the summer, it was experiencing the hand…

Updated 02/07 Kwaheri (goodbye) from Tanzania! As we are about to board our final flight home it’s time to wrap up what has been one of the most unbelievable experiences ever. Throwing it back to Thursday which was a day of mixed emotions as we went to visit the home of Jackson and his granny, the family who Mr Gruba built a house for the first time he came to Tanzania 6 years ago with a previous group of students. Then on Friday we had our final visit to the site to say our goodbyes and hand over all our…

Tuesday 5th November:  (Written by Damien) I had an early rise this morning as a building near our accomodation had some very exciting steel drums performing, definitely an immersive experience! When the rest of the team joined us from the other hotel we sang some songs with Elly, which by now was becoming routine and we believe it or not we are getting really good at the Swahili songs!  The drive from Sengerema to Kazunzu took us over some rough terrain, which Elly welcomed us to as the 'African Massage' Road. The drive was eye opening, the number of different…

Read on for updates from our October Building Expeditions team in Kazunzu.  Monday 14th October We finally arrived in Mwanza last night! The Mipa Hotel was very friendly and we all slept well after the journey. Breakfast was delicious! This morning we all travelled to the Jubilee Hope to witness how far the project has come since 2014. It was amazing to meet the team members and witness the amount of work that has gone into making the project happen.  As I (Holly) write, we are having lunch at the Tilapia Hotel and later we will be travelling to our…