For the past four months, I Am Someone founder Steve Argent has worked alongside a group of local volunteers to fill every inch of a 40-foot shipping container with essential items to send to Uganda.
On Friday, the container, full of clothes, shoes, a ute and a mini-bus, pencils (that were packed into water bottles and placed in the car engines with socks stuffed around them), music, sewing equipment, solar panels, chairs and medical equipment, began its journey to a children’s village in Uganda.
The items in the container will help the charity establish an education hub with a sewing school, making reusable menstrual pads, music and cooking school, using the container as a street-side cafe for vocational students to run. They’re even equipping a clinic that’s run by one of their children who has now become a doctor.
“These items are for the kids and communities that don’t have anything. If we bought these things in Uganda, it would probably be around a quarter of a million dollars worth of stuff,” Steve said. “We’re helping thousands of kids. Every pair of shoes, every pencil is something that a kid would rarely have access to.
“When the container is opened in Uganda, it’s like Christmas on overdrive. It can be chaotic. We sent a trampoline once to Sierra Leone, and kids came from 20 km away to hear about this thing you could bounce on, and there were queues; people would queue for an hour to bounce on this trampoline!”
A side benefit of the project is the recycling, with upwards of 20 tonnes of items saved from landfill. The group has been working with Windarring Op Shop, who have donated so many items and swapped things that are not suitable, such as XL men’s clothing (“No man in Uganda is bigger than a medium!”) and winter items will go to a homeless charity in Bendigo. Castlemaine Rotary and the Good Op shop have also been fantastic in helping keep filling the container up.
“There aren’t many people doing this – sending shipping containers to remote communities in Africa – that’s where the greatest need is,” Steve said.
“It’s taken over our lives for four months, and at times it’s been overwhelming, but it’s a really worthwhile process.
“I’ve been to mud huts where kids have died because there’s no food. The poorest of the poor here in Australia, I think, have parachutes that can catch them as they are falling; sadly, it’s not the case in the remote communities we help in Africa, which is why we focus our efforts there.”
Unsure of the exact weight, the volunteers think it will sit somewhere between 24 and 27 tonnes. This is their fifth container that’s been sent, taking the tally to over 100 tonnes of donations delivered by the organisation.
It will be two months before the container makes its way to its final destination, just after Christmas.
A group of volunteers who helped pack the donations and some of the local board members will travel to Uganda in April to help set up the schools and distribute the contents.
For more information or to donate, visit iamsomeone.org.au or email hello@iamsomeone.org.au if you’re interested in becoming involved.
