Tenda |WARBSTOW
Remember pen pals, postcards, and people writing letters? Then sending those letters to friends in all corners of the world. The sender; patiently awaits the response, with none of this instant blue tick of a digital delivery or wobbly dots of a reply being tapped out in front of their eyes.
Excitement and anticipation, not the anxiety and frustration which has been trained into us by social media simplifying our connection and raising our expectations, speeding everything up and invariably slowing us down as we stare into the phone anxiously awaiting that response instead of just getting along with our day.
Summer 2022…
The least anxious and most inquisitive group of humans I met during the summer of 2022 was a tribe of year 5 and 6 young farmers from Warbstow school near Launceston in Cornwall. I was amazed by them, not only by their confidence, energy, and humor, but their knowledge, passion, and work ethic they had for farming.
I enjoyed a conversation with the head of their school, Hannah. We talked about school, travel, and photography, and it was mentioned that as young farmers they tend not to venture too far from their passion for fields and tractors.
The school was keen to invite a wider scope of career options into the classroom, so travel and photography seemed to fit the bill. I wanted to go one better than that and began to share a project I’d previously completed in Uganda, with youngsters in the UK writing to the youngsters in one of my pictures; The Borehole.
Warbstow school was on board, so we moved quickly as our team trip to Uganda was less than two months away. The plan was for team members Nick, Joe, and Tommy to visit the school to share and launch the postcard project with the farmers.
Whilst we worked on the project in the UK, our teammate David worked with Tenda Junior school in Uganda. David’s mission was to photograph portraits of 50 students across years 3 to 6 to link up with the students at Warbstow in the UK.
Before our arrival the students had been thinking of all sorts of questions to ask their Ugandan postcard pals…they were also excited to be part of our Sleepwell Project, with some great ideas for the school to support as many mattresses as they could.
The energy was high when we entered the classroom to a few familiar faces, The year 5’s were now confident year 6 students, and the year 6’s I’d met, had now left into year 7, so we were also joined by the rest of the school.
After a brief explanation, the teachers began matching a list of names from Uganda to each student in the UK. The students were given their printed portrait of their new friend taken by David in Uganda alongside a folded piece of A5 card and set to work designing and writing the postcard which would be hand-delivered in Uganda.
Joe and Nick, members of our team would be leading the project in Uganda and also be returning to the school in December with the responses. We made photos of the kids designing their postcards and helped them form the questions they wanted to ask. As each postcard was finished they made their way outside and sat for a portrait holding the photo of their Ugandan friend and the postcard they were sending.
Fast forward a few weeks, and you find Joe and Nick standing in front of the camera presenting the headmaster of Tenda Junior School with a book from Warbstow school and a letter from Hannah.
The portraits made of the Warbstow students were tucked inside their postcards ready to be given to the children, so they too could see exactly who had written and who they would be writing to.
All 50 children made their way to a covered area where some desks had been set up, Nick and Joe followed head teacher Frederick’s lead with an introduction and began to hand out the colorful postcards, photos, and also the blank postcard to each of the eagerly waiting students.
Over the next hour, Angus, Chris, Steve, Ross, Joe, and Nick helped the students create their postcards bound for Warbstow. Some incredible drawings and some lovely messages.
Tommy shot photos, and Morris filmed everything as it happened. Once all the postcards were done, it was time for some fun and games while each student sat for a portrait with their postcards.
The rains hit hard whilst we enjoyed a fruit party to finish the morning, fresh watermelon, banana, and pineapple all went down well.
The mission was not quite complete, the images were processed, the video was edited and these words were put to digital paper…Joe, Nick, and the team returned to the UK at the start of December and on the 15th they plan to drop into the school and deliver the postcards and share the film and stories of their time in Uganda.
Please take time to have a closer look at all the images from the project in Uganda, at the bottom of the next page you can watch the short film we made delivering the postcards to the students of Tenda Junior School in Uganda.
I’m excited to hear how the final stages go, but for now, I’d like to thank Hannah for trusting me and the team at Think People Think Story with the students’ postcard adventure and for the school, the students, and the extended families for supporting 11+ mattresses as part of The Sleepwell Project, delivering 11 families with safer, healthier, happier nights of sleep.
