Paint a Dream: Duke of Edinburgh's gold Zanzibar project
Vittoria School’s participant in the Rachel's learning centre Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award have officially arrived in Zanzibar.
This incredible group of students is already hard at work, volunteering at an orphanage and school, where they are teaching English, collecting dreams, and leading an inspiring workshop for Hetty van der Linden’s ‘Paint a Future’ project.
For over 25 years, Hetty’s project has been transforming children’s dreams into beautiful works of art, with proceeds helping turn those dreams into reality. This time, our students are the ones making it happen! They’re spending their time listening, learning, and collaborating to uplift young lives in need.
Their journey is one of compassion, leadership, and teamwork, and it’s inspiring to see how they’re turning their energy into action. The joy they’re experiencing from giving back is already showing, and we can’t wait to see the impact they’ll make.
Here are the accounts of the days written by our students and Rachel.
DAY 1: collecting children's dreams
Today we went to the local school to collect the dreams of the school children. The girls were separated from the boys and after a long speech and introduction we started to collect and document all the children’s dreams. Most of the girls wanted to become teachers and boys wishes ranged from between soilders to doctors, pilots to artists. We documented the dreams and took photos. The kids wrote all over our T-shirts. Our students were moved wondering if they would ever have to opportunity to realize their dreams.
DAY 2: cleaning the local village
Today was a conservation project to clean up the local village. The participants were joined by the local children and invited to see their homes. The local vice mayor Vuai Makame and teacher Makame accompanied us. We sang the song "my dear friend Bubacar" and class 12 from Guinea Bissau taught me to thank them and for the joy of being together ❤
DAY 3: school workshop
We did our final paint a future workshop at the school today. Students comments were enriching, beautiful, moving, colorful, joyful’. it’s important for them to see how most people in the world live. The dreams were from pilots to doctors and teachers, and one future president! Why not!
Day 4: teaching in the school
A packed morning teaching in the school. It was good to see the participants of the gold residential taking the lead with pre prepared lessons to teach classes of low level English. Not easy for the first time up in front of such obedient well mannered children. Happy to learn and go to school. Eager for knowledge. They did well. I went from class to class mostly helping when they got stuck. After Wh questions, prepositions and a run around game in the courtyard it all ended with a song to thank us for coming. Very heartwarming. We then jumped back in our open top Ferrari (like a TokTok with a mat in the back) and joined another van load of nursery school children on the road. They seemed to be one noise of minion voices being bumped around on the rough road. The cutest thing I’ve seen. Waving, smiling and shouting ‘Jumbo’ in unison.
Later in the morning we went to the sea, putting up the sail of local kids dreams
We took time off in the afternoon to go to Pagia beach, and market where we wandered around buying souvenirs and watching the kite surfing from the beach. It’s the only time off since our feet touched the ground last Saturday, a well deserved break.
We arrived back home in time for a lovely dinner. Hetty had cream caramel for dessert and declared it the best ever in her life. That’s saying something! She kissed the chef with joy and made everyone laugh! What a legend! It’s been such a treat for the participants and myself to spend time together with such an amazing human, full of stories from her fascinating life and a huge social heart. ❤ Tomorrow we are going to the orphanage, it’s our last day and as Hetty says, ‘our t-shirts display all the names of the children we have met, and show on the outside how we have changed inside too’
