Jeneration Travel: Ken-Ya Kick It?
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Jeneration is launching a new initiative in Jewish travel, beginning with a two-week volunteering experience in Kenya, this July. In association with the Kenyan Orphan Project, Jeneration will be running the trip from 3rd to 18th July* for Jewish students and young adults aged 18-25. This is an opportunity for a unique, hands-on volunteering experience, which will include working with street-children as well as volunteering at a children’s feeding centre and a local school.
There will also be opportunities to get involved with building and agricultural projects along with lectures and workshops on international health and development.
Highlights of the trip include going wild on safari, trekking through the rain forest, taking a dip in Lake Victoria and, of course, socialising with like-minded young Jews from across the country.
‘Jeneration Students’ provides progressive and pluralist opportunities to meet and socialise, pray and learn on campus as well as nurturing leadership. The new Jewish travel initiative will offer yet another way to connect with other young Jews and for people to express and explore their Jewish values and identity.
The Kenyan Orphan Project was started in 2001 by a group of medical students, including Reform member Dr Daniel Magnus, with the vision to fight against poverty, disease, social exclusion and injustice and to help improve the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya. Dan Rickman, the Jeneration student fieldworker who is organising the trip explained: “Jeneration wants to provide students with a genuine Jewish travel experience during which they can gain an appreciation for their own lives. We may feel gloomy about the credit crunch, but in Kenya we will be putting them into perspective, seeing how hard some people really have it.”
He also commented: “We believe in running trips where the value lies in the positive experience people can gain from participating in the programme. We will not overload them with lectures on what it means to be Jewish; we will simply frame the trip within a Jewish context.” Participants are expected to fundraise for money towards the KOP projects they will be involved in during the trip. Organiser Dan Rickman, who is infamous for his spiky Mohawk (see photo), is prepared to shave his locks off to raise money for the project, and wants to encourage others to think creatively as to how they can raise the money.
This and other questions are addressed here.
*Dates are subject to change
For further details, please contact: Andrea Newman, Public Relations, The Movement for Reform Judaism
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