The Umoja Centre

The new programme began this year with three full days of activities for the new students. Our aim was to prepare them for the year ahead. We held workshops including - study skills, goal setting, motivation and time management.

Throughout the programme we had creative and fun activities such as music and art. During the art sessions, students were asked to paint their futures or dreams and then present their paintings to the rest of the group, explaining what they painted and how they were going to achieve these dreams.

The week was a great success, with students and staff getting to know each other. The students didn't want to leave at the end of each day!

This year we have doubled our numbers from 40 to 80 students, with the new students starting on the 6th of January.

We started interviewing in November with over 150 applicants for the 40 places. A series of tests were conducted looking at education levels, commitment and attitude. 60 students were then interviewed and 40 selected for the 2010 programme.

Our forty new students are now settled in and progressing well. They have integrated swiftly with the '09 students and are working hard and really enjoying their studies! We are very pleased with their progress in the short time that they've been with us.

Tim and Emma successfully completed their cycle ride on the 25th February and only had rain showers to get through!

They raised an amazing £1118!

"We think we cycled a lot more than what we said we would, around 85 miles, due to a few map reading problems and because we had to add on parts at the beginning and end of our route so that we could get home! East Anglia is not as flat as we thought - at the beginning of the journey we were going up and down a lot! Thankfully after the first couple of hours it become flatter and the roads better. It was a hard slog with many aches and pains along the way. It took us most of the day and we were very, very happy to get home for a big roast dinner!"

Thank you so much to everyone who kindly sponsored us for this challenge!