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Kirya Seth, 18 YO, Namutumba Synagogue

For recent years, as youth, we have not been experiencing Jewish activities that bring us all together. But, Baruch HaShem, ATA and BBYO have managed to bring us together, “EVERYONE EVERYWHERE”. 

The Shabbaton started as many other special days. We engaged in several activities such as “Torah Study” and “Cleaning of the Synagogue”. It has been so long since our youths last met together in an activity. 

As the youths of Namutumba Jewish Community, we had a wonderful Torah Study as we have been encouraged to study Torah and work together with “Everyone Everywhere”.

However, in the course we experienced a few challenges; we had difficulty in bringing the youth together as we have not been having these types of activities recently.

When we gathered together, the number was beyond who was able to be supported in the budget, an issue that became a big challenge at the end. We lacked teaching materials, and although we hoped to study Torah a lot, we were limited by lack of materials. Since it is the beginning, we hope that everything will be well with time to come.

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Mateeka Aaron, 16 YO, Nangolo Synagogue

Within the celebration, we had several activities such as lessons on how to prepare Challah, singing Jewish songs, and generating cleanliness both around and inside the synagogue. We also heard speeches from the elders on how earlier Shabbatons were conducted and learned how Hanukkah is celebrated. 

However, we faced some challenges during the celebration, such as having limited funds to support it. The prices of items had hiked high, and some activities were not performed as a result. For example, the Hebrew Learning was canceled just because we were not able to access the Hebrew books for teaching and learning Hebrew.

In conclusion, we thank the team of Abayudaya Teens Association and their sponsors “BBYO” for their great support in this Shabbaton celebration. We humbly request for such programs to continue running to equip the teens with basic knowledge about Judaism.

Kamya Suuwa 22YO, KKSY Jewish Community

We hereby send greetings to you all. We are super excited for the teen program with the Shabbaton celebration. Thank you for thinking about us and for bringing such a great program into our community that we have never had before. We send great appreciation to you all for the great opportunities granted to us, and we thank our friends in Uganda whom you were dealing with to make the program come true. 

We had a great time meeting with the teens of our community that had not been to an youth event before, and we shared different perspectives on how to take Judaism in our generation to another level. We learned about Kashrut from our Rabbi. Hearing the Jewish History of Uganda by the community leaders, we had a great moment with the teens where we learned and sang different Jewish songs, Hebrew, and other Jewish beliefs. However, we the teens don’t have Hebrew learning materials to improve on the Hebrew reading and writing.