Volunteer Case Study: Community

Volunteer Kiera Brown at Mailibongwe Creche

Want to know what it is like to be a community volunteer? Due to unforeseen circumstances Kiera, a community volunteer, had to switch from our project in Mozambique to St Lucia. Take a look at what this 3-month volunteer had to say.

Volunteer Profile

Name: Kiera Brown

Age: 22

From: Newcastle, England

Dates in St Lucia: 02/07/12 – 24/09/12

I have not been on the Mozambique project so I can't compare them but I can say that I don't believe the change in location was at all detrimental to my volunteer experience and given how much I have enjoyed my time here if I was offered the opportunity to go back and change to Mozambique I wouldn't. 

Are you studying for teacher-related studies or have experience in the teaching field?

I am not a teacher nor have I studied any aspect of the teaching field. This did make me feel somewhat apprehensive before I arrived and going on crèche was a daunting experience but these fears were without foundation. The teachers at the crèche are very welcoming and it brings such joy every time we pull up at crèche to be met by such happy faces. Teaching the children is not as hard as I first thought, it is easy to keep their attention if you just use a little bit of imagination to give the lessons an element of fun.

What was your motivation for booking your volunteer trip?

When I booked I was due to finish university and wanted to see a bit of the world before growing up and getting a real job. I wanted to travel but I also wanted to do something worthwhile. I decided I wanted to volunteer and after some research chose African Impact.

Why choose Africa? South Africa? St Lucia?

I chose Africa because it was a developing country and everything I read before I came said that the local people were friendly and inviting. However, it was also for selfish reasons because I wanted to see the wildlife in Africa and I wanted to travel to a new place different from my own country.

What is it like to be a community volunteer?

As a community volunteer I spent most of my mornings at crèche. There are eight crèches which we visit on a rotation system. Each crèche is wonderful in it's own way. Usually crèche begins with a few songs to warm the kids up. After this we normally go through the alphabet, numbers, colours and shapes. These four subjects are repeated on a daily basis because they are included in the test the children have to pass to start primary school. At some point during the morning there is a break time when I get to let out my inner child out and play with the kids. After the break we teach a lesson based on the theme of the week which is decided on and prepared for during each week's planning session. If there is time we sing some songs or play a game before heading back to the volunteer house for a delicious (believe me it is) lunch. After lunch, we prepare anything we need for the afternoon projects. Afternoon projects provide more variety from building projects, to afterschool club, each day will provide its own challenges and reward. After projects you can relax at the house or go out you are free to choose.

Kiera and fellow volunteers Erin, Monique and Gabi teaching songs at Inkanyezi Creche.

Highlights?

One of the stand out moments of my time here was the opening of Inkanyezi Crèche. It was a wonderful way to experience Zulu culture. It also made me feel as though we had made something that would last, something tangible. The kids are also one of my highlights because they are so happy to see you every time you drive by or go to the crèche.

What are you getting from it?

Volunteering for me was by no means a selfless task. I have gotten so much out of these projects. One of the things that made me volunteer with African Impact was having the opportunity to travel, this I was able to do, I got to see a different country and witness the cultural differences between Africa and England. I would have to say though that the best thing that has come form this experience has been the number of new people that I have met from all over the world.

  

'I enjoyed every minute of my time spent with African Impact, I loved teaching at the creches and spending time with the kids but I also enjoyed the projects which help the wider community such as building Inkanyezi and garbage pick up. Inkanyezi opening was amazing because it felt like we had done something that would  last and we got to be a part of the community through the celebration.' - Kiera Brown, 2012.

A month from THAF

THAF Intern Miriam at a traditional Zulu wedding.

I have arrived back at the African Impact projects in St. Lucia as The Happy Africa Foundation (THAF) intern after volunteering here for two months earlier in the year. I have been here for just over two weeks now, but so much has already happened!

My role as the THAF intern is to build awareness of the St. Lucia projects and to generate income for the four focal projects, the Medical Project (where volunteers assist on home based care and deliver food parcels to the patients they see), the Educational Support Programme (where volunteers work in crèches teaching children and helping teachers gain confidence in their own teaching), Inkanyezi Crèche Development Programme (we are building a secure new building for the children and staff)  and the 10 Families Programme (a nutritional programme aimed at building people’s health and giving them a sustainable way of maintaining it).

Our main goal this month has been to focus on fundraising for the Medical Project, as we are currently low on funds for essential things such as items for the food parcels, nutritional shakes and adult nappies. However, we are starting to receive donations - which everyone is very grateful for. 

Another very generous donation was made by Mtuba Pharmacy in the form of a manual scale. In desperate need of one, Khula Clinic had been without for almost two years. Last Monday, we delivered the scale to the clinic and were greeted by a very grateful head nurse. We assembled the scale next to the blood pressure machine and baby scale and it was used straight away.

This past week I also held a THAF night with the help of Alanna. This included information for the volunteers regarding THAF, what it is and how they are involved with African Impact. We then all joined in with a sustainable development activity, which made us think about how sustainable products are such as the female condom and if there are any better alternatives. This got everyone thinking and it was a great way for volunteers and staff to work together and for teams to debate their ideas. 

After this, I left everyone with paper and the idea that they would write a letter to themselves that will be sent to them a few months after they have left so they are reminded of the immediate memories and feelings they are experiencing right now.   

Within the next few weeks we have some fundraising events coming up including a quiz night that will hopefully become a regular event and a morning session of yoga on the beach which will hopefully relax everyone after a week of projects.

A lot is happening here in St. Lucia at the moment and a lot more is still to come so I will keep you updated! 

If you would like to donate please visit The Happy Africa Foundation and you can donate through them with the money going straight into the project of your choice. 

10 Families patients making great strides

Some volunteers with chili plants, one of the vegetables
planted in our 10 Families' gardens.

Over the last few months our 10 Families Programme has seen some great improvements, not only to the people involved in the programme but to the project itself. 

We have now started a certificate scheme, where each member of the programme has goals which they will work towards. Once they have reached these goals they receive a bronze certificate, then a silver, which will eventually progress to a gold certificate. 

At each landmark a patient will also receive a sustainable resource to help them after they are taken off EPap. Once they have reached the bronze goal they will be rewarded with a garden and some chili plants which are kindly donated by local St Lucia business ShakaBarker.

For silver they are rewarded with banana plants which, after producing bananas, will be a good sustainable food and perhaps income source for the members of the project. As achieving a gold certificate for our current patients may be quite a ways into the future we are going to assess our options to see if there is a plant we can provide that will generate plenty of food and perhaps income for our patients in the long-term.

The goals included in the certificate scheme include things such as gaining 10% of a patient's starting body weight. To be able to achieve a bronze level, a patient must have looked after their garden and plants provided for them, and their body mass index (BMI) must be of a healthy number over 18.5.   

Since the last update we have added new patients to the programme, all of whom are doing very well. Sibusiso Zungu who joined in June has already achieved his bronze certificate by gaining 13kg in just this short space of time. Last week we built his garden and his chilli plants are starting to appear. 

We have also added Nomusa, a previous home based care patient with a 6-month-old baby boy, who she is now able to care for herself as she has also gained 13kgs since June. When we first met her, she was unable to hold her son and now due to the energy and weight gain she is able to give him attention and care she didn't think was possible. 

Volunteer coordinator Carla with Nomusa,
looking happy and healthy.

We have also recently added a brother and sister to our 10 Families list, who are currently living with one of our support group members as their mother sadly passed away and their father works in another village. They have now been on the programme for three months and are starting to show improvements in their weight, which everyone is very pleased about.

As for our long-running patients, they are all improving rapidly and nearly everyone now has received a garden. Mcabangeleni Mthembu has in total put on over 20kgs since he started on EPap, and the Zikhale family is slowly improving week by week and the children are gaining more energy too.

Overall, the 10 families programme is evolving and adapting each week and we are excited to see how our patients improve each time we visit.      

In their own words: Volunteer highlights

As much as we love to give you our own updates from our projects, there are also plenty of volunteers who have spent their summers with us and have documented their own highlights. Whether it's their weekends away, their time on projects, or reflecting about their volunteer experience, the following blogs were kept by volunteers during their time here. 

Harmony with spirit
Created by community volunteer and UCLA international development student Perry from Colorado in the United States. Perry reflects on her time as a volunteer, attempting (and succeeding!) to make an impact on our projects.

Megan's travel blog
UK teacher and world traveler Megan blogs during her visits to our project, Mozambique and from her current teaching position in Ghana.

Sum bag lady
Canadian volunteer Karen blogs on tumblr from our community projects, despite only being with us for two weeks. She also had a chance to travel the Western Cape - follow her adventures!

42.3583N, 71.0603W
Sarah, an American medical volunteer, blogs about her time on our projects - her blog includes loads of gorgeous photographs!

South Africa
Voluntourism skeptic Pat blogs about his two weeks on our community project with his girlfriend, Monique. They're also avid world travelers, so their adventures are endless!

Flip-flops and a backpack
Former volunteer coordinator Kassie's blog from her time here in St Lucia over our peak season, as well as an archive of blogs from Mozambique and around the world!

Johanna's Adventure Africa - TIA
Follow Johanna's day-by-day account of life on and off our community projects.

Highlights of High Season: Part Four

Volunteers and Zakhele pose with a newly-constructed
ramp for one of our disabled home-based care patients.

The large number of medical volunteers throughout July and August have allowed us to visit over 67 home-based patients in need care - a great accomplishment to start off our last installment of our "Highlights of High Season" blog. 

Volunteers over the past two months have began using a simple home recipe for the treatment of diarrhoea called Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). ORS is made using 8 teaspoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt per 1 litre of water. This has reported great success among the HBC patients that have tried it, resulting in symptoms subsiding within a few days.

Volunteers have also begun working in Ezwenelisha clinic on their busiest day (Tuesday) and furthermore have begun giving health talks in the morning on topics such as maternal health before they join our Khula Support Group.

During our visits to Gogo Breast Cancer in July and early August she has been doing well. Gogo's wound has been kept clean, however it is still bleeding when we remove the bandages. Unfortunately our most recent visit to Gogo Breast Cancer found her quite ill so we were unable to dress her wound. Gogo's husband is still looking after her and has been an inspiration to the many volunteers that have passed through. We are still seeing Gogo Breast Cancer weekly and keeping a close eye on her condition.

We have been visiting new home-based care patient Cute Baby Mama for approximately three months now and she is doing fantastic. Our first visit to this frail woman who was lying on a mattress on the floor of her house, she could not muster the energy to sit upright in her bed and had a weak two month old baby boy lying next to her. After our first visit it was suggested that Cute Baby Mama would be a good candidate for our 10 Families programme. As the weeks progressed Cute Baby Mama was seen once a week on home-based care and once a week to be delivered her Epap. This lady has completely transformed. Each week she has gained more and more energy, and has even joined our Ezwenelisha Support Group. And as a direct result of Cute Baby Mama feeling better here young son is looking extremely healthy.

Gogo Fish has not been doing well over the past few weeks, so Nokwethemba and the volunteers have made a concious effort to visit her at least once a week and sometimes twice to bring her to the clinic. On their HBC visits volunteers have been moving Gogo into the shade and trying to make her as comfortable as possible. You will be pleased to hear that Nokwethemba is continuing to insist that she needs to be taken to the clinic where she will most likely be transferred to the hospital and given the professional help she needs.

In other news, Gogo One Leg 1 is feeling good. She has been suffering from a cold the past few weeks causing her to feel some pain however volunteers were able to give paracetamol to help eliminate some of her pain and has reported to be feeling much better. The volunteers even spent two afternoons making a ramp at her home so she can easily move in and out of her residence. 

Sibusisio is also doing well. He has a lot more energy and is now up and walking around. In addition to the food parcels we bring Sibusissio has also received spinach and chilies from our AMREF Garden.

A big thank you too all of our medical volunteers over peak season. Your hard work and constantly wanting to improve the work we do has made a great difference. We would also like to thank those who compiled 'volunteer to volunteer' manuals so that new volunteers can hear it from the people who know the projects best: The volunteers.

Highlights of High Season: Part Three

Continuing with our "Highlights of High Season" blog, here are some of the goings-on throughout the last few months...

Afterschool Club

Volunteers have had a busy three months getting creative at Afterschool Club. In true African Impact style volunteers have embraced their freedom to be inventive with creating weekly plans filled with games, activities, sports, arts and crafts. They have made creations out of dough, sand pictures, papier-mâché, various ball games and educational learning games. Most importantly however they have given their time to play, read and colour, among other things, with the orphans from both the Ezwenelisha and Khula communities.

Keeping in theme with current world events, volunteers have had their own 'mini' Olympics at both the Ezwenelisha and Khula afterschool clubs. This involved the usual relay races and the like but also fun obstacle courses such as egg and spoon races, sack races and running with a balloon between their legs (the laughter from the children during this race was infectious)!

Volunteers have also spent time teaching the children the art of bracelet making. Remember when you were younger and everybody was crazy about making scooby-doo bracelets? Well volunteers were able to re-use those skills while making friendship braclets with the children from afterschool club which was a nice treat as they were able to take them home with them.

We have had a very talented group of volunteers over peak season that have utilised their skills and talents. On one such occasion, four volunteers from Venezuela shared their rhythm and dance moves with the children at Ezwenelisha afterschool club - teaching them a mixture of Zumba and Salsa and in return the students taught them Zulu dancing. Carrying on from this volunteers have also held talents shows at both afterschool clubs which erupted in song and dance and a lot of happy children.

On another note, volunteers and staff members Zakhele and Zanele put a new linoleum floor in the boy's dormatory in Monzi Primary School. The dorm now looks a lot cleaner and brighter! Over one of the holidays in August, the boys and girls living at the school were brought by African Impact to the Crocodile Centre in St Lucia and to the beach - an exciting day for everyone!

Adult Literacy / Reading Club

Although it took a number of afternoons, the container's
mural was a project favourite for many!

Peak season was also a time of great expansion for our projects and the completion of some projects that have been ongoing for a long time, like the completion of the library’s mural. 

Volunteers planned and executed a mural of a bookshelf on the outside of the container’s orange walls, leaving a space for the African Impact logo. They also painted blackboards on the outside of the container so that we can make announcements about upcoming plans for our Reading and Adult Literacy Clubs.

Adult Literacy Club has been a big hit in Ezwenelisha, where learners have practiced their reading, writing and oral skills. For a few weeks they even practiced interview skills with the volunteers. 

Despite success in Ezwenelisha, we continue to make an effort to get the community members in Khula interested in our Adult Literacy Club. 

However, our Reading Club in Khula has really taken off and is a hit amongst the Khula kids and volunteers. Every Friday afternoon, over 20 kids come to the container to read, sometimes with the help of volunteers and sometimes all by themselves. The aim of the club is to make learning fun, and it seems like that goal is being attained each and every week. We're looking forward to seeing these projects expand further. 

Highlights of High Season: Part Two

Karen, a community volunteer from Scotland, who gave a
very generous donation to the building of Inkanyezi
Creche, pictured here with Mama Gumede. 

Continuing from our first "Highlights of High Season" blog, here are some of the goings-on throughout the last few months...

Special events and THAF

Besides being very busy on projects, over the summer volunteers and staff were invited to events, planned extra programmes and engaged with the projects on a number of different levels.

The Happy Africa Foundation (THAF) certainly benefitted from a large influx of volunteers, as many brought donations in the form of toys, clothes and medical supplies, as well as monetary contributions to many of our focal projects. A big thank-you to everyone who brought donations, whether big or small, they have helped us make the most of our time at projects like crèche, afterschool club and on our home based care project.

Monetary contributions given by some volunteers helped us complete Inkanyezi Crèche’s classroom and have gone towards beginning the next stages of the building project. During our peak season we also held a THAF Shop, which is always a hit amongst the communities as they get to purchase some of our donations that we are unable to give out on our projects. 

Finally, with the help of our THAF intern, we were able to hold a pizza night at a local restaurant to raise money for our medical project. We also gave out a great number of donations, including loads of baby clothes that had been donated throughout the year, which went to the patients at the Khula and Ezwenelisha clinics. 

Not only was it a great few months for our focal projects in terms of our donations and accomplishments, but African Impact volunteers and staff were really able to bond with the communities in which we work. Being invited to many local events was a highlight, as we attended Women’s Day celebrations in Ezwenelisha and in Khula. 

At both, volunteers prepared a speech about family planning and healthy breastfeeding. One event was put on by the Khula Clinic, and we have found that our relationship with the nurses and staff are continuing to strengthen. Each month we provide the clinic with statistics and they in turn provide us with some donations for use on our home based care patients.

A donated parachute has become a big hit at creche. 

Crèches

Due to the 33 community volutneers that we had throughout June, July and August we have been able to complete our two-month commitment to each crèche earlier than planned. This means we're also able to offer each one and an extra month of our volunteers working with them - leading to more instruction for the learners and more time with our volunteers for the teachers.

Throughout June, July and August the children at the Ndabenhle, Simunye, Inkanyezi, Khula Nomathiya, Malibongwe, Snenhlanhla, Dukuduku and Impumelelo crèches have received interactive lessons planned and taught by our volunteers. 

The lesson themes have included: myself, my family/home, my community/town, water, fire, transport/traffic safety, wild animals and farm animals. Volunteers also got creative with additional lesson plans that involved teaching opposites, the five senses and seasons.

We have also had a great number of volunteers come through with lots of teaching experience that have helped us to improve the work that we do at the creches. Volunteer Meagan, a primary school teacher at home in England, had great success during her six-week placement helping to show the teachers how to use different classroom management techniques. Megan’s fellow volunteers found a noticeable difference in the behaviour of the children she had worked with. Megan kindly document her teaching methods so that new volunteers can continue her efforts and put these behavioural techniques into practice in the other crèches.

The volunteers, volunteer coordinator Carla and a teacher
at Impumelelo Creche with their new tyre course.

Two week volunteer Gilian made the most of the short time here, using her knowledge from working with children with behavioural disorders at home in Scotland by helping to create interactive resources to help enhance the lessons.

Volunteers have made resources to brighten up each crèche as well as resources to enhance the children's learning. Finally, as something small for the children to remember us by until we visit them again next year we build a tyre course at each of the crèches. Volunteers designed a tyre course unique to each crèche, for example we built Simunye Crèche a butterfly, Inkanyezi Crèche a spider and Impumelelo Crèche a snake-shaped tyre course.