5 Reasons Why You Should Volunteer In South Africa

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As someone who has been living in Cape Town for a number of years, I am not surprised the world has discovered what a remarkable city it is and what an amazing country South Africa is to visit. You can, of course, choose to visit for a week or two and go on safari, see some of the sights… but if you truly want to experience the best of this country, there’s only one way to do it – volunteer in South Africa.

Here are my top five reasons why you should volunteer in South Africa:

  1. Staying in South Africa for a month is totally different to visiting
  2. No matter what you love, you’ll love doing it in South Africa
  3. Volunteering is more than just being a tourist
  4. Experiencing the Big 5 and wide open spaces are breath-taking
  5. Volunteering in Africa can change your life (I’m living proof of this)

Living here for a month is totally different than visiting

I’d love for you to come and visit us and experience South Africa, but really, a week or two is not nearly enough time to get intimate with this incredible country and everything that makes it so special. Some tourists will do all the popular tours, but may never get to try biltong (the South African equivalent to beef jerky), or experience a true South African braai (barbecue). They may do a township tour and have a brief chat to their tour guide about the adverse living conditions, poverty and struggles of South Africa’s poor, but will never stay long enough to understand the realities of these issues, or spend time sitting next to these people, truly getting to know them.

Volunteering in South Africa puts you at the epicenter of new cultures and gives you the chance to learn so much, while really making a change. How about spending a month as a volunteer in Cape Town helping inner city kids with their math and English, or teaching a child to read? Alternatively, you could spend a few weeks as a wildlife research volunteer for the Big 5, or learn how to become a great wildlife photographer! One of my favorite volunteer programs is our Rural Medical and HIV/AIDS Awareness Project on South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, which sees volunteers heading into rural villages each day to care for underprivileged families. Yes, you can come and volunteer in South Africa for just a couple of weeks, but longer is better.

No matter what you love, you’ll love doing it here

Love lions? Wildlife? Social development? Cities? The countryside? The ocean?

South Africa’s sheer size (slightly less than twice the size of Texas) and diversity means it has something for everyone. This makes it an incredible place to visit, and makes it even more amazing to volunteer here.

I once drove from Cape Town, where volunteers work with communities in education, sports development and vulnerable childcare, to our projects in KwaZulu-Natal, l where the focus is predominantly on orphan care and medical support. The journey took me from the bustling city, through mountain ranges, miles and miles of scenic countryside, quaint little towns, adventure centers (for example Tsitstikamma, where you can do the highest bridge bungee jump in the world! I didn’t.) and along coastal meanders with the blue ocean always in my view. This 20-hour journey saw me pass through several seemingly different climates, diverse terrains, multiple different cultural homelands and move from one ocean (Atlantic starting in Cape Town, to the Indian Ocean on the east coast).

Few other countries offer this kind of diversity and opportunity, no matter what your interest, and provides another great reason to volunteer in South Africa.

You get to be more than a tourist

Over recent years, South Africa has repeatedly been voted the number one tourist destination in the world, with Cape Town toping the lists for the Best City in the World, as well as the Number One Food City in the World! It’s no secret that South Africa is a wonderful place to visit, but why should you choose to volunteer here?

The answer to this can be seen within your first week of being a volunteer.

You head into rural villages, townships and local communities with program managers to work in schools, safe houses, clinics and emergency foster care homes, where you don’t just observe a culture, you are part of it. Every day you work alongside local coordinators, health workers, teachers and care givers, learning about their way of life, about the issues facing their communities and getting to know how you can help. I had been on township tours before, but it was only when I entered Khayelitsha township in Cape Town as a volunteer in South Africa that I began to truly understand what I was seeing. I remember sitting on a step outside a classroom while the children played in the dust and chatted with a local teacher and was inspired by her passion for educating these kids and changing their lives for the better.

This is what volunteering is all about — you see what is real and not just the surface.

Quick South Africa Facts

  • South Africa has 11 official languages.
  • South Africa has 3 capitals.
  • Table Mountain is older than the Andes & Alps.
  • Nobel Prize winners President Mandela & Archbishop Tutu lived on the same street.
  • South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup.

The Big 5 and wide open spaces are breath-taking

There is no wild like the African wild. It’s famous, it’s dangerous, and it’s thrilling. One of the obvious reasons to travel to South Africa is to go on safari, and quite frankly there are few other places in the world that offer better options for this. South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park (one of the largest game reserves in Africa and one of my favorite places in the world) covers 7,580 square miles and has more species of large mammals (at 147 species) than any other African game reserve. On the other side of South Africa is the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (15,000 square miles), located largely within the southern Kalahari Desert. This area is home to the Kalahari black-maned lion, believed to be one of the largest in the world. And these are only two examples of places you can view great wildlife in South Africa. Most game reserves in the country are home to the famous African Big 5: lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino and the average game drive is anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Volunteers, however, get to spend up to an entire day in reserves and national parks, spending far more time connecting with wildlife than your usual visitor. Those working on our African wildlife conservation program in the Greater Kruger Area, for example, go out on daily research drives in Big 5 game reserves, observing all kinds of wildlife, monitoring their movements and documenting information. Volunteers return home having gained loads of knowledge of South Africa’s wildlife, the dangers faced by these animals and ideas for how to help remotely.

Volunteering in South Africa can change your life

How did a guy from the UK end of living and working in Cape Town? Well, as most young people are, I was a bit lost when I finished school in 2002 and ended up taking a gap year which I spent as a volunteer in South Africa. I was 18 years old, had zero work experience and didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. Phrases like sustainable development, conservation issues, balance sheets, unique selling points were all foreign to me and were certainly things I had no understanding of at that time!

I left the cold UK weather behind me and headed to Africa. I travelled from East Africa down to Cape Town over 4 months. When I arrived in South Africa I volunteered at a park monitoring four newly released lions. I loved it. I spent 3 months driving around the reserve observing these lions and learning about their behavior and unique personalities! This volunteering experience and my other travels around the continent meant I was very quickly hooked on Africa!

Volunteering can achieve so much. My world changed rapidly and I soon ditched the plan to go to university. I had gone from school leaver, to gap year volunteer in South Africa, to business owner in several months. I suddenly had a vision and a purpose I never had before, and a growing confidence to do this job. Today, and every day I pinch myself to make sure that we’ve achieved with African Impact isn’t a dream. And with every success I find myself more focused on learning and doing great things — it’s such an exciting journey.

Sometimes I find myself looking back trying to piece together how this all happened and realize it started with a simple decision to come and volunteer in South Africa. It changed my life for the better and it has the power to do the same for so many people.

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During sundown, a group of volunteers are enjoying the view of Zimbabwe.

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