Social Development In Rural Communities Internship Detail

Social Development In Rural Communities Internship

Below is some information about just some of the projects we are involved with. The list is extensive, and due to the nature of the work we do, we cannot guarantee you will be involved in all of the below, however you will receive a varied and comprehensive schedule.

Maunga Basic School
Maunga Basic School is on the outskirts of Livingstone in the rural community areas. Lion Encounter has recently built a house for the teachers of the school to help increase the capacity of the school. Until this, the school offered grades only up to grade 7 and the closest school that educated children beyond this was an 18km walk away, which meant that children were leaving school at aged 15. Girls were getting married and having children and men often turned to poaching and charcoal burning. By increasing Maunga schools capacity we have hopefully ensured children are staying in school until 17 or 18. We work very closely with the Maunga community and this school really is the hub of the rural village. Classes are held here and community meetings convene here. We hold our Human and Wildlife conflict experiments here, as being a rural area; it is often plagued by elephants.

Teaching assistance in Maunga Basic School
This school is very overcrowded and class sizes are large. This often means that if any child is struggling with their learning and falling behind the teacher does not have time to spend one on one time with them, and this is where community interns are vital. Interns can spend time ensuring that each child understands the lesson taught to them by their teacher. As an intern you will be working closely alongside the class teacher in helping to mark homework, plan lessons, and even teach lessons. Please note that you will not be forced to do something which you are not comfortable with. Please make sure you chat to your project supervisors who will ensure your activities suit you and your interests.

Reading Clubs and Literacy Classes
Schools in Zambia suffer extremely from severe lack of funds, buildings, resources and staff. However, what they do not suffer from is willing children desperate to learn. Class sizes average on around 50 per class, since classes are so large children who struggle with their English do not receive individual attention that they need – this is where our Community Interns come in. Without our members of the team these children will fall further behind.

Human and Wildlife Conflict Mitigation
The Elephant Pepper Development Trust is an organization that aims to reduce the conflict between farmers and elephants. Particularly in the dry season, elephant’s raid people’s crops, this causes farmers to lose their whole year’s income in one night. The elephants are often shot as a result. To save the lives of both people and elephants, the Elephant Pepper Trust has developed ways to use chilli pepper plants to keep elephants away from people’s land, as the animals don’t like the taste and smell of chilli. We use the methods taught to us by the Elephant Pepper Development Trust through the use of chilli peppers to assist the community with saving their crops from elephants and their crop raiding.  Alongside this, we also conduct Elephant Mitigation experiments, which aim to show community members various successful and peaceful methods of deterring elephants, as opposed to the violent and often fatal methods that can sometimes be seen in the rural parts of community lands.

Life Skills Workshop
This course has been designed to educate students on certain life skills that may necessarily not be taught in everyday lessons. Aimed at student’s ages 15 to 17. As this is the age they would be leaving school and entering the scary world of employment. The more skills we can equip the youth in the communities to have the wider. The course can cover Interview skills, first Aid training, Computer classes etc.

Sports Coaching
The aim with Sports Coaching is to provide children with some extra-curricular activities; as subjects such as Physical Education, Art & Design, & Music are not assessed in the national Grade 7 exams, therefore teachers do not feel it’s necessary to teach these creative subjects. Interns assist in coaching selective children and the lessons can range in activities from running football drills and athletics sprints, to having a fun game of netball with everyone involved. We really encourage initiative in this programme.

HIV Awareness
Among young women in Zambia aged 15-24, HIV prevalence is nearly four times that of men in this age category and 120,000 children are estimated to be infected with HIV. HIV and AIDS awareness workshops educate the community on different topics relating to HIV and AIDS. These courses depend on the level of abilities of the students, sometimes they may need 2 sessions on one topic, where as others may only need only one. It can cover stigma, prevention, nutrition and other things affected by HIV.

Lion Project
Among the greater lion encounter team are conservation volunteers, who spend their days assisting our lion staff with the welfare of the lions. Occasionally you will get a chance to join them on their activities, or your assistance may be needed in a few of their tasks. You will get the benefit of having the chance to take part in lion walks throughout your time with us, and some of the other lion based activities of which you can get involved with are enclosure cleaning, lion feeding, and snare sweeping.