Teaching And Community Development Project, Livingstone Detail

Teaching And Community Development Project, Livingstone

Teaching Assistants - As a teaching volunteer you will spend your mornings in one of 6 of our community schools, schools that are positive environments to orphans and vulnerable children alike. You will be assigned a class and will provide assistance to your teacher. While the teacher is in front of the classroom, teaching a class, it is extremely valuable to have a teaching assistant who can go around and help individuals' children with their assignments. Since classes are usually very large, the pupils do not often get this individual attention, so any extra attention they receive is highly appreciated. 

Group Work - A volunteer may find in class that there are a group of children who struggle to keep up with the rest of the class. Volunteers will take groups of children out of the class to go through the class work at a slower rate with greater repetition to enhance learning.

Marking Tests and Assignments - Teachers at Livingstone schools give a great amount of tests and assignments to their pupils, so there is always a lot of marking to do. It may not even be a test that needs marking but homework or simple class exercises. This is an important role of the teaching volunteer but mix it up with other teaching assistance methods – marking books for 4 weeks can be tedious!!

Revision Classes - Since the pace in class is fast, and individual attention low, children often fall behind. By repeating subjects in revision classes, these children might have a better chance of keeping up during their regular classes.

Should you feel comfortable you can teach your own class using the in depth lesson plans.  

June 2009
We are currently working in six different schools in the local community.

Nakatindi Community School: (420 pupils, 10 teachers, morning and afternoon sessions)
This is a a fairly large school but still under construction. African Impact have built a new general classroom as well as a new classroom for the pre-schoolers.  We also have Physical Education classes taught by the sports volunteers.  Additional to that we run reading clubs to assist the students struggling with their literacy and art club some afternoons.

Mwandi Community School: (250 pupils, 11 teachers, morning and afternoon sessions)
A small under privileged school situated on a hill in Mwandi community overlooking Livingstone. African Impact has finished the building and painting of the main classrooms and school buildings.  Physical Education is facilitated by volunteers in the afternoons also as well as Art Clubs and Reading Clubs.

Malota Community School: (150 pupils, 2 teachers, morning and afternoon sessions)
This is an extremely under privileged and tiny school and African Impact is proud to be associated with it. Its teaching principles and methods are extremely admirable considering the massive lack of resources this school has. We are finished with building them a new roof (higher and without holes!!) We have painted the room used for the pre-school and are now working on the plastering of the main room. Teaching volunteers also help out in the mornings providing assistance within the classroom, and we are looking to build an additional classroom (however there is very little space as it is), develop reading clubs and other extracurricular activities in the near future as our relationship with the school goes from strength to strength.

Livingstone Primary School: This is the 1st out of the 2 basic schools that we work in. This school, although it is a basic (technically government funded) receives little in the way of funding and we assist with classroom assistance and soccer training as well as revision classes on a Friday afternoon for those children that struggle.

Dambwa Christian School: This is an extremely under privileged school with only one permanent structure. We provide teaching assistance within the school. This is one of our smaller schools.  We also teach Physical Education in our Sports Programme.

Dambwa Basic School: Due to the fact this is a large basic school our assistance is needed more elsewhere, however there are areas where our input is greatly appreciated. This is the school where we conduct our Life Skills Workshops with the children aged 16 to 18 – this is an educational course designed to assist the children with the transition from School to employment. The course covers aspects such as "how to write a CV", "Improving your business", "Telephone and Interview Skills", and "Basic first aid".

School terms 2010
First term: 11 January to 9 April
Second term:  10 May to 6 August
Third term:  6 September to 3 December

During school vacation time volunteers run "holiday clubs". Holiday club is extremely important as it offers students valuable time to catch up on learning missed due to the Zambian "Hot Seating" system.   Not only does it give young people a safe environment to spend their summer holidays, it is also a lot of fun whilst providing an effective educational tool.

AFTERNOON COMMUNITY PROJECTS
After having spent the morning in a clinic or Home Based Care, you will help out the local community in different areas in the afternoon. You will rotate between the following community projects: 
(Please note that if you prefer to spend every, or several, afternoons a week helping out in the clinics instead of working on the community projects, this can be arranged.) 

Build / paint / refurbish schools and clinics
Schools in Livingstone deal with a great shortage of classrooms, and as a result most children do not receive the full day of class that they need. With the help and guidance of professional builders and the community we are aiming to build new classrooms for as many schools as we can raise funds for. Volunteers will help with mixing cement, making and laying bricks, laying concrete floors, plastering walls, and painting. It is hard, but highly rewarding work! In addition, we refurbish and paint existing classrooms.    

Elephant Pepper Project
(Please note that this project is seasonal)
The Elephant Pepper Development Trust is an organisation that aims to reduce the conflict between farmers and elephants. Particularly in the dry season, elephants raid people's crops which can cause farmers to loose their whole years' income in one night!  Sadly 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 peppers to keep elephants away from people's land using the animals intense dislike for the taste and smell of chilli. As a volunteer, you will be involved in the project by helping prepare the lands, tend the seedlings, watering / weeding / harvesting.

Home Based Care / Farming
There are several Home Based Care Projects run by local volunteers in districts of Livingstone such as Maramba, Ngwenya, Libuyu, Linda, Dambwa. The women spend each morning visiting patients within their local community. The patients generally have HIV (and various afflictions due to a low immune system),TB and Malaria.  Patients often cannot afford to go the clinic or hospital, or have carers to help with their condition.  The Home Based Care community volunteers rely on medical supplies given to them by the government health department (which happens rarely) or  donations.  However, some have their own land that they use to farm for the purpose of raising money for their  
initiative. This is obviously the most sustainable way to ensure their project continues independently of aid.  We would like to assist all communities in setting up farming initiatives, as well as helping with actual work on the farm.  As a  volunteer you have the opportunity to join the women on their visits to patients and contribute to the help they offer by the means of basic First Aid as well as help teaching a structured indepth First Aid / Health Care course 

Please note that as this can be a shocking experience, we visit some very deprived areas which can be quite upsetting, but volunteers so far have said that it's been a valuable experience that offers a deeper insight into the lives of those suffering from terminal illness, and better understanding of Zambian society.

Reading Club
We arrange for students at various schools to come back to the club in the afternoon where our volunteers will assist with the literacy skills of the children. As a volunteer, armed with your box of books, you will arrive at the school and help give the students the extra support that they need. You do this by helping with difficult words, encouraging them as they read and offering the opportunity to practice their literary skills outside the limited lessons available.

Art Club
Volunteers will plan their own art club using suggested lesson plans, their initiative and creative ideas. Here you can encourage students to deal with a variety of issues through art. For example; you can hold an Anti Drugs campaign using your art club to produce posters, or your art club could make demonstrative models in order to educate them on many different topics. You could also produce seasonal art e.g. Christmas Cards, Christmas decorations, Easter Masks etc.  Have finger painting sessions or papier mache - the possibilities are endless!!

Adult Literacy Club
Not only a very popular activity amongst volunteers but also an extremely important project aimed at helping adults become more employable through literacy.  This is a structured syllabus with beginners / intermediate / advanced classes, lesson plans, tests and a certificate upon successful completion.  The course will improve the students understanding of English both written and reading, as well as mathematics.

Livingstone, teaching, education, development, community, volunteering.