Teaching, Orphan Care And Community Development Project, Livingstone Detail

Teaching, Orphan Care And Community Development Project, Livingstone

2 Weeks     GBP810  / EUR1055 / USD1460   
4 Weeks     GBP1295 / EUR1685 / USD2330   
6 Weeks     GBP1695 / EUR2195 / USD3050   
8 Weeks     GBP2095 / EUR2725 / USD3770

Book now to join this amazing volunteer project to start during the months of October, November or December 2011, and you will get GBP200 off your 4 week volunteer placement fee!

Read Volunteer Coordinator Mary Reid's latest blog post from this project.

Livingstone... Where explorers wander
When an awestruck David Livingstone first saw Victoria Falls in 1855, he wrote in his journal "on sights as beautiful as this, angels in their flight must have gazed". He named the falls after the queen of England at the time, but the Falls are more poetically known by locals as Mosi-oa-Tunya ‘The Smoke that Thunders’.
Against this stunning backdrop in the nearby town of Livingstone, we invite you to volunteer in our amazing teaching, orphan care and community volunteer project.

Volunteer areas of involvement

Teaching Assistants - As a teaching volunteer you will spend your mornings in one of six of our community schools, that cater to orphaned and vulnerable children. You will be assigned a class and cooperating teacher to focus your efforts and get to know the individual needs of the students.  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 individual children with their assignments. Since classes are usually very large, the pupils do not often get this individual attention, they need. The extra help volunteers provide has the potential to make a lasting difference by identifying students who are falling behind and giving additional support.

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.  Once students start to fall behind, it can be a difficult trend to stop as there are minimal structures in place at the schools to help the struggling children.  Early intervention is therefore key.

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. Many of the teachers in the community schools are volunteers themselves who dedicate long hours to schools for minimal pay so the opportunity to relieve their workload and focus more on academic instruction is important. 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 it is mixed up with other teaching assistance methods – as so as to not to become 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.  This is a fantastic opportunity to offer the students a fresh perspective and increase their intellectual curiousity.

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

Nakatindi Community School:
This is a a fairly large school but still under construction. African Impact has built a new general classroom, a new classroom for the pre-schoolers and are in the middle of contsruction of a health and education centre.  We also have Physical Education classes taught by the sports volunteers.  Additionally, we run reading clubs to assist the students struggling with their literacy and art club some afternoons.

Mwandi Community School:
A small under privileged school situated on a hill in Mwandi community overlooking Livingstone.  Physical Education is facilitated by volunteers in the afternoons also as well as Art Clubs and Reading Clubs.

Malota Community School:
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 for use by the preschool and plastered the main classroom block. 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). A good command of English is essential to success in Livingstone so teaching volunteers specifically focus on improving reading, writing and speaking skills through reading clubs and similar extracurricular activities as our relationship with the school goes from strength to strength.

Livingstone Primary School: 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.

Dambwa Christian School: This is an extremely under privileged school started by a group of women from the community to meet the educational needs of vulnerable and orphaned children in Dambwa. We provide teaching assistance within the school, run reading clubs and teach Physical Education in our Sports Programme .

Indeco Community Project: A poor school operating in the corner of a larger government school, Indeco caters to the vulnerable and orphaned kids in the area who cannot afford the school fees at the goverment school.  Operating out of a converted abattoir or slaugherhouse, the school lacks basic infrastructure and resources.  Volunteers assist with teaching lessons, reading clubs and physical education.

School terms 2011
First term: 10 January to 8 April
Second term:  9 May to 5 August
Third term:  5 September to 2 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.  Teaching volunteers work closely with sports volunteers to teach lessons for the first half of the morning and then engage the students in recreational activities and teach the importance of a healthy lifestyle. For self-starters, this project is a fantastic way to direct instruction for a few weeks and leave your mark on the students.

AFTERNOON COMMUNITY PROJECTS
After having spent the morning at one of the schools, you will help out the local community in different areas in the afternoon. You will rotate between the following community projects: 

Build / paint / refurbish schools and clinics 

Home Based Care / Farming

Reading Club

Art Club

Adult Literacy Club

Study Group

Maramba Old Peoples Home

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