I'll be there "Just Now"

I read a hilarious article recently about South African slang terms that drive people mad and it spurred me to to share my experience of when South African slang caught me out!

You can read the original article "12 Odd South African Expressions that Drive the World Crazy" here.

I'll be there Just Now

It was 2008 and I was a recently arrived English volunteer living in Chintsa.

Community Preschool Volunteer Project

VA32's Community Preschool Project has been partnering with local preschools for over 5 years. The schools that we work with change from time to time depending on where the biggest need is currently identified.

In 2016 we will be partnering with two local schools - the African Angels School foundation phase and Acacia Tree Nursery School.

About the Schools

Computer Geek Club 2015: Texas State University Volunteers

17 participants. 13 Texas Student University (TSU) teaching volunteers. Five days. A whole host of multi-media technology to get to grips with.

Now, five days may not seem a lot, but do not underestimate the powers of  TSU volunteers and their professor Lori Assaf. Following the success of Geek Club 2014 and prior to the arrival of the group, Lori and I discussed how to not only match but also extend and ignite passion in the abilities of our talented young geek clubbers. We wanted to engage not only the young people of Chintsa, but also get them thinking about their own community and how they interact with it. Last year, saw the same participants research their dream careers, along the way they met and interviewed guest local speakers about different careers - from Dr Madeleine Muller to our very own Thobs the tour guide. We ended up with some fantastic presentations.

Volunteering with Preschool Children in South Africa

Meagan - a teaching student from Texas State University who joined VA32 for 3 weeks during July this year, shares her experiences working in a rural Wild Coast preschool. Foundation phase education in the Eastern Cape of South Africa is one of the most challenging areas to work in. Generally the preschools and day care centres are under-staffed and under-resourced with few facilities and a lot of children!

"Our first day at the school I, myself and the rest of my peers at that school, met the principal and all the teachers in the computer lab. After we all met, the teachers left the computer lab and shortly after, I went to the crèche where I would be teaching to meet the kids. To my surprise though, it was just the kids, Pumi (the teacher) was nowhere to be found.

Volunteers Help to Build Chintsa East Soup Kitchen

Children lining up for a hot meal at the soup kitchen

Local hero in Chintsa, Temie, is an inspiration to many in our small town. Temie recognised that during weekends and school holidays, many children in Chintsa East village went without food - during the week this need is covered by school feeding schemes such as the Bulugha School scheme which is run and managed by the school, and the Chintsa East Feeding Scheme which is managed by Friends of Chintsa. Temie took it upon herself, with the help of a few friends, to try to alleviate this problem and provide disadvantaged children in the village with at least one hot meal per day during days when they are not at school.

Temie's Soup Kitchen was born!

The Challenges of Volunteering in Rural South African Schools

VA32 are lucky enough to partner with Texas State University who bring a group of teaching volunteers to Chintsa annually to support the Wild Coast Schools Project. The students volunteer in various rural schools including Bulugha School which is on the outskirts of Chintsa and gets consistent support from volunteers in their permanent computer lab, and Chefani School which receives intermittent support when volunteer numbers allow.

Learners at Chefani School

Volunteer teacher Emily took the time to share her experiences and the challenges that she faced while teaching at Chefani School. This is the first in a series of blogs and movies shared by the Texas State volunteer teachers:

Working in Chefani (a rural school on the Wild Coast of South Africa) was such a meaningful experience! In the beginning, it was quite apparent that the learners here were not too familiar with working with volunteers. This made the first few days quite difficult. I felt that a majority of the children were apprehensive of us being there and teaching them something new, which made it difficult to establish a connection with them. This improved, however, over the next few days as they became more comfortable with us even just being in their surroundings. What sealed the deal in establishing our relationship with these kids was playing games with them before we began our work. This allowed them to loosen up and become much more comfortable with us as a group and as individuals.

Volunteers Build New Loo's in Rural Schools

A completed toilet black
in one of our partner
Wild Coast Pre-schools

It goes without saying that schools need loo's! Yet in many rural pre-schools in the under-developed Eastern Cape of South Africa there is a lack of sanitary facilities. VA32, with the assistance of volunteers from International Student Volunteers, have begun to tackle this issue in partner preschools in the wider Chintsa area.

Volunteer groups have been working with VA32 project leader Milton at Mzwini and Somila Day Care Centres at the Southern end of the Wild Coast of South Africa.

The toilets are built on the long drop design which is a particularly popular solution in rural areas where there is little access to running water.

Hygiene Friendly "Tippy Tap" Built in Rural South African Pre-school

Running water is something we take for granted every day. Every time we flush the toilet, wash our hands, rinse a cup, need clean clothes or fill a pot of water to cook... it's there.

I have, during my time in South Africa, experienced a few occasions of having no running water; it's really scary. To turn a tap on and nothing come out and to not know when it will is a feeling that makes ones life feel quite out of control of your own life. To have to collect water from a tap down the road, a river or dam to wash your pots and plates, to not be able to wash your hands, body or clothes clean for a day or two - if you've ever experienced it you'll know the feeling.

57 Volunteers, 40 Project Days: Project Complete

57 Volunteers, 40 Project Days,

40 Hours of Building, Digging, Cement Mixing, Gardening & Painting

Mandela Park Creche - 

Classroom Extension & Garden Development Project

Volunteers Building in SA...African Style!

Our final group of volunteers this season, who travelled with EDventures and Pangea Trails to Chintsa to join one of our Community Development initiatives, began a new project at Mama Tofu's traditional Xhosa village.

Mama Tofu is the oldest registered tour guide in South Africa at the age of 93! Her homestead is a living and working example of a traditional tribal Xhosa homestead where volunteers and tourists can visit, sleep and eat while they learn about Xhosa culture, traditions and life.

Mama Tofu was assisted by local tour company African Heartland Journeys to become registered and trained as a guide and the company assist her today in supporting her tours and helping in the village when necessary.

This project created an incredible opportunity for our volunteers not only to assist in supporting community driven local economical development, but also in experiencing hands-on traditional building techniques using the resources available in the natural environment of a traditional village... i.e., cow dung!

Silatsha School Classroom Completed!

Last month a long term VA32 project was completed by a small group of volunteers who travelled to South Africa with EDventures International.

The building of a new classroom at Silatsha School has been in progress since July 2013 when the school was identified by VA32 and local NPO Friends of Chintsa, as in dire need of additional space to teach the current number of learners at the school effectively. To catch up with the progress of the project from start to finish check out the blogs below:
"Volunteers Build New Classroom in Rural School"

"Volunteers Continue Building Classroom in Rural South Africa"

"Building Classrooms in Rural South Africa"

  

The final group of volunteers joined the project at an exciting stage with the classroom in need of some vital finishing before it was ready for use. These tasks included:

Pre-Vet Students help aminals in Chintsa Community

Last week we wrote a blog about some of our experiences on The African Pre-Vet Experience in Chintsa, where we explained some of the tasks we had taken part in with African wildlife, agricultural animals and zoo enrichment. You can read that blog "Pre-Vet Students get Hand-on Experience in South Africa" here. This week we're going to go into another aspect of the project - community work with domestic animals.

Stephanie showing the kids her cool pictures of the animals we've
worked with

Once a week, we go to the Cintsa village and do community work with the dogs. Ticks and fleas are very common in these areas, so we come every week to dip the dogs to kill the ticks and fleas. We also treat mange, a common disease found in many dogs in the village, along with Transmissible Venereal Tumors (TVTs). Our pre-vets will also treat any wounds, burn marks, and treat infections. Often times, our dipping site gets stampeded with the children and while waiting for dogs to come, we will often play with the children.

VA32 Projects feature on eTV Against All Odds

Local hero's Phumla Pakamile and Mike Denison were given the pleasure of showing eTV's "Against All Odds" film crew around some of Chintsa's most inspiring and long standing community education projects. They made the most of this opportunity to highlight the positive work done by the Chintsa community in collaboration with local non-profit organization Friends of Chintsa. 

You can watch the Against All Odds episode below (the Chintsa article begins at 07:21):

If you cannot view this embedded movie click here
to watch it on youtube

Friends of Chintsa are able to offer services like free computer literacy lessons to the schools and community members because of the support of international volunteers who travel to South Africa, stay for two weeks or more, and volunteer their time to take part in projects like this. VA32 host these volunteers who pay a fee to cover their food, accommodation, transport, project administration and a contribution back into the projects they take part in. 

To find out more about VA32's volunteer projects and how to get involved visit our website at www.volunteerafrica.co.za

To find out more about Friends of Chintsa visit www.friendsofchintsa.org

Oporto British School Students Volunteer in South Africa

Last month VA32 and Buccaneers Backpackers hosted a team of students from Oporto British School in Portugal. The group of 16 students, supported by teachers from the school, were to spend a week in South Africa enriching their experience of our beautiful country, exploring some of South Africa's highlights and volunteering their time on a meaningful community development initiative. 

The students put together an awesome movie about their experience in South Africa:

Over to project leader Tobs for a little more about the project:

Building Classrooms in Rural South Africa

Progress of the new classroom at Silatsha School in the Eastern Cape of South Africa 

The building of the new classroom at Silatsha School has progressed again as our last two groups of volunteers from project partner EDventures brought their energy, willingness to get their hands dirty and enthusiasm for power tools, to the project!


To see the beginnings of this building project read the last blog about it's progress "Volunteers Continue Building Classroom in Rural South Africa".

Over to group leader Milton:

"The first group of volunteers this season were awesome - they completed the work we had laid out for them at Gwegwesha Creche and so we moved them onto helping to complete the new classroom at Silatsha School which has been a project in progress for a while.

Minha experiência como voluntário na África do Sul

Me on Chintsa beach :)

Experiência única, mil sentimentos. Viagem difícil de ser descrita, mas facilmente de ser lembrada na memória. Os sorrisos não serão esquecidos, assim com os nomes muitas vezes foram. Pais novo, vilarejo pequeno, língua (bem) diferente e muita história para contar.
Cintsa me surpreendeu a cada dia e se revelou ser uma cidade bem simpática. Tive o prazer de conhecer pessoas muito legais e que realmente fazem diferença na comunidade.

Me and teacher Phumla at Chintsa East Pre-School

What's the Xhosa Word for Drama?

A Lesson in Translation and a Whole New Experience on the Wild Coast Schools Project in South Africa

By Charlotte

Last term I started drama club at Chintsa East. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. For several weeks I tramped up to drama to discover, a few, (if any) children. When I asked one child whether they would prefer drama or sports, they said “sports!”

Despite a shaky start, drama club took off in time
for us to put on a short play at the end
of the school term 

My light bulb moment came in the form of our friend and local hero lovely Phumla Pakamile. Her xhosa translations proved the catalyst to explaining... what drama actually is! The children hadn't understood it properly before. This is something that I had taken for granted, being from the UK and having studied Drama and Theatre at the University of Kent...I just didn't think that the children wouldn't know what it was yet. 

Checking in the the Wild Coast Schools & Preschools Volunteer Program

2013 End of Term Assembly

Last term ended with a BANG in Chintsa!

Volunteer Matthias helping the learners to
organise their presentations in assembly

A celebration assembly at Chintsa East school was filled with songs, prezi presentations and certificates. This term we focused on Human Rights for our older learners in the Wild Coast Schools computer labs and Friendship and Responsibility for the younger learners in the foundation phase and preschool.

The end of term assembly also marked the end of Nuremburg volunteer Matthias’ last day teaching in Chintsa, having taught at the school for five months. It was a sad day for everybody at the school. It was also Maria’s last day at Bulugha.

The VA32 Ambassador Project

On Friday 31st Jan the VA32 Ambassador Project was opened up to our entire network of friends and supporters. The Ambassador Project aims at securing volunteers for the Wild Coast Schools and Community Preschool Projects for 2014, through the help of our past volunteers, current supporters and interested parties who share their experiences of Chintsa and VA32 with their own networks of friends, colleagues, local schools and colleges, classmates, sports teams, students unions and more!

What's in it for them?
A free volunteer placement! Any ambassador who refers five volunteers on to VA32 (the volunteers must confirm their placement with a 35% deposit) will be hosted for free, for two weeks, on one of our volunteer projects.

So who's getting involved?

An Ambassador Case Study...

Pre-Vet Students Volunteer in South Africa

Pre-vet volunteers assisting in an impala relocation

December saw the arrival of two groups of Pre-Vet volunteers through International Student Volunteers (ISV) who have shown huge support to VA32 projects throughout 2013. These groups were the first to take part in the new Pre-Vet Group Program designed for groups of students, schools and special interest groups looking to volunteer on a worthwhile program.

Based in an Eastern Cape Game Reserve, the Pre-Vet volunteer teams spent 2 weeks working with the local wildlife including rhino, nyala, impala, giraffe and countless bird and small mammal species as well as taking part in lectures and hands on conservation management tasks. They also had hands on experience with agricultural livestock and vulnerable domestic animals in local farms and townships.