The Pre-Vet Team Volunteer in Rural Townships

Team Pre-Vet have been doing some amazing work in rural Eastern Cape communities as a part of the VA32 Pre-Vet Project where as well as taking part in exciting African wildlife captures, assisting with veterinary work and studies, we also focus on helping the thousands of neglected domestic animals in local townships. Find out what the team have been up to this month...

"Hi everyone!

We pre-vets have just returned from an extended outreach mission in the former-Transkei, South Africa. For those of you who don’t know, this area is a huge territory with thousands of cultural villages and was one of the "homelands" of apartheid South Africa. 

Traditional thatched rondavels at Bulungula

We were working in an area called Bulungula, where a non-profit organization called the Bulungula Incubator has done some amazing work for the surrounding communities including several educational, health and infrastructural development projects. The backpackers we stayed at is called Bulungula Lodge and is one of the Incubator’s biggest projects as the community owns 40%. You can read more about this amazing place and their mission here: www.bulungula.com.

Volunteering in Chintsa, South Africa by Lydia

Hi everyone!

I am writing a short blog about my time in Chinsta, South Africa, and the different experiences I've had in the schools I have been to and all the wonderful things that I have been doing whilst volunteering with VA32.

Community Pre-School Project: Bulugha Pre-School

I have been volunteering on the Community Pre-school Project in all of the schools that VA32 are involved with; my first two weeks were at Bulugha farm school, working with children from the age of 4-6. I had a very fulfilling time doing lots of activities with them to decorate their classroom in order to make it colourful, making it a more welcoming learning space. We made a butterfly wall where all the children coloured and decorated their own butterflies: part of the spring time butterfly project!

Children in Bulugha Pre-school with their work
books

We later decorated the rest of the classroom, allowing the children to get artistic, and very, very messy!
The children really like singing and dancing so we made some shakers out of cups and stones and encouraged the children to produce different sounds and rhythms. The children in the pre-school don’t speak a lot of English but flash cards work really well. I concentrated on teaching fruit and spring time vocabulary and the children picked it up so quickly.

The African Pre-Vet Experience

Our awesome Pre-Vet team have written their first vlog! Check out what they've been up to over the past few weeks:

"Hi everyone

We are the pre-vet team on VA32's African pre-vet program and we’re very excited to be on this blog! Here are a few of the best things we’ve done so far…

Game capture - working with African Wildlife

Kira and Morgan loved capturing impala on a huge golf course, we ran around a lot that day but it was amazing hands on experience and a lot of fun! Maggie’s favourite capture was a six month old giraffe; they’re really tricky to sedate and transport but it went off without a hitch!

The 6 month old giraffe on our game capture

Volunteers Holiday Club in Chintsa

Half term holiday fun!

Schools were on holiday earlier this month for one week. With the help of Wild Coast Schools volunteer Amy, we took over Chintsa East school with our fun activities and games for the week.

Making musical instruments from recycled stuff

MONDAY... hosted an eclectic mix of activities for everyone. Kick starting the day was musical instrument making. We recycled old water bottles, and filled them with different materials. I explained how different materials make different sounds and the children had great fun experimenting outside! We also decorated our water bottles using paper and felt-tip pens. Once everybody had finished, we taught the young holiday clubbers how to make the musical instruments really quiet and really loud, before moving on to rhythms!

Next stop we iced our own biscuits, with sweets, which was a tasty treat. The children then chose to get sticky with mosaic making or energetic with drama games. The holiday clubbers left us happy and tired out at the end of the morning.

Volunteering at the Orphanage: Greensleeves Home of Safety

Volunteers running outdoor activities with the kids at Greensleeves and the colourful parachute

Wednesday afternoons can only mean one thing - an afternoon at the orphanage "Greensleeves Home of Safety". With children coming from difficult backgrounds, Greensleeves is a loving place of safety for 26 orphaned children. Every week we head on down there with the volunteers and some fun activities "up our sleeves"!

As soon as the Volunteer Africa bus enters its gates, we see beaming faces and little legs running as fast as they can towards us! Just giving our time and attention, means a lot.

Combining computer literacy, with fun activities and homework help, there is never a dull moment. Adding in the countless cuddles and laughs... it ends up being the volunteer’s favourite day of the week.

Volunteers Continue Building Classroom in Rural South Africa

The Winter season is pretty much over here in Chintsa (and the heat has already hit!). We've enjoyed a huge amount of support from International Student Volunteers (ISV) on our Community Development projects where enthusiastic and committed hands have made huge progress on the building project at Silatsha School in the Eastern Cape, as well as other community based projects. 

To read the original two blog posts about the building project in Silatsha click on the following links: "Volunteers Build New Classroom in Rural School" and "Volunteers Continue Rural Building Project".

This final group of ISV volunteers worked really hard and were able to really make an impact on the building work. Check out what they got up to:

Volunteering with the African Angels - South Africa

With an outbreak of volunteers filling Chintsa East School and Bulugha Farm School the Wild Coast Schools Project had a rare opportunity to undertake our first computer project in the brand new African Angel’s computer lab and we were welcomed by a hoard of children eagerly awaiting to use it. 

“Who’s on computers today? Who’s on computers today?” The children run up and ask the volunteers as soon as they step foot in the African Angels School. It’s an absolute novelty for them, the brand new computer lab, and it’s so refreshing to see the children so enthused about learning.