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.

Volunteering in the African Angels School

As a follow on to our previous blog "The Best Part of Me", volunteer Brittney shares her thoughts and experiences teaching at the African Angels Independent School.

"My first day at African Angels I was a little reluctant to do anything with the classroom full of 1st graders… With a teacher in the room I wanted to help, but I didn’t want to step on any toes or disrespect her. However after I asked one question she opened up completely and told me to let her know if I had ANY plans for her class. I immediately lit up and started to think of a plan.

Top 3 Outstanding Volunteer Program - Global Youth Travel Awards 2015

Volunteer Africa 32 degrees South (VA32) are proud to announce being awarded third place in the Outstanding Volunteer Program category at the 2015 Global Youth Travel Awards, announced in Cape Town last week. We entered the category in collaboration with project partner International Student Volunteers (ISV) whom we have built a solid working relationship with since 2009, when their volunteer groups were first hosted in Chintsa.

“The past two weeks have opened up my eyes to new people and new cultures. I gained friends and knowledge about South Africa and the beautiful communities. This experience with ISV and VA32 is on that cannot be topped” – Emily Carmack

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 Best of Me" by African Angels Students

As a part of the Texas State University student blog series, Brittany put together a movie of the project "The Best of Me" which she worked on at the African Angels Independent School. Grade 1 learners were tasked with picking their favourite body part, describing what it was and why it was so important to them. Here's a hand selected few of their projects in a stunning movie by Brittany:

By Brittany

Volunteer on the Wild Coast Schools Project, South Africa

Teaching Student at Texas State University

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.