VOLUNTEER

 FOR

PROJECT AFRICA

Mission House is a concept of PROJECT Africa to house all our projects under one roof for easy implementation evaluation and monitoring. Currently, Project Africa has two Mission Houses as follows

PROJECT AFRICA MISSION HOUSE in Kakamega:- Situated in Western Kenya province, the mission house serves as the Country head office. Under the same roof is the Women’s LeadershipAcademy which offers training in vocational as well as capacity building training, the women's cottage industry that offers a place for the women to work and produce handicrafts and the Mentoring/talent clubs. The mission house also serves as a ground for children to be picked up for school as well as to be returned before their mothers leave the center at the end of the day.

PROJECT AFRICA MISSION HOUSE in Lungalunga, Kwale district:- This Mission house is situated in Coast province, about 40 kilometers south of Mombasa. It serves as our women's leadershipAcademy training centre where women are trained in Vocational skills like tailoring, crafting and computer studies. It is also our reproductive health information centre and a safe haven for teenage girls who are threatened with early marriages. From the mission house the women work in the PROJECT AFRICA farm in agriculture and animal husbandry.

Within the PROJECT AFRICA family and mission houses there Is plenty that volunteers can do including including;

Care and support for Orphans and other Vulnerable children (OVC)

Volunteers assist in caring for orphans, destitute and abandoned children. Caring work includes, assisting in cooking for the children, bathing them and showing them love.

Some of the orphans lost their parents through HIV/AIDS. Volunteers can also assist in teaching English language and other subjects and extra curriculum activities at the orphanages. Volunteers will be guided by a local teacher during the first week of classes at the orphanage in regard to lesson plans, schedules and teaching curriculum. If the volunteer or volunteer-intern is ready at the beginning of the second week, he or she may begin teaching independently. Subsequently, private tuition and help with home work can be offered to children.

WomenAcademy (Adult education and Training)

Volunteers assist in providing free computer training, to under-privileged women. The training will be in any of the following areas: Introduction to windows, Internet Orientation, Ms. Word, Ms. Excel (spread sheet), Ms. Access, Ms. Power Point, Front page, Publisher, Adobe Page maker, Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop, typing etc. There will also be some computer hardware training in addition to the software training, depending on the knowledge and skills of the volunteers. The target groups of people we have been focusing on training them computer skills are under-privileged people such as rural women and youth from poor income families who as a result of that have become school drop outs, unskilled youth and in some cases commercial sex workers. This is to enable them acquire employable skills to enable them live dignified lives for personal and national development. The women academy also runs a village industry where women are employed to sew clothes, quilts, uniforms for different schools and companies and jewellery for sale

Teaching

Volunteers and volunteer-interns assist in teaching English language, mathematics and other subjects or extra curriculum activities at nursery, primary and junior secondary schools. Volunteers and interns will be guided by a local teacher in the school. They will shadow the local teacher to become familiar with the school, the children, and the teaching curriculum during the first week of classes. If the volunteer or intern is ready at the beginning of the second week, he or she may begin teaching independently.

Health Care/Medical and Nursing Volunteering

Medical student volunteers shadow local medical doctors by assisting women to provide home based care to family members who are ailing. Remember that when a family member is sick it is the responsibility of the wife, mother or daughter to clean cook and feed the sick and invalid, and care and support them in every possible way. With the menace of HIV/AIDS many women and girls are denied the opportunity to work or to go to school because they must stay at home at take care of their sick relatives.

Health Education

By educating women on HIV/AIDS, malaria, personal hygiene, reproductive health issues, Volunteers assist people to prevent the transmission of HIV and to provide support to those affected. Following a one week short training volunteers will assist in raising awareness of the disease through talks and seminars at local schools and community meetings. HIV/AIDS talks and seminars issues will include topics on the nature of the disease, modes of transmission, statistic reports, methods of preventing its spread, history and symptoms of the disease. There may also be activities like: Promoting voluntary HIV counselling and testing; participating in workshops to prevent mother-to child HIV transmission; providing care and support to the People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). There may be periodic HIV/AIDS documentary video film shows or dramatic live shows as part of the program. Other social subjects such as the need to stop violence against women, harmful traditional practices like early marriages for girls and wife inheritance are also shared through our community education programs

Environmental Conservation & EcoTourism

Volunteers assist in establishing income generating   activities through recycling different household products. They also help in planting tree seedlings, watering tree seedlings at our nursery, transplanting high regenerative trees to preserve the environment and to serve as tree seed source for free distribution. They also participate in establish eco-tourism site within the community in rain water harvesting and in waste management

Program Schedules, Requirements and Provisions:

Those who wish to volunteer can participate in most of the programs any time of year. Volunteers work alongside PROJECT AFRICA's local Administrative staff and workers and as part of a team. Intern-student-volunteers assist and observe local staff in their work. Special skills, professional qualifications or previous experience are not required of volunteers in the programs except the health care/medical/nursing programs, computer training programs and a few other programs. Anybody with the initiative, drive and compassion to help the under-privileged in overcoming their challenges and their struggle for dignity are welcome to participate in most of the programs.

Volunteers should have strong work ethics, ability to work independently or as part of a team, and willingness to follow direction; and good interpersonal skills, flexibility, and a sense of humor. Their educational level should be at least at the high/secondary school level and must be able to speak English. The number of working days for the volunteers and interns is 5 days in a week. Their number of working hours a day is 5 to 8, depending on the number of hours they would like to work daily.

Participants stay in our Mission houses with team members. The mission houses have staff who will professionally attend to the volunteers. We also have provision for those who would prefer community-tourism to live with our host families. Our host families are carefully selected, well screened, respectable and friendly people. Three meals a day are provided to the participants. Children are welcome to accompany their parents or adult guardians to our programs and share room with them. We offer 50 percent discount on the fee for children whose age’s ranges from 4 to 14 years.

A private room with a lock and bed are provided to each volunteer. The volunteer work takes place in the Nairobi, Kakamega and Mumias in western Kenya, Athi River situated along Nairobi Mombasa Road and Lungalunga in south coast of Mombasa. We encourage  volunteers  from all age  groups. Three days or more notice is needed by us to arrange a placement.

Participation Fee

A participation fee is paid by the volunteers and the volunteer/interns. The fee includes the meals and accommodation expenses of the participants, administrative expenses; airport pickups and drop offs, in-country orientation, 24 hour x 7 days a week staff  support, publicity and other general support of the program.

Benefits of Participating

Participation Registration and Placement Details

Follow this link for online Volunteer Application...

OR

Contact us by email and request for application forms. Placement details and any other relevant information pertaining to participation including the communities to be served shall be given during interviews and orientations in Sweden or as planned by our offices.

Project Africa

Ringsjövägen 12

243 30 Höör

Sweden

tel: +46737572675

info@projectforafrica.org

www.projectforafrica.org

Kenya Offices

Project Africa

Mission House (Otiende estate)

P.O Box 1055

50100 Kakamega, Kenya

Project Africa

P.O Box 10

80402 Lungalunga

Mombasa, Kenya