VOLUNTEER TRAVEL - SOUTH AFRICA To travel is an eye-opening and humbling experience. You will visit sights you would never normally see, you will learn plenty about yourself and the culture of the destination you will be visiting. Working abroad volunteering helping others less fortunate than yourself, and whatever your reasoning for volunteering the Bojanala Kalafi Programme offers you the opportunity for you to live your dream. Volunteering is a great way to meet lots of different people from other walks of life, experience new cultures, gain a better understanding of the world at large - all while making a true and positive difference. |
||||
 VOLUNTEERING IN SOUTH AFRICA Volunteering with the Bojanala kalafi Programme via our South Africa partner company: "Touch the Heart of Africa" www.tthoa.co.za is the chance for you to make a personal contribution, to experience hands-on learning about South Africa, it's culture, and to exchange ideas with other people you might not otherwise meet. As a volunteer, you will learn from the projects where you work, and from the experience of traveling in South Africa and iteracting with new people. Volunteering in South Africa is a life-changing experience. You are sharing your enthusiasm, time, skills, and energy and giving "yourself" in a way that allows you to effect positive change. Making a difference can be as simple as spending time with orphans, sharing love and affection, sharing time with the elderly, or practicing basic English with all ages. Similar basic volunteer needs in your own community exist in South Africa, and anyone with an interest in filling those needs can make a difference. The life-changing experience does not end when you return home. Another important part of volunteering in South Africa is getting involved in your own community once returning back home. For everyone retuning home is an opportunity to share your enthusiasm and inspiation of your experience with friends and family about the realities of daily life in South Africa. |
 WHY VOLUNTEER Making the decision to do volunteer work in South Africa is a personal one, and for every volunteer there is a unique and individual answer to the question: "why volunteer in South Africa?" The overall motivation to volunteer in South Africa stems from a need to ignite a sense of social responsibility and activism, as well as from a desire to learn about South Africa and it's culture. For some, volunteering is also a way to gain a new perspective of another country and a renewed sense of the role they might play. Therefore, volunteer work in South Africa can be an intense experience, with opportunities to focus on meaningful concerns that day-to-day life can't accommodate. WHAT YOU CAN DO As a volunteer, you will work side-by-side with with "My Home" - "Tsholofelo" - "Tlhokomelo" and other carefully selected partner projects, all of which are dynamic and inspiring community-led initiatives. Theses include orphanages, childcare early learning centres, schools, health clinics, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and other community organisations. By working with partner projects that each local organisation has defined and set up, you will have the opportunity to directly contribute to the objectives, vision, mission and goals of the local community project. After returning home, you will find that you are just starting to process your own experience, and part of that process is telling your stories. For many volunteers, immersing themselves in the lives of those they met was an educational and transforming experience unlike any other - TO BE ABLE TO TRAVEL IS A GIFT - ENJOY EVERY MINUTE OF IT! |
 WHY PAY TO VOLUNTEER All volunteer visits have a programme fee which covers the expenses of operating the programme visits. The following is an excerpt from a book on international volunteering that helps to explain the necessity of a fee: Prospective volunteers are surprised to learn that many programmes charge their volunteers a fee to participate. At first, this can seem ridiculous - why should you pay money to work for free? Aren't you already forgoing income you could be making? Here are a few things to keep in mind while trying to understand why the vast majority of programmes charge international volunteers a fee: The local organisations and projects with which you volunteer have limited resources and are seldom able to subsidies your trip or cover the costs of hosting you. If they did have the financial resources to pay an international volunteer, it would almost certainly be more beneficial and cost-effective to hire a local person instead, someone who already knows the language and culture. Identifying appropriate host organisations and working with them is time-consuming, takes resources, and requires an experienced and professional person. The process of preparing, training, transporting, housing, feeding, and supervising volunteers come with their own experiences. Along with the costs of recruiting volunteers, producing literature, answering the phone, sending emails, developing a website, and interviewing potential volunteers are significant. The Bojanala kalafi Programme traiding name U2R Associates UK Ltd is an independent not-for-profit organisation with no governmental affiliations, and like a lot of not-for-profit organisations that run international volunteer programmes, our programmes are driven entirely by volunteer contributions. What ever your reason - be it to learn more about international relations, practice another language, move beyond a holiday to travel with purpose, or challenge yourself through a new environment - then volunteering out in South Africa with the Bojanala kalafi Programme via our South Africa partner company: "Touch the Heart of Africa" www.tthoa.co.za is sure to be rewarding to you and to the local people with whom you will spend time with.
|
||
