Our South Africa partner, Kate from Good Work Foundation, was recently in the UK, speaking at a conference and catching up with family and friends. This was too good an opportunity to miss – a chance to meet up with one of our local partners without having to get on a plane! So we chose a point not too difficult for any of us to reach by train or road and Sallie and I met Kate for a late breakfast….
Thank you to all our wonderful volunteers – those who have travelled and those who have worked from home as e-volunteers to support our volunteer programme since we have been able to travel post-Covid. Here are some great pictures of some of our volunteers at work during the last year. To learn more about all these projects follow these links to our project pages for in-country placements and for e-volunteer placements or email dianne@travel-peopleandplaces.co.uk
Our partners at Good Work Foundation are looking for volunteers who can hep with coding and robotics Good Work Foundation support 32 local schools from their six campuses, exposing young learners from rural South African schools to digital technology as a means of learning. Part of their programme, Open Learning Plus, takes the most talented group of learners and provides workshops in the following activities: robotics, coding, Lego education, Skype, drones and advanced mathematics. These classes take place after school…
Do you enjoy reading and discussing the books you have read with friends? Are you one of the many people who have held your book club meetings online during lockdown? If so, you could be just the person we are looking for! Our partners in South Africa have come up with a brilliant suggestion for an e-volunteer placement. They already run reading circles for their staff, and they would love to meet a volunteer who would link up with them…
We are delighted to report that we have a volunteer currently on placement at Hazyview in South Africa. Having feared that we would be unable to place anyone at all during the pandemic and with no idea when long-haul international travel will start up again, we were delighted when Richard approached us to say that he was actually in South Africa and could we create a placement for him. As the Digital Learning Centres run by our partners Good Work…
We work with the most inspiring partners who are real drivers for change – and we love it when their work is recognised. Our partners in South Africa, Good Work Foundation have been shortlisted for the “Education Oscars” Good Work Foundation focuses on digital learning opportunities for young adults and scholars living in rural communities. Learn more about the volunteer programme here
We love hearing from local partners about our volunteers and their work … below are some recent updates from Treak in Cambodia and Hazyview in South Africa. First of all, here’s a brief synopsis of the varied skills and experience they brought to their projects and placements: Chris, Paul & Lynne worked in Treak and Katherine in Hazyview. Chris has worked for years in engineering and other practical projects, in the UK and overseas, as well as having coaching &…
It’s the end of the school year in southern Africa. At the Emmanuel Advice Care Centre in Port Elizabeth and at the Neighbourhood Care Points in Swaziland many children are finishing their time at pre-school and are excitedly looking forward to starting school in January. One of the high points of their last few weeks at pre-school has been their graduation ceremony. We have just heard from our partners in Swaziland that 113 children have graduated and will be entering…
Elsewhere in this newsletter, you’ll be able to read Dianne’s full report from her own recent volunteer placement in Port Elizabeth. At people and places, we firmly believe that sharing volunteers’ reports, before and after placements, is vital in helping everyone to appreciate their own role in a project’s development and sustainability. Here are some extracts from 2 more volunteers who also worked in South Africa this year, though on a different project from Dianne – in Kruger. Husband &…
Emmanuel Advice Care Centre in one of the Port Elizabeth townships is a project people and places volunteers have been supporting for many years now. I (Dianne) was last there in October 2017 in my role as programme advisor, but that did not give me enough time to do any meaningful volunteering work myself, so I returned this spring for four weeks as a volunteer. Here is my report. Placement outline This placement was slightly different to a normal volunteer…