Fun Volunteer Activities Abroad

Fun Volunteer Activities Abroad

Volunteering abroad seems like the sure thing to do at your free time in the course of your hospital rotations abroad. We in fact encourage our participants to involve themselves in volunteer activities like assisting to feed the children at the orphanage or spending some time with the pupils at the nearby community schools. Most of our participants have had their views about how their world changed. They have been able to make new friends, learn new games and songs and share their skills with the kid. I know you are wondering how much time you have to volunteer? Normally, you are required to put in a minimum of 25 hours a week in hospital rotations . You can choose to do more hours or night shifts to further increase the patients contact time and get more clinical exposure. In free afternoons , early evenings and weekends, you have lots of activities that you can be involved in, volunteering is one of the major one.  In volunteering you have a chance to impact on the life of others as well as learn a bit more about the culture of the people And as Mother Theresa would say it, spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

 

Here are some fun activities you can do within the schools and children’s homes

Hygiene Clinic – One of the most impactful activities in the schools students have undertaken is hygiene clinic. Where students will be given a talk and demos on how to maintain a good self-hygiene like washing hands and dental hygiene. The older girls would also have a separate session on how to maintain good hygiene during menstruation as well as the changes going through their body and building the self-confidence. The boys would also go through the same and how to treat their classmates. Donations include sanitary towels, toothpaste, toothbrush etc.

Sports Coaching – And while this may mean having to sweat it out, it is also worth it because most of the community schools don’t have enough resources to participate in games like soccer, volleyball just to mention a few. They also don’t have the luxury of a sports coach. You will find most of them playing with custom made balls, mostly made from plastic bags.  The pupils normally have sometime break in the evening, which you can maximize to train them on some skills in soccer, volleyball etc. You may want to carry that extra ball lying in your garage.

Construction – This may be much easier when you are travelling as a group. You will can take part in renovating the dusty classroom floors in Pentrose Community School. The walls also need some upgrade. Painting them and involving the kids would be  a fun way of doing it. You can go ahead and have some useful information in form of art like being confident, maintain a good hygiene etc. The construction shouldn’t stop at that. You can also ,opt to build a new toilet for the pupils and teachers to replace the current one that is not in a good state. You can fundraise for the project before or during your placement.

Teaching – This is an eye-opening time. You can teach life skills, english, mathematics or science.

Other fun activities to do while volunteering are;

Creating Masks – Apart from helping with the cleaning, feeding the children and cooking at the orphanage, you can also involve the kids who are much younger in creating masks (Emoji Masks, paper plate masks with favorite animals, the list is endless. Hello, Wonderful has some interesting ideas worth a try.

Building a Scrapbook – What better way to tell stories than building a scrapbook. You can do this with the lower primary pupils. Your first visit should give you an idea on what to work on/what to buy to build a scrapbook. The key here is to make it as interesting and involving as possible.

Crayons & Dye – Who wants to get dirty? Using thick paper to draw on, and then use cold-water dye to brush over the top. The crayon will resist being coloured, and the background will become nicely washed.

You can think of other fun activities to be involved in that are interested and involving. All the best .

by Elective Africa

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