Volunteer work in Zambia

Volunteer work in Zambia

You can decide in advance if you would like to do volunteer work in Zambia in the field of health, education, or sports. You will be working in one of these fields in the mornings, and will spend your afternoons volunteering in other various projects.

Health care (mornings)

Zambia's health care sector is in need of funding, general employees, and medical professionals. In the mornings, you can do volunteer work in Zambia health care facilities, where you will support doctors, nurses, and health advisors in various clinics. Volunteers may also support patients' family members, help to inform people about health matters, carry out vaccinations, and register and care for patients as part of their volunteer work in Zambia.

Your volunteer work in Zambia could be in projects such as:

• Children's wards
• Childbirth wards
• Advisory stations
• Laboratories
• HIV/AIDS education

Whoever can prove that they have completed training in the field of medicine may be able to take on assignments with a higher level of responsibility during their volunteer work in Zambia.

Education (mornings)

Zambia’s educational facilities lack teachers and classrooms. It is not unusual for schools with far more than 1000 pupils to have fewer than 20 classrooms at their disposal, meaning that the children are taught in very large classes. Your volunteer work in Zambia will be highly valued in the following areas:

• Teaching in schools
• Supervising children with learning difficulties
• Organising sports activities and competitions
• Helping with correction work
• Giving out food in the school
• Repairing and rebuilding school buildings

Upon request, you can teach a class independently during your volunteer work in Zambia. In the future, extracurricular activities such as a reading club will also take place. Volunteers will have the opportunity to help with and participate in these activities.

During school holidays, volunteers will work in Holiday Clubs. Here, you will review missed class material with the children and prepare free time activities for them.

Sports

There is very little money available in Zambia for sports or sports teachers. Yet many Zambian children are very enthusiastic about sports and are incredibly keen on learning one. Through your volunteer work in Zambia, you can give these children a chance to develop sports skills, especially in football. You will help in schools and townships, training children in sports and organising games and team building exercises. If you are more interested in other sports, you can also work as a general sports coach as you volunteer in Zambia and teach sports including:

• Basketball
• Netball
• Track and field
• Yoga
• Taekwando

Further tasks (afternoons)

Your volunteer work in Zambia will be greatly appreciated in the orphanage and youth centre:

• Teaching
• Playing games
• Supervising the children
• Organising sports activities

You could also help build new classrooms for local schools. The work is strenuous, but you really get to see what you have accomplished in the end. This sort of volunteer work in Zambia could include:

• Building walls
• Painting
• Laying floors
• Mixing cement

Since Zambia has the highest rate or HIV infections in southern Africa, your help with HIV workshops will be greatly valued. You can also teach people First Aid and health precautions.

You can also get involved in solving an old seasonal conflict between elephants and local farmers. During the dry season, elephants tend to ransack fields of crops, leading farmers to shoot them. Your task is to plant pepper around the fields in order to keep the elephants away, protect the farmers’ harvests, and resolve the conflict. 

Not only will you give your personal commitment during your volunteer work in Zambia, your participation in the programme will also contribute to the development of the area. Part of the programme fee will be donated to the projects in the form of needed supplies.