Volunteering in Kyazanga – Uganda
We greatly appreciate your interest in making a difference in our community, our country and the world at large. This is a great step forward in making a difference in the world and being a doer of your words.
It’s our great desire to have volunteers who can bring new ideas, work with minimal supervision, and have a positive, self-starting attitude.
We don’t only need young volunteers but also older people with business skills and experience. This is because we want to help all members of the community and hence we need all ages of volunteers to help in the different functions.
Joy for Humanity offers volunteer opportunities that help build individual and community skills, create employment opportunities and place a smile on many faces of people who have been deprived for a very long time in the community.
We have our volunteer programs grouped in 6 major areas listed below;
- Education
- Health
- Sanitation
- Economic Empowerment
- Community Development
- Information and communication Technologies.
Your involvement will help us get to a point of achieving our goals in developing our community and be able to approach and collaborate with the international development community more effectively.
Our work greatly depends on volunteer support and involvement plus their generous financial support to kick-start some of our projects and also replicate sustainable ones.
Location for Volunteering.
Our projects are located in Masaka District, Bukoto West Constituency and Kyazanga Sub-county. With this location, we give you the feel of volunteering in the rural area of Kyazanga and with our partner organizations, you can also volunteer in the urban setup. Masaka is 180 km from Kampala City and Kyazanga is 46 km from Masaka town along Masaka – Mbarara Road. While in Kyazanga, you are volunteering in a real setup that gives you a true feel of Uganda and Africa in general.
Basically, you need to decide if you want to live in a town with our partner organisations or if you want to be more fully immersed and spend your time living and working in the village which is the true feel of Uganda and Africa at large!
For all our placements, accommodation and daily meals will be provided in the community and will differ from private apartments to rooms in private homes.
Since security and cleanliness are of prime importance to us, when you are in our community will take those as the first priority.
Some of the projects you could be working on include;
- Teaching in a Nursery and Primary School and activities will include academics, peace education music/singing, health, sports, religion, arts and crafts, structured play and others. The main focus is to provide the children with a loving, creative environment in which to flourish.
- Provide administrative skills to our organization and school administrators together with our community leaders.
- Serve to improve community education at our care center which has some reading materials for the community.
- Provide education to Adults to help reduce on the illiteracy levels in adults by providing adult education for them to acquire communication skills and learn some communication languages like English.
- Run HIV/AIDS sensitization seminars in schools, prisons, at community groups etc.
- Train HIV/AIDS educators in our organization, school and other community groups.
- Consult at our Community Health Centre (Already in place and yet to be improved further)
- Participate in a medical outreach program as part of the team.
- Bring young social entrepreneurs together and teach them basic business skills.
- Sensitize community on gender awareness and children rights.
- Help to support and promote rights and development of children, youth, women, elderly people and People with Different Abilities (PWDs) in community.
- Help in promoting the living conditions of the youth, women and People with Different Abilities PWDs by sensitizing on how to form more youth groups, more women and PWDs groups and helping them to start Income Generating Activities.
- Sensitize people on good health habits to improve on the sanitation
- Sensitize people on better farming methods and use of improved seeds.
- Help to sensitize people on how to market their produce easily by finding ways of increasing the market base in the community and outside the community.
- Help to sensitize on how to rehabilitate roads with the available resources so that people can easily market their produce and also to ease transportation which is another big problem in the community.
- Help to sensitize on the problem of dumping polythene bags which is becoming a menace as gardens are getting spoilt and there is an urgent need to come up with alternatives for polythene, otherwise they will soon cause a serious problem.
- Help in sensitizing on reducing diseases that affect people because of poor primary health care, poor water and sanitation through intensified health education and proper sanitation strategies.
- Help in coming up with strategies to reduce law breakage and lack of order in the community.
- Identify orphans and other underprivileged children especially those due to AIDS in the community for subsequent support.
- Help with our community information management system that we are trying to setup after collecting community family information and this is intended to connect the community with the rest of the globe without changing our geographical boundaries.
- Help in writing project proposals for some of our organization projects.
- Help in organizing fundraising activities for our projects including contacting and following up donors. This can also be excellent for online volunteers who do not or cannot leave their home countries but want to stand with us in our work.
- And there can be more other opportunities as we will also welcome opportunities suggested to improve on the standards of living of the community people……..
Volunteer Requirements:
Volunteers with Joy for Humanity are required to:
- Be at least 18 years of age and above. Volunteers below 18 years need to be accompanied by an older volunteer.
- Be able to at least walk of up to 4 km daily.
- Have a positive and outgoing personality.
- Be able to speak English. There is sometimes a significant language barrier between volunteers and the local people but there will be someone to help you with translation and this is sometimes challenging but you will find it amazing.
- Be able to mentally adjust to new culture and way of life.
When do we receive volunteers?
You are welcome to volunteer with us at any time throughout the year. Volunteers can stay from a period of 1 week to 12 months. Your stay can be extended beyond 12 months depending upon the ability to obtain an extended visa.
Cost for the Program
The cost for living in Kyazanga is approximately USD 650 per month per volunteer.
This fee covers:
- Airport pick up and transport to the project
- Accommodation (Home stay with a family or rent).
- 3 meals per day ( Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)
- Support for local volunteer community workers
- Supervision
The above fee will not cover your other expenses like flights, visas, vaccinations, leisure activities and other personal costs.
You will basically need a weekly budget of at least US $25 - $40 to support a basic life which includes among others, bottled water, internet, some transport and a few western treats such as coffee and chocolate.
Safaris and white water rafting are a bit more expensive but we will help you to arrange incase of any need.
Application Process
Your application process is completely free and if you need more information before making a decision we will be able to answer any questions or concerns that you might have.
We will access your suitability for the program in this period and once everything is okay, we will then email you a letter of acceptance.
Once you have read the letter of acceptance and we have answered any questions or concerns that you might have, then a deposit of $150 is required a month before your arrival in Uganda. The amount will be subtracted from the monthly fee of $650. This fee will help us to make arrangements for your stay especially accommodation.
Joy for Humanity is an organization of amazingly nice people and we will continue to stand with you throughout the whole process and we are committed to working with you to answer any other questions or concerns that you might have and helping you have a successful volunteer program.
Our programs are pretty popular and please try to apply well in advance of when you are planning to travel.
To join our volunteer teams please email us your recent complete resume, a list of your skills/interests and inform us why you prefer to come and volunteer in Uganda at volunteer@kyazanga.org
