Children and Youth Projects.
INDIA
YOUTH TOUCH - Sikar, India: Our volunteers work alongside local villagers from Banjara Basti. The people of Banjara Basti are some of the poorest people of India. Banjara Basti is a village purely inhabited by gypsy communities close to the town Sikar in the northern part of Rajasthan. There are more than 500 families with a population of over 2,500 people. They don’t have access to schools, primary health facilities, electricity, and clean, safe drinking water. Our volunteers help build schools and medical facilities with the help of our Host Partner, Youth Touch. Their programs support locals by giving them basic education, health awareness campaigns, women’s empowerment education, and working with the street children.
Volunteer Experience Schedule INDIA
KENYA
COMFORT THE CHILDREN - Maai Mahui, Kenya: Working with our host-partner, Comfort the Children, participants contribute to educational opportunities as a sustainable way to reduce poverty. The first group of DWC volunteers started construction of a kitchen at the Maii Mahiu Primary School. They spent considerable time working side by side with their Maii Mahiu partner secondary school students and continuing the development of their pre-determined cultural exchange program.
The second group completed the primary school kitchen and then constructed an additional, larger community garden at the school. They also installed cement floors in six classrooms in the primary school. Today, as a result, children are learning how to plant and maintain water efficient organic gardens and to care for their own trees. The kitchen staff now feeds lunch to 1, 200 students that is cooked inside on a fuel efficient stove. The six classrooms are much cleaner and safer for the children.
Volunteer Experience Schedule KENYA
GUATEMALA
OPEN WINDOWS FOUNDATION - San Miguel Dueñas, Guatemala: Volunteers work in the Village of San Miguel Dueñas on the outskirts of Antigua. The community, with a population of about 9000, survives primarily on the coffee and flower industries and many of its citizens are subsistence level, transient farm labourers. San Miguel Dueñas is a very traditional Guatemalan community surrounded by the beauty of rural countryside, with a great active volcano visible from throughout the town.
Our host-partner, the Open Windows Foundation, works to provide disadvantaged children with the basic opportunity to learn how to read and free education. Volunteers will help children with computer skills, numbers and crafts, and playing soccer! Volunteers also assist in the construction of needed infrastructure projects such as “youth-safe” houses and will work on painting, minor electrical and plumbing projects, and concrete repairs at Dueñas public and rural schools.
Volunteer Experience Schedule GUATEMALA
PERU
IFEJANT - Lima, Peru: By volunteering with IFEJANT, volunteers can feel good about directly supporting children while challenging their western ideals around ‘child labour’. An important distinction is made between “child labour” and “working children”; working children choose to work and demand their right to be recognized and protected. Volunteers paint schools and work on the construction of classrooms and bathrooms. The schools offer working children alternative education that fulfills national curriculum requirements while providing more relevant income generating training. Further, the schools provide flexible hours that do not conflict with work hours.
CEPRONAM - Jaen, Peru: CEPRONAM
is the acronym for the Center for the Rights of Women and Children.
This non-profit organization, which is located in Jaen in northern part
of Peru, is a grassroots organization serving working children and
supporting
human rights in the barrios in and around this beautiful city close to
the Amazon region. Volunteers help build projects that provides the opportunity for working
children to continue their primary education. Past projects include building a kitchen and dining room next to a school.
Volunteer Experience Schedule PERU
SWAZILAND
SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGE, Mbabane and Siteki, Swaziland: Swaziland has the ill repute of having the highest per capita rate HIV infection rate. The AIDS pandemic has ravaged the country creating a generation of child-led families and orphans. This experience offers incredible satisfaction by substantially improving the quality of life for families that have been devastated by HIV/AIDS. Volunteers work with the community outreach program to build homes and community care points that provide education and a daily meal for orphaned children. Each community care point is staffed by SOS employees and volunteers who feed children from nearby homes with one meal per day. In exchange, the children must stay at the care point for 3-4 hours of education. Local women also operate handicraft businesses out of the same buildings.
Volunteer Experience Schedule SWAZILAND
