Community Development in Cape Town, South Africa

Volunteer with Gap Year South Africa assisting the local township community of Masiphumelele in Cape Town, South Africa. Our Community Development project is primarily targeted at assisting under-resourced individuals through community development programmes such as: School Support, Student Tutoring and Mentoring, Edu-care Support, Women's Club, HIV Prevention, Performing Arts and Sports Coaching programmes. We design a personalised volunteer schedule for individual’s based on their particular area of interest and expertise. Volunteers will have an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution through supporting a number of community development activities.

Volunteers will be supporting numerous community development initiatives in the local township community of Masiphumelele in Cape Town, South Africa. Masiphumelele is a township of approximately 38,000 people near Cape Town. Most residents are economic migrants from the rural lands of the Eastern Cape. They settle here seeking work, better education and other facilities. Social and health deprivation coupled with poverty and poor living conditions make life tough for residents – only 30% have any regular work and life expectancy is age 50.

Your Role as a Volunteer

Volunteers will be supporting numerous Community Development programmes in the local township community of Masiphumelele, including but not limited to:

• School Support Programme
• School Tutoring and Mentoring Programme
• Edu-care Support Programme
• Women’s Club Programme
• Life Exchange Programme
• HIV Prevention Programme
• Performing Arts Programme
• Sports Coaching Programme

Due to the “real life” nature of these community-spirited programmes, please note all Community Development Project programmes are subject to change.

School Support Programme

Volunteers support various activities at our partner primary school, including but not limited to after school homework club, computer literacy, environmental awareness, general improvement of the school grounds and classroom facilities. Your presence in the school will assist in providing greater individual attention and encouragement to all children as well as assisting those children who may require additional time and lessons. Our partner primary school has over 1500 school children with an average class size of 45 to 50 children per class. The large majority of the school children attending the school live in shacks (slum conditions with no electricity or basic services). Often the only meal the children have on a daily basis is the one they receive at school as part of the school nutrition programme. Children of this community are often taking on responsibilities way beyond their years such as heading up their households and caring for their siblings due to one or both of their parents being deceased (often caused by HIV Aids and related illnesses). The school is hugely under-resourced with very humble surroundings and facilities.

Student Tutoring and Mentoring Programme

This programme involves after school tutoring and mentoring of students who bring their school work with which they need help. Often students live in crowded homes, lacking the space or resources to study. Ikmava Youth provides this space, alongside a support structure to help them improve their grades and academic confidence. Subjects the students need assistance with include Mathematics, Physics, Science, English, Geography, History, Accounting and Life Orientation. Your role as a volunteer involves not only helping the students with their work, but also providing support and encouragement, and building relationships with the students. The tutoring groups are self-organising. Learners will organise their own groups according to grade, subject and content. Volunteers indicate their subject areas of interest, and find a group that needs help with that subject. Tutoring occurs in small groups, and the volunteer’s job is to facilitate discussion and try getting each learner to engage and discuss the work they’ve brought to the session. Tutors are not teachers, and are not expected to know everything or be able to respond to every question. The tutoring environment is informal and collaborative, and you can simply ask for the assistance of a more experienced or knowledgeable tutor as needed. It’s important that as tutors we do not provide learners with the answers or ‘spoon-feed’ them. A volunteer’s job is to get learners to think for themselves, and practice reading, understanding, writing/calculating and speaking.

Edu-care Support Programme

The Edu-Care support programme assists local crèches in becoming registered crèches. In order to become a registered crèche – and hence receive financial support – crèches need to be able to meet certain standards of feeding and safety. Volunteers will assist teachers in looking after the young children by playing and interacting with them, sorting out donated resources, and planning nutritional meals for the children.

Women’s Club Programme

Women’s Club provides an exclusively female environment for teenage girls to talk openly about issues they face in their daily lives. These issues can include relationships, diet, self-image and peer-pressure. This club has been incredibly popular with our female volunteers, as it encourages an open dialogue and allows for the breaking down of barriers between the volunteers and young girls from Masiphumelele. The support and advice that you as a volunteer can provide means an enormous amount to young women who often don’t get enough support at home.

Life Exchange Programme

Life Exchange offers volunteers the opportunity to work, in a safe and supportive environment, with youth who are working to change the path their lives have been on. Many of them lack secondary education or basic life skills, despite being older than the average high school student. Life Exchange offers academic tutoring, nutritional classes and mentoring support to young adults who have faced huge challenges in life, from pressure to join gangs and drug addiction to marginalization. This programme is extremely inspiring as it involves people working against all odds to take control of their lives and work to improve themselves and their community.

HIV Prevention Programme

The Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation is a national organization that runs a Youth Centre in Masiphumelele. The Centre aims to encourage youth to make life choices that lead them away from a lifestyle that causes the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Masiphumelele. The Youth Centre provides activities, such as Journalism classes, drama classes and dance classes, as well as providing support in computer literacy skills (such as typing, internet use and setting-up emails). Extensive research has indicated most young people in South Africa tend to lack a sense of future (lack of aspiration and opportunity). This is a major contributing factor leading to unhealthy sexuality amongst young people. Our HIV Prevention programme aims to build self esteem and contribute to creating a sense of future. We target young people for the following key reasons:

• More receptive to adopting safer sex practices
• 60% of all new infections happen between 15 and 25 years of age
• Premature adult mortality will place great burdens on the young
• A better chance of creating a hopeful, respectful generation
• Youth culture affects adult culture
• 50% of the South African population is under the age of 25
• Gap Year South Africa ensures that volunteers are well equipped with the skills required to be effective HIV prevention peer educators.

Performing Arts Programme

The Performing Arts programme offers volunteers an opportunity to support existing projects, such as drama classes at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, or to initiate your own programme which volunteers will run while volunteering with Gap Year South Africa, such as a dance class with Ikamva Youth. The programme is based on the volunteer’s specific area of interest, encouraging children to get involved in activities such as music, dance and drama.

Sports Coaching Programme

Gap Year South Africa through its physical education and sports coaching projects contribute to encouraging mass participation in sport for school children who have inherently been afforded very little exceptional opportunity. The physical education and sports coaching projects assist in social and economic development and address priority areas such as moral regeneration and social cohesion. This is achieved through our volunteers engaging with the local community and providing essential life skills through physical activity and sports. During daily physical education lessons, school children are exposed to basic speed, agility and quickness (SAQ) training skills. There are a group of SAQ coaches that are permanently assigned to our partner school. These coaches are working hard at trying to get a smooth daily operation of this physical education programme. Our volunteers assist these coaches and our daily presence and contribution to the programme are greatly appreciated. In the afternoons, our volunteers coach sport specific sessions. Our volunteers have successfully introduced a number of new sports to enthusiastic groups of school children. These activities have certainly kept the children off the streets and assisted in preventing them from getting involved in anti-social behaviour.

Volunteer Profile

Gap Year South Africa seeks individuals that are passionate and energetic with an enthusiasm for an adventure of a lifetime. If you are a post-school or post-university gap year student, a university undergraduate or postgraduate, or a career breaker, our community development project is ideally suited for you. Volunteers must be 17 years of age and above.

Location

You will be based in the South African coastal city of Cape Town, also often referred to as the Mother City. Cape Town is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The impressive presence of the world renowned Table Mountain stands proudly above the city of Cape Town. Beautiful white sandy beaches along a peaceful coastline frame the Cape Peninsula, which is famed for its unique floral kingdom, bountiful rivers, vleis and dams and magnificent countryside. The surrounding area extends far into the winelands, green in summer and red-gold in autumn. Cape Town is a city of culture, built on a history that reflects in the architecture, cuisine, music and dance. Together with a warm summer and temperate winter climate and a friendly community, Cape Town is an ideal Gap Year destination throughout the year. Situated 10 hours from the majority of gap year world traveller destinations, Gap Year South Africa is an ideal stop on your global adventure travel. Please click here to visit our destination page to learn more about Cape Town, South Africa.

Explore South Africa

Accommodation, Food and Transport

You are hosted by the Team of Gap Year South Africa in our comfortable fully furnished house along with all our volunteers. The volunteer house is a very safe and friendly environment within Fish Hoek, a coastal village lying in a valley at the mouth of the Silvermine River, on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula.

Our volunteers stay in dormitory style accommodation with communal bathrooms. The house facilities include a DVD player and television, broadband internet access and a swimming pool. The house is located a short distance from the golden beaches of the magnificent Indian Ocean and conveniently situated within walking distance to a wide range of amenities for all your additional needs.

During the week, Mondays to Fridays, volunteers have all their meals prepared for them by our local team. Meals are not included on Saturdays and Sundays, as experience has taught us that most volunteers tend to explore Cape Town during weekends. Volunteers either purchase and prepare their own meals on weekends or often choose to eat out at local restaurants. Our kitchen is superbly equipped and local supermarkets and restaurants are within walking distance from the volunteer house.

On arrival at Cape Town International Airport you will be welcomed by our Gap Year South Africa Team and be transferred from the airport to the volunteer house. All daily transport to and from the projects is provided.

Excursions

The volunteer group excursions are selected from a wide variety of exciting activities based in Cape Town. Volunteer group excursions are selected in advance by the Gap Year South Africa team and are subject to change. The volunteer group excursions are selected from a host of exciting activities such as:

• Explore Cape Point where the cold Benguela and warm Agulhus currents merge
• Hike up Cape Town’s magnificent Table Mountain and return via Cable Car
• Spend a day exploring all the attractions at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront
• Visit the magnificent two oceans aquarium
• View the exquisite penguins at Boulders
• Explore the World of Birds wildlife sanctuary and monkey park
• Enjoy learning to surf or surfing the waves of Cape Town

The table below indicates the number of group excursions selected from a wide variety of exciting activities that are included as part of your project fee:

Volunteers will have free time on weekends to explore all Cape Town has to offer. Our team will inform you of all the amazing attractions available to you in and around Cape Town. If volunteers choose to experience any additional excursions above those stipulated as group excursions, these excursions will be at the volunteers own cost. Types of additional excursions available to volunteers include:

• Snorkel or freedive with Cape fur seals in the exquisite oceans of Cape Town
• Journey on a Township Tour into a vibrant world of colour
• Shark Cage Diving with Great White Sharks
• Scuba dive at the Two Oceans Aquarium
• Abseiling down Table Mountain
• Specialised guided wine region tours
• Robben Island Museum Tour
• Penguin Sea Kayak Trail Simon’s Town
• Visit the Cheetah Sanctuary at Spier
• Tandem skydive
• Visit the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens
• View the African Big Five on a one day safari tour

What Is Included In Your Chosen Project?

Prior to your departure:

• Expert advice on selecting your most suitable project
• Travel assistance from our specialist Partners
• Valuable ideas and assistance for your fundraising campaign
• An open line of communication to our friendly and informative team
• Our informative Project Pack including all relevant contact details

During your project in South Africa:

• On arrival at Cape Town Airport you will be welcomed by our South African Team
• Transfer from the airport to the volunteer house
• Accommodation in the volunteer house in Cape Town
• Meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) Monday to Friday
• 24/7 assistance and emergency support from our Gap Year South Africa Team
• Project induction and training prior to the commencement of your project
• Management of your project delivery
• All daily transport to and from your project
• A selection of exciting volunteer group excursions and social events
• A chance to play sports for clubs in South Africa (terms and conditions apply)
• An opportunity to learn to surf and/or gain certificates in Scuba Diving (terms and conditions apply)
• Experience a new and vibrant culture

What Is Not Included In Your Chosen Project?

• Flights
• Saturday and Sunday meals (volunteers tend to explore Cape Town on weekends)
• Visas (if applicable)
• Travel Insurance
• Vaccinations
• Spending money
• Additional excursions and travel