Project Life
Volunteer to Teach at a Township School in Cape Town, South Africa

Your first day on the program will be spent learning about the different customs and cultures in South Africa, general life inside a township as well as some common Xhosa sayings. You will also be given the curriculum, ideas on lesson planning, some introductory information on child development and skills on how to handle young children. There is no need for any particular prior training or experience as this will be provided for you once you arrive in country. The South African GVI Project Manager, interns and other volunteers will always be around to assist you or to give you ideas.

See up to date info on the project Blog

Typical Day

Each morning you will be collected at your apartment at 8:30am and transported to the primary school in time to start your morning sessions which are from 9am - 1pm. You should typically work with a total of 8 students in a 2 week cycle and there are usually 2 one-on-one sessions per hour. The children assigned to the program have been selected by their teachers as they require some extra coaching in either literacy or numeracy skills. Each student has a 25 minute session each day and during the 2 weeks will cover all the material set out in this specially designed program. They will also have the opportunity to ask any questions they may have and get some individual attention which they are not getting in their classroom. Lunch time is from 1 - 2pm when you can enjoy your packed lunch. After lunch there is time for a 1 hour meeting with the teachers to discuss the progress of each of your students and any extra material the teachers might need you to cover. You will be collected from the school at 4pm in the afternoon and taken back to the apartment. Volunteers will then be required to spend an hour or two each day preparing for the next days lessons and writing up progress reports on each of your students. You will hand these reports over to their teachers once the students have completed the program.

Typical week

Volunteers will work Monday through to Friday. You will have weekly sessions with the project manager and intern to discuss any ideas or problems you may have and to plan for the following week. The work you will be doing will involve teaching basic conversational English, literacy and basic numeracy skills. Volunteers can achieve this by reading stories, playing educational games and working through a curriculum and specific program which has been designed for you by the teachers at the school. Resources, art materials, games and the curriculum will be provided for you once you get to Cape Town. If you would like to get involved in helping some of the teachers with extra activities and sports coaching after school you will have the opportunity to do so. Weekends have been left free for your own leisure so that you will have time to explore Cape Town and the local area.