Project Life
Teaching English and Childcare in Swaziland

On the community care project you may get involved in many of the following activities, depending on the timing of your placement:

• Caring – giving care, support and love to the children to help them feel wanted
• Activities – organising games and playing activities for the children, helping to arrange and take them on educational outings, such as visiting a game reserve
• Teaching – helping to teach simple English and maths as well as basic life skills
• Outreach and Needs Identification – visiting homesteads to help find vulnerable children, develop their profiles and identify their needs
• Feeding Programmes – helping with activities like developing trench gardens, helping to source food donations and helping to feed children
• Shelter Improvement – helping to improve basic shelter structures for vulnerable children
• Fundraising – organising events to raise awareness and funds to help meet specific needs for vulnerable children.

On the teaching project you will usually work in timetabled conversational English lessons. Depending on your experience and interests, as well as the needs of the school, you may shadow a local teacher to educate young children or take responsibility for teaching a class of young adults.

Many of the schools have gardens in which the children learn practical agricultural skills and grow food to eat. There are a variety of other extra-curricula activities, including sports and helping to construct basic shelters, gardens, water systems and other physical structures needed at the schools.

Some of the activities you will get involved in include:

• Teaching – helping with anything from shadowing a teacher to taking on your own class
• Marking – tests and exams
• Preparing tests and homework
• Sports – introduce new sports/develop existing sports (e.g. football, netball)
• Extra curricular activities – school dramas, music classes and any other activities that interest you as a volunteer
• Agriculture – the school holds agriculture classes and has vegetable gardens, so see where you can get involved!
• General help – get involved with the staff at the school, know what is happening at the school and get involved wherever possible. The more effort and energy you put into your placement, the more you are likely to get out of it.