Why Education?

The most powerful and sustainable way to support positive community development is through education. Quality education – Goal #4 of the Sustainable Development Goals – is a life-changing opportunity. Education helps individuals’ ability to pursue developmental opportunities in their own life and empowers communities to combat the issues they face sustainably.

Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Unfortunately, not everyone has access to educational opportunities. As of 2018, more than 258 million children worldwide, aged 6-17, were out of school. The majority of these youth live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 60% of adolescents are no longer in school by age 15-17. A lack of resources, teachers, and proper learning environments in Africa makes providing educational opportunities to children in poverty-stricken areas extremely challenging.

Making an Impact

Our volunteer teaching programs aim to empower communities by supporting underfunded and understaffed African schools. As a volunteer on one of our teaching abroad programs, you’ll assist local teachers by providing one-on-one support to students struggling with class concepts. This personal attention can be life-changing to students who may be falling behind in school. Additionally, volunteers will support sustainable community development by teaching English to adult students to improve their literacy! If you are keen to make a difference in the development of children, adults and whole communities, becoming a volunteer teacher is an incredible way to do so.

Our volunteer teaching abroad projects start at £795 and increase depending on the length of your stay and the project you join. These costs cover volunteer accommodation, meals, 24/7 African Impact in-country support, project and airport transportation, project orientation, and any project equipment volunteers may need.

Additionally, as a commitment to sustainable development in the communities we work in, all volunteers pay an additional £20 to support the African Impact Sustainability Fund. While we believe volunteering is an incredible way to create positive change in a local community, we acknowledge that volunteer abroad programs are not an all-encompassing solution to community development. This money goes directly to the African Impact Foundation, which independently ensures the sustainability of our projects in local communities. If you have additional questions about this donation, you can visit our page on the Sustainability Fund here!

Absolutely!

We believe that volunteer teaching is a life-changing experience for both communities and volunteers. In turn, we want this experience to be accessible to all and allow everyone the opportunity to experience the incredible benefits that teaching abroad offers. For our volunteer teaching programs in Africa, we do not require volunteers to have any previous education or teaching experience to join.

Before you begin your teaching program, you’ll go through an intensive training program with the local African Impact staff. Here, we’ll discuss important information about teaching English, proper student interactions, exciting knowledge about your destination, cultural sensitivities, as well as an intensive overview of our Child Protection Policy. This training program is an excellent opportunity for volunteers worldwide to connect before starting their project and learn all the information they’ll need to know to teach English in Africa.

At African Impact, our volunteer teaching projects concentrate on four main focuses. Each of our volunteer programs blends these focuses in a slightly different way, depending on the community’s needs. As a result, each volunteer abroad teaching program offers a unique variety of ways to make an impact in a local community!

Supporting Local Teachers in Schools

In Sub-Saharan Africa, teachers are largely understaffed. As a result, a typical African classroom often has over 40 children to a single teacher. With the disproportion of teachers to students, many children are neglected – to no fault of the teachers – the one-on-one attention they may need to thrive in a classroom setting.

As a classroom volunteer, you’ll support local teachers by assisting in lesson planning and identifying students who may appear to be falling behind. With these students, you’ll then provide the personal attention they may not otherwise get, going through previous lessons with them at a slower pace to help them understand essential concepts. This individual tutoring is not only an enriching opportunity for you, the volunteer, but can change the life and educational direction of a child struggling in school.

After School Clubs

After-school programs in Africa are a fantastic opportunity to support children’s positive development, creating an engaging environment for kids to play and learn while their parents work. These programs also support a healthy lifestyle for growing children, providing a safe space for children to spend after school hours, keeping them away from harmful activities like substance abuse.

Volunteer teachers will support these after-school programs by spending time in developmental activities with younger children and engaging in meaningful conversations with adolescents who may have questions about growing up. Spending time in after-school clubs is a great place to use your creativity to design fun activities for youth to participate in and positively impact their development!

Teaching English Literacy in Adult Classes

As of 2018, approximately 773 million adults, 2/3 of which are women, worldwide remained illiterate in both reading and writing. A quarter of these adults live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately 193 million adults do not have a fundamental education in literacy.

In Africa, tourism is a steadily growing industry, providing stable and profitable employment for many adults. However, for an individual to gain a job in the tourism sector, basic English literacy is essential.

As a part of our commitment to sustainable development in local communities, our volunteers will often teach English in adult literacy classes. Through these classes, we aim to empower locals in their English speaking skills and improve their employability. Volunteers will teach English in various adult settings throughout our programs, including women’s groups, where we aim to combat the large gender disparities in literacy.

Community Uplift Projects

Regardless of where volunteers teach English on our programs, we believe it is essential to use our volunteer resources to make a difference in uplifting communities. Community uplift projects are a fun and engaging way for volunteers to work with locals on community-led projects. In the past, these have included projects such as painting a local school or taking clothing packages to in-need families. However, these activities are highly varied depending on the current needs of the community!

Sustainable Development

Beyond this, we are committed to creating real and measurable change in local communities. We believe volunteering must go beyond merely benefitting the communities we work in on a short-term basis. Sustainable development is at the heart of what we do. It is why all of our projects are developed with community stakeholders to ensure they meet locals’ goals and are genuinely creating positive change.

Where we operate

Currently, African Impact offers volunteer teaching projects in the following African countries:

• South Africa
• Zanzibar
• Zambia
• Kenya
• Tanzania

Visit our project pages to learn more about each volunteer teaching program!

Yes! We carefully design our programs to ensure volunteers are safe and comfortable throughout their entire stay. If you are curious to learn more about our safety protocols, you can visit our Safety Tips in Africa here.

Have further questions? We’d be happy to answer any inquires you may. Click here to get in touch!