NGOabroad
International Volunteering & Careers
Volunteer in Africa
SUMMARY: Volunteer in Africa and it will likely change your life. Looking to do a Gap Year? NGOabroad volunteer work in Africa aims to help transform Africa: you can help lift people out of poverty; you can help build democracy amidst despots; you can help prevent or help treat diseases; or you can help transform prevailing attitudes towards women. We need your help tutoring street kids or high school students because education is a ticket out of poverty. Or volunteer in Africa in one of our international development programs to get experience for humanitarian work. Our volunteer programs in Africa are meant to be affordable and custom-fit. NGOabroad has volunteer abroad programs in Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon & Ghana. Volunteer Africa: while you help transform Africa, it will transform you.
Volunteer Abroad in Micro-finance, Entrepreneurship & Small Business Development
Half of Sub-Sahara Africa lives on less than $1/day. 75% lives on less than $2/day.
In cities, street vendors sell trinkets, pens or bananas but earn little.
In the rural villages, farmers have land to grow food, but rarely have a cash crop.
Microfinance has morphed many ways as MFIs (MicroFinance Institutions) struggle to find what works for African entrepreneurs but still leaves MFI solvent.
RWANDA: MFI welcomes many skills: Finance, Business/ operations, IT, marketing
UGANDA: help resourceful Congolese refugees learn entrepreneurial skills
CAMEROON: help bolster rural enterprises in remote villages & teach entrepreneurial skills
TANZANIA & RWANDA: work with excellent, innovative program mentoring entrepreneurs
KENYA: help Kenyans develop Cultural Tours – develop income from tourism, not just farming
Who is needed?
~ Experienced small business owners & entrepreneurs who can mentor!
~ Business, Entrepreneurship & Finance graduates & students
~ IT/ MIS (Management Information Systems) + Business, data & risk analysts
~ Accountants/ bookkeepers who can teach how to keep track of income & expenses
~ Marketing, tourism/ hospitality, project management, chefs/ culinary, SEO, online marketing
~ Marketing skills for ground-breaking solar org in Uganda
Volunteer Abroad in Social Work & Psychology. + Dance, Music & Art Therapy
KENYA: great first counseling experience with kids who have lost parents to AIDS or alcohol
KENYA: trauma counseling in ground-breaking work with sexually abused young women
UGANDA: help develop domestic violence program + counsel abused women + shift attitudes
UGANDA: great 1st counseling experience in our secondary school helping with students’ goals
CAMEROON: teach positive interaction in our Alternatives to Violence program
GHANA: work in Out Patient Psychiatric clinic & doing outreaches to homes & families
KENYA: drinking is rampant. Do trainings in schools.
Who is needed?
~ Counselors, psychologists & social workers: student volunteers & professional volunteers
~ Youth workers, child protection, addiction, crisis, psychiatric , DV, abuse & trauma experts
~ Peace building, conflict transformation, non-violent communication
~ Dance, music, drama & art therapists who can utilize non-verbal therapies + EMDR, EFT, NLP
~ People that can shift attitudes about mental health – it is seen as a witch’s curse
~ Both men & women that can shift attitudes regarding women – women are seen as property
Volunteer Abroad in Health: Nursing, Medical, Public Health, Nutrition, Dental, OT & PT
There is 1 doctor per 10,000 people in most African countries. Few other experts.
Hospital workers, barely or rarely paid, live by extorting money from dying patients.
UGANDA x3, TANZANIA, GHANA & CAMEROON: public health promotion prevents diseases!
Teach about communicable diseases, malaria, food & water borne disease, WASH.
Teach about sexual & reproductive health. African women are asking for family planning!
GHANA: work in hospital – med/ surg, ER, ob/ gyn, PT, lab or out-patient + mentor clinical skills
UGANDA x2: teach family planning so there are less mouths to feed … a ticket out of poverty.
CAMEROON: nutritionists teach farmers what crops would increase nutrition
Exciting new Volunteer Abroad program in CAMEROON: work in clinic. Emphasis especially on maternal & child health, but also on affordable exams, pharmacy & lab work. Want help with ante-natal care & labor & delivery; or public health community outreach doing health promotion.
Who is needed?
~ Nurses/ nursing students, doctors/ medical students, physiotherapists/ physical therapists, occupational therapists, midwives, nutritionists, medical social workers, lab techs, admin, reproductive health workers/ trainers, public health, health promotion
Volunteer Abroad in Democracy Building, Human Rights & Law
KENYANS that were jailed & tortured under Moi have spear-headed the push for a new constitution that devolves power from Nairobi & President and puts local & citizen needs at center stage. Come work on this exciting civic education & democracy building effort.
~KENYA 2: work with gadfly that aims to keep politicians honest + transitional justice.
~TANZANIA or RWANDA: work with fascinating legal aid/ human rights org doing public interest law.
~UGANDA is very corrupt. Their president, Museveni, has maneuvered to stay in office since 1986. He always has the opposition jailed prior to elections & violates human rights. Come work in dynamic, esteemed human rights organization doing civic education or law & make a difference!
Who is needed?
~ Human rights activists & organizers. Community organizers & democracy trainers.
~ Public Administration & Political Science students & professionals. Policy analysts.
~ Law students & attorneys to work in human rights, public interest law, legal aid or transitional justice.
Volunteer Abroad: Entering International Development
These placements are designed to help you get necessary experience to work abroad.
Talk with Ann if you are interested, because you must be qualified for these placements.
TANZANIA: Great participatory, capacity building & empowerment model.
Get experience in health, education, livelihoods, environment or Monitoring & Evaluation.
RWANDA: Great place to get the all-important “international experience”
because this multisectoral org operates like most international NGOs.
Get leadership experience and/or work on health campaigns or management, income generation,
M&E, rural development, social service programs, women, refugees or grant writing.
UGANDA: Congolese refugees. Very rustic & rugged refugee camp. Very few programs in place.
So get great experience doing needs assessment & actually building education, health, income
generation, agriculture, water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH) programs. Our most challenging!
Volunteer Abroad: Education, Early Childhood Education & Tutoring. + Vocational Training
In UGANDA, the government skims the money off the top so there is no money for government schools. So dedicated citizens create schools. Come teach or tutor in our secondary school so that kids do well on national exam & get a scholarship to Uganda’s best university, Makerere.
~ Tutors in Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology &/or English needed! Come make a difference!
Our CONGOLESE refugee program in Kampala (not in camp) needs volunteers who can teach vocational skills: computers; construction, plumbing, electrical; chef, culinary or hospitality; secretarial; crafts. What skills do you have that would help earn an income?
In beautiful mountains of UGANDA, teach women literacy who were left out of education;
or help launch early childhood education program so kids get off to right start.
Volunteer Abroad Helping Kids. .....Great for Gap Year!
Do you love kids? We need you!
Come help in our Kenya orphanage/ children’s center or in our Ghana after school program,
KENYA: Make a difference in the lives of kids whose parents have died of AIDS or have been abandoned due to parents’ drinking. (Kenya has a big alcohol problem.) We need volunteers who can mentor kids, help with homework, work in garden or play soccer, music or Scrabble with kids… We are selective for this program: we do not want to revive Attachment Disorder in kids who have lost so much.
GHANA: set on the coast at west side of Accra, dad usually fishes and mom works drying fish. While parents are working, kids are often truant. This program has a strong after school tutoring & enrichment program so that kids can succeed vs fall between the cracks. Help with homework & tutor. On kids summer break, help in enrichment program. Teach capoeira or join them in African dance. Ghana is one of the “drumming-est” places in Africa so they have a strong music program. Come join the fun!
Volunteer Abroad in Agriculture, Animal Husbandry & Rural Development
Half of Africa lives in remote, rural villages as subsistence farmers. Rarely do farmers earn enough to buy a mosquito net to prevent malaria. Often families do not have enough food to last through “the lean months” and they forage and live on “bush meat.” We need your help!
CAMEROON & GHANA: come teach organic, sustainable farming so that they will have better yields:
~ teach composting & enriching the soil, mulching, rain water harvest, rotating the crops
~ teach how to diversify so that they will have food all year long
~ Ghana is so eager to have you mentor that they will put you on the radio to reach a wider audience!
~ teach how to raise animals – rabbits, chickens, goats – this is fairly new in Cameroon
RWANDA: as a nation, after the genocide, Rwandans decided that they must find a way for Hutus & Tutsi’s to work together. They formed cooperatives.
~ They want people experienced in cooperative management to guide them. Fascinating!
Who is needed?
~ Agronomists, farmers – either amateur or pro – people well versed in sustainable methods
~ Chicken & goat farmers & animal husbandry who can teach how to raise animals
Volunteer Abroad in Environmental, Engineering, Appropriate Technology, & Renewable Energy
Environmental thinking is fairly new in Africa. But now African organizations are taking steps to raise awareness & take action. Renewable energy is an exciting new field as Africa “leap-frogs” past some of their previous energy obstacles. We are in the process of making some new placements in this sector.
TANZANIA – in the Serengeti: requests people that can teach environmental conservation.
Help with assessment, preventing soil erosion & deforestation, the importance of cooking stoves.
UGANDA: huge influx of Sudanese refugees is taxing the land. Help replicate Wangari Maathai’s “Green
Belt Movement: starting tree seedlings and planting trees to revive the desiccated environment
KENYA: come work with stellar water & sanitation org to train Kenyans how to measure water pathogens
CAMEROON: or at a more grassroots level, teach water & sanitation in rural villages & how to purify water
GHANA: chemical & mechanical engineers develop alternative fuels – esp biodiesel
Who is needed?
~ Environmental & Engineering students & professionals
~ Solar, wind & biodiesel experts – those well versed in sustainable energy
~ Environmental & civil engineers that can teach how to purify water & water & sanitation
From Slum to Decent Housing: Volunteer in Construction or Outreach/ Advertizing to Communities
~1 billion people on this planet live in slums – without proper sewage, clean water or electricity.
This extraordinary organization is working with the poor to build their own homes; they build their own bricks. They have created financing plans so that people pay $10 to $150/ month for a home. Each house will have solar, a bio-digester so sewage is converted to cooking oil. Come help!
Who is needed?
~ People with a background in architecture, construction, building trades, masonry, or brick laying
_ People who are willing to help with the hard work of pressing the bricks
~ Most needed: people who can help get word out to poor & slum communities about this option
~ So people with backgrounds in marketing, advertising, social media, radio & knocking on doors
+ event planners; people willing to make flyers & brochures or speak at churches
~ Chemical engineers or environmental majors to explain bio-digesters to new home owners
~ Accounting & finance majors to teach financial literacy to those who have left the slums behind
Volunteer Abroad in Photography, Cinematography & Film-making
Film & video are powerful ways to tell a story. Come help so Africans can tell their own story.
Some youth have gotten jobs at TV stations after learning how to shoot.
Who is needed?
~ Photographers, cinematographers & film-makers that are willing to teach youth
~ Film editors…. and any others with creative & technical knowledge
~ Grant writers & organizational development to help “grow” this innovative organization
Volunteer Abroad with Women
Working with women is”cross-cutting”: it cuts across the sections above.
~ With women who were told they couldn’t go to school: come teach them to read & write
~ With women who are considered property of their husbands: come teach them their rights
~ With women who have had 7 to 10 kids and want no more: come teach them family planning
~ With women that are tired of being poor: come teach them entrepreneurship
~ With women who toil in the fields but are often hungry: teach farming or nutrition
For people who will Volunteer Abroad in sub-Sahara Africa with NGOabroad, a 2 hour Travel Consult about health & safety is required.
2 hours @ $50/hr. Several former Peace Corps workers have said, I learned more in this 2 hour NGOabroad Travel Consult than I learned in a 2 month orientation and in 2 years in the Peace Corps.” Our aim is to keep you healthy & safe!
If you want to apply to Volunteer Abroad, please email BRIEFLY answered Questionnaire & resume to:
Please read Volunteer Abroad & Application Process before you answer Questionnaire:
Please read Application Process & Volunteer Abroad before you answer Questionnaire:
Once you & Ann have determined which Volunteer Abroad Program (or Career Services to Work Abroad) fits best for you,
you pay here:
Thank you to the following for permission to use their photos: IRIN, David Zimmerly, Maridee Bonadea & Brian Luzader.