Volunteer in South Africa - Child Welfare Programs

Includes placement, housing and most meals!

Inadequate childcare is a major issue facing South Africa today. The AIDS crisis has left an estimated 1.2 million children orphaned, and help is needed to assist in the healthy physical and emotional development of these children. Our various social development volunteer projects in and around Johannesburg focus largely, though not exclusively, on the issue of child welfare in South Africa.

South African Volunteer projects include:

• A children's home in Soweto that offers residential care to babies, infants, and children. Many of these children are abused, abandoned, neglected, or orphaned.  Some are HIV-positive and require constant attention
  
• A home for abandoned children, babies in the process of being adopted, and a place of safety for young mothers or pregnant girls whose families have rejected them
  
• A center for orphaned and vulnerable children living in the Kliptown, Slovo park and Eldorado Park areas. The aim of the center is to enable children whose parents have died of AIDS to continue functioning as a family unit in their own environment.  This includes facilitating their return to the educational system and providing them the chance to attend life-skills and development programs.
  
• Helping children with homework
  
• An Mpumalanga-based organization for vulnerable children and their families who are victims of social marginalization
  
• A Foundation that seeks to alleviate the consequences of HIV/AIDS for rural South Africans, particularly children, through home-based care and community outreach, in-house care, and training and poverty alleviation

Volunteer activities generally consist of kitchen (food preparation) and cleaning duties, as well as activities related to the care and social development of children. Other projects may include assisting local women with sewing and beadwork, and construction and maintenance of facilities.

Accommodations:

Housing varies by project, and may include host family home-stays or on-premesis volunteer quarters.

Also Available: Wildlife Conservation Volunteer in South Africa