Work in an Orphanage

Project At A Glance

Location: Kasoa, Accra, Kumasi, Hohoe Start point: Accra End Point: Accra Duration: 2-12 weeks Hours: 30-40 hours per week Food: Local food (3 times a day) Room: Host family or home base Date: First and Third Monday of each month

Project Summary

Extreme poverty, the growing challenges of HIV/AIDS and other different social problems leave many orphans in Ghana. These lovely children are in urgent need of adult help and support. In Ghana, IFRE partners launched an orphanage and street children program to shelter these orphans. The project offers room/food, education, encouragement and support. Unfortunately, many Ghana orphanage projects are without strong financial support, under staffed and face additional hurdles with trying to effectively run their programs. Help is needed with every task: cooking and serving food to the children, assisting with their basic education and physical fitness (sports) and there is an immense need for English lessons, but the most important thing you offer these poor children is love and attention that they so desperately crave. Resources for orphans are spread thin. Orphanage workers in Ghana do their best, but manpower is low and it is the face to face contact that this children desperately need. Love and support that comes from volunteers working with orphans in Ghana are priceless! Many volunteers joining orphanage Ghana program as life changing and rewarding. This is the perfect project if you want to serve humanity or share your love, passion and time with children deprived of their parents love and care.

Skills/Qualifications Needed

There is no specific qualification needed to join the orphanage volunteer project. However, volunteers must be flexible and patient. You should have passion and love for orphaned children.

Volunteer Responsibilities

Volunteers working in Ghanaian orphanages generally show support by teaching English to children either in the orphanage or possibly in a local school. Volunteers are also welcome to teach other subjects like math, science etc. The orphanage requires extra pairs of hands to help with the day-to-day running of the project, so you will be expected to assist with cleaning, cooking and serving food to the children. You also help with organizing Physical Education/Sports lessons. You may also be required to assist the staff with counseling the children. The job responsibilities of orphanage volunteers in Ghana depend on the need of the orphanage as well as the skills and interests of the volunteers.

In the orphanages where the children attend a school, daytime activities for volunteers may include: administrative work and helping with cleaning, cooking, gardening and physical maintenance. Evenings are fun times as you organize games, art activities, singing, dancing and other creative education and extra-curricular activities. You will be there to help with homework and encourage their academic progress.

Room/Food/Supervision

IFRE manages living accommodations, provides meals and supervision for volunteers for the entirety of their stay in Ghana. We offer a “home base” in Ghana. Our home base is about an hour drive from Accra. We try to create a “home away from home” for volunteers staying at our home base. It is a perfect situation for volunteers to live safely and comfortably while making many new friends and sharing experience every day. Most of volunteers project in Ghana are located within 1-20 KM of our home base so you may walk or ride a local bus to your project. In the evening when you return to home base, you can relax, eat dinner, explore local areas or simply share experience with volunteer comrades.

Occasionally if a project is located far from the IFRE home base or when our home base is fully occupied with volunteers, we will place volunteers with host families. Our host families are carefully screened, socially respected and experienced with hosting international volunteers. Wherever you stay, your accommodation with IFRE is safe, clean and comfortable. In most cases, you will share a room with volunteers (of same gender). In Ghana, our field staff is an experienced team comprising of country coordinators, assistant coordinators, managers, cooks and field assistants. Our field staff visits volunteers regularly and always happy to help our volunteers in any way needed. We offer 3 meals a day of local cuisine. Typically, volunteers eat breakfast and dinner at the home base (or host family) and have lunch at their project. We offer fresh, nutritious and safe local foods to our volunteers to eat. We also work extremely hard to maintain our facilities in a positive condition.