Work in Orphanage in Tanznaia

Project At A Glance

Location: Moshi, Arusha, Zanzibar Start point: Arusha/Moshi End Point: Arusha/Moshi Duration: 2-12 weeks Hours: 30-40 hours per week Food: Local food (3 times a day) Room: Host family or hostel Date: First and Third Monday of each month

Project Summary

Tanzania is a country affected by extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS and lack of opportunity. These dire social situations in Tanzania result in an ever-increasing orphan population. Local children need immediate help and support. Tanzania orphanage work is a great project to share your love, passion and help as it goes to people who need it the most. IFRE orphanage projects are located in Moshi and Arusha, two major cities of Tanzania. Volunteer participation in the orphanage project is appreciated by children and orphanage administration alike. A good portion of the volunteer weekly program fee goes directly to the orphanage project to help to fund their disadvantaged programs.

Skill/Qualification 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 children as well as be able to act as a healthy role model for the children.

Volunteers Responsibilities

Volunteers working in Tanzanian orphanages generally teach English 3-4 hours a day at the local school or in the orphanage. Additional support is provided through homework assistance (English and maybe math, science or other subjects) and assisting/educating them in areas of personal hygiene (i.e. brushing, flossing their teeth) and life skills. Afternoons and evenings are fun times. Volunteers organize activities, games, sing-a-longs and dances as well as other creativity-based activities to teach the children. While the children attend a school, possible daytime activities besides teaching English for volunteers include: administrative work and fund raising, proposal writing and possible help with cleaning, cooking and gardening.

Room/Food/Supervision

IFRE manages living accommodations, provides meals and supervision for volunteers for the entirety of their stay in Tanzania . During the volunteer period, most volunteers stay in our safe and secure homebase in Moshi/Arusha. IFRE's home base is located in a beautiful area nearly 30 km from the Kilimanjaro International Airport . 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 Tanzania are located within 1-10 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. Our home base provides a same-gender shared room and shared bathroom with running water and a “western” style toilet.

Occasionally, depending on volunteer traffic, available projects or distance to a volunteer's assigned project, we may also place our volunteers with carefully pre-screened host families. Our host families are socially respected and are experienced with hosting international volunteers. They have strong interest in our volunteers' safety and well being and demonstrate this with caution and care. In most host family situations, volunteers will share a room with another volunteer of the same gender. Another viable option is an at-orphanage stay. Many orphanages in Tanzania have set aside special rooms to house international volunteers.

Throughout the volunteer project, our local staff stays in contact with volunteers with either face-to-face visits or via email/telephone. IFRE's main office is in Moshi and our in-country coordinator serves as a point of contact for local volunteers. With longer placements, we visit our volunteers every 2 weeks (when possible) and volunteers are always welcome at the local office. If project placement is local, we request that volunteers stop by the office once a week to keep us posted on how they are doing with their home stay and project. If project placement is very far from our main office, then our local staff members maintain communication by either email and/or phone and the local project director serves as a volunteer's contact.