Orphanage Volunteer Work

The organization as part of its effort to promote the welfare of vulnerable and needy children, has partnered an orphanage center in a small village in Ghana. Due to severe poverty, neglect and abuse, many children have the only option of abanboning their homes to live on the streets or forced into child labour and trafficking. This issue and others are the most occurences captured in the print media and also reported on other media landcape like radio, television etc. Infact, these children live on the streets and under harsh conditions.

The project aims to provide an opportunity for these needy children to live and learn under one roof until they are adopted or placed with family members who can take better care of them.

In general, most of the orphanages in Ghana are resourced poorly, under staffed, and facing lots of problems. The orphanage we've currently adopted as partner needs extra pairs of hands to help with the day-to-day running of its annual programs. Some of the program highlights at the orphanage includes cleaning, cooking, creating activities for the kids in terms of workshops for cultural exchange, art & handicraft, and serving food to the children. Volunteers are also required to provide some basic English education to the children, and organize sports lessons and assist the staff in counselling the children.

The rewards from this volunteer project are endless. You can spread happiness and also receive it from the laughter of the young people you are helping. You will be required to be creative, independent and not afraid to use your own initiative. You are given a lot of freedom and flexibility to do what you see fit for the benefit of the orphans. A typical schedule for a week in the days of these kids would be to go to school in the day times until about 3PM. Following this is the time when it is most useful to play games, watch movies, cook, clean and review over learned concepts/homework. This is a little insight on what the schedule for weekdays may look like. The most important facet to the program is to interact.

"Giving hope to the hopeless and a sense of care to some of these kids could change their lives forever".

Additional information:

In addition to each program comes an attractive package which includes the following;

• Flexible and a negotiable program fees
• A compact programs and a low program cost
• A program fee of 300 USD for 2 weeks, 400 USD (4 weeks), 750 USD (8 weeks), and lesser as the month progresses etc.

Typical day:

Breakfast is usually ready for volunteers at exactly 7:30am and volunteers will have enough time to start the day's work by 8:00am. There is a pre-school attached to the orphanage where volunteers will have time helping the children to read. Morning sessions also include a variety of tasks such as games, arts and crafts, story-telling, music and drama activities.

You will have an hour from 12 - 1pm to enjoy lunch before starting the afternoon session which could include supervised free play, assistance with homework and interesting activities. Volunteers are usually required to be creative and work without supervision.

Volunteers will have free time from 2pm to engage in any other business such as going out for drink, shopping or internet café etc. Dinner is usually ready at 6pm.

Accommodation:

GCS mostly provide both on-site and host family accommodation for volunteers. Accommodation will sometimes be in shared rooms with typically no more than 4 to a room. Volunteers will have access to electricity, bathroom with shower and flushing toilet. Most projects are walking distance from the accommodation which will help minimize transport cost. Volunteers are placed with screened Host Families; this is to make sure the family is healthy and do not have any communicable kind of disease dangerous to volunteers' health. Placements are very flexible with your individuals/groups preferences and requests.

Know before you go:

Visitors to Ghana are expected to acquire a valid Passport and a Visa. All passports must be valid for at least six months on arrival in Ghana. GCS provide support for volunteer visa applications including references being required by Ghana Embassies abroad. Contacts and addresses of Ghana High Commissions will be provided including a Letter of Support. It is recommended and required of a volunteer to visit a health center in their home country for yellow fever and other health related vaccination, and also request malaria prevention drugs.

GCS Staff will guide you through every process in your preparation for the trip in our pre-departure welcome information pack in newsletter formats. The newsletters are contained in ten (10) different formats with varied information.