Volunteers/group will be placed in one of RHD’s partner children’s homes caring for children aged between one and eighteen years. Some of your duties will likely reflect those of teaching volunteer, helping with classes at the children’s home. In addition, you will be expected to engage in a wide range of other activities, depending on the specific needs of your placement.

This will include plenty of practical work helping with the everyday running of the orphanage, such as cleaning, laundry, cooking and dishwashing; as well as helping with the development of the orphanage’s facilities (i.e. painting rooms, gardening).

Some of the most valuable work you will do is like spending time with the orphans: playing with them, helping with homework, and getting to know them. As a volunteer, you can help to provide more individual care and attention for each child. As well as spending time with the children on an informal basis, we encourage the team/group to organize games and evening activities.

Forming friendships and helping to foster a sense of family and community is hugely important – some of the children will have lacked these all their lives. However, this can be difficult if you are volunteering for weeks rather than months. Remember that you will be passing through these children’s lives and ensure you work with placement staff to be a positive presence. Look to longer-term volunteers for guidance.

If you have childcare experience or training, please share your experience with other volunteers and guide them in their work. Share your knowledge with placement staff as well – that way, your impact can live on even after you return home.

Orphanage placements are hard work, helping with chores and entertaining and caring for large groups of children – so plenty of enthusiasm and a lot of energy are a must!

Top tips;

Consider planning a project for your kids to do. For example, a previous volunteer group brought disposable cameras for all of the children and used their time in Kenya to help them create a photo collage of their lives. Think about the skills and experience you have to offer, and brainstorm about the kind of projects you could organize. You can always ask your trip adviser/RHD for help and advice.

Remember to make sure your project is feasible within the timescale of your program, and that you bring any special equipment or materials you will need.

Please note that teaching placements will not be available during school holidays in April, August and December.  As you can  take  some time  to settle in,  take on  board  the cultural differences and learn about teaching styles and the structure of classes, we recommend teaching placements of at least 4 weeks long for teaching groups. Shorter placements are possible but 4 weeks is the minimum to really start fulfilling your role as a teaching volunteer.

Teaching  volunteers/group  will  most  likely  be  placed  in  a  Kenyan  Primary  School  and Secondary School. Pupils/ students will normally be between the ages of six and fourteen in Primary school, and fourteen and nineteen, and the content of the syllabus will reflect this. RHD is also constructing a child friendly care/ school that will soon start welcoming volunteers.

Volunteer teachers can teach English, mathematics, science, geography, social sciences, history, physical education, art and music. Please note that Kenyan school holidays are in April, August and end of November – Dec. No school teaching will be available during this period. During this period volunteers will be placed in orphanage and youth programs.

After being introduced to your placement school and the staff, we recommend you spend the first few days observing in your class. This will allow you to gain a better understanding of the current class structure and teaching style. It will also give you a chance to get to know your pupils/students, helping you to identify those who might need more assistance or who are more advanced. You  will  then  have  opportunity to  work  with  the  teacher  on  planning age  and curriculum appropriate lesson plans that you can teach together.

You can make the most prominent and sustainable impact in the classroom by working alongside the teacher to create lessons which are engaging, interesting and fun. It will be up to you and them to decide how you will approach your classes. Expect a lack of structure and a very repetitive teaching style – come along with games, ideas and plans to teach the teacher, so that learning can be fun.

While there are major advantages to working alongside a local teacher, you may be called upon to take classes on your own or with other volunteers, so please be prepared to be flexible.

Activities will involve the following:

• Teach community members   especially   youth   and   women   about   specific development skills.
• Work with locals to preserve and document their traditions (Intercultural Exchange).
• Help in renovating or constructing a new school, health or other building projects belonging to the community.
• Support women groups.
• Assist in educating community members to cultivate organic gardens and farms (Agri-business).
• Help the local youth and women in soft skill trainings (business, micro-finance, and Agriculture).
• Join local teams in providing public education about sustainable farming and environmental protection.
• Strength local marketing strategies.
• Assist with community clean-ups and advocacy program.
• Environmental health and safety trainings.
• Environmental policy advocacy and campaigns.
• Invasive plant removal (water Hyacinth)
• Plant trees, create nature trails among others

This program gives you the opportunity to use your vocational skills to change the lives of rural communities who otherwise don’t have access to sufficient healthcare services. There are medical placements for individual volunteers or groups available at local hospitals and community clinics and underserved rural and urban slums where RHD operates.The assigned duties vary according to the education, experience skills and qualifications of each volunteer. The volunteer will be free to help in the following areas;

• Help in health camps/ outreach programs
• Provide counseling to patients
• Participate in public awareness campaigns
• Assist healthcare workers in providing services in maternity care (that include weighing babies!), opportunistic infection (HIV and TB) management, immunization of children, measure blood pressure, temperature, height and weight, outpatient consultations and pharmacy tasks in local clinics.
• Help local staff with non-medical tasks, such as archiving, filing, maintenance and welcoming patients.
• Join healthcare workers on home visits, where you’ll get to learn more about the local community’s way of life.
• Participate in  education  drives  on  a  range  of  subjects,  from  nutrition  to immunization.
• Learn about healthcare services in Kenya.
• Involve a   search/rescue   or   reassuring   those   who   have   undergone   a stressful/traumatic experience.

We encourage volunteer mission/ Team/group of between 10-15 or 15-30 or less than 10 but more than 5. In this way, we as a team can conduct a Community Healthcare Outreach activity for treating patients with wounds, jiggers (parasitic fleas that embed into the feet), and other non-communicable diseases, and awareness campaign offering help and advice on everything from family planning to nutrition.

Program Objectives

• To improve healthcare services to the rural communities.
• To offer health care education to the underprivileged communities.
• To offer support to the understaffed rural healthcare centers.
• To improve the health delivery services of the community healthcare providers
• To offer volunteers an opportunity to discover practical and innovative healthcare practice and first aid application with little or no resources at the health care centers.
• To create a link between the volunteer and the local rural communities for future health assistance
• To promote cross cultural understanding

Who can be included in medical outreach volunteer mission- Kenya Trip?

The team should be composed of medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical and science students, pre-med students and other non-medical professionals.

Members of the medical teams and support staff are expected to provide modern treatment to thousands of needy children and adults on missions. Each volunteer is responsible to work as a team, in gathering all the equipment, machines, supplies, and medications necessary to make their mission a success.

How Medical Outreach Volunteers Mission trip can support the Program:

• Donation of medicines and medical supplies
• Provide high quality, compassionate medical care services to the poor by conducting a Medical Outreach camp
• Help in construction of health related facilities
• Assist/help improve health care services through technical capacity
• Fund mobilization for health related projects in rural Kenya in collaboration with Resource Hub for Development (RHD)

We also encourage other non-medical volunteer mission trips to volunteer and support in school construction, orphanage trip, environmental activity, program advocacy, sports event.