Child Care and Community Development
Working with a local pre-primary school, the Child Care programs offer volunteers the opportunity to work with children supporting their physical and cognitive development in a day-care style environment. Run by a qualified educator, the daycare you will be working at was established to support low-income families, offering quality, inquiry/play-based education to children in the local area.
First is all about making sustainable solutions and making a beneficial impact on the local community, which is why we require our volunteers to be at the placement for at least 4 weeks. The reason for this is, that we wish to create as much consistency for the children in the daycare as possible. Volunteers are more than welcome to work on the Child Care program even longer, as there is no maximum limit to this placement. Laughter is what we wish our volunteers to be spreading through the work with the permanent teachers and the love and energy, the volunteers will bring.
Anyone who has a heart, that cares for children can volunteer in this placement. As the daycare is run by 3 educated teachers, we don’t require the volunteers to have a certain degree of education to volunteer at this placement. You must however be a minimum of 18 years and provide a clean criminal record when applying for volunteering with us. If you do however have previous experience of working with children, this will only be an advantage.
A typical day
After having breakfast at your accommodation, you will head to your childcare placement, which is close by and located in the same area.
Depending on where you are during your stay will determine what your day-to-day might look like. Typically, volunteers will spend the first part of their stay focusing on developing an understanding of the key challenges and ways in which the school operates, to contribute sustainably. This could mean in the beginning, you work more alongside the teacher, observing and enjoying playtime with the children. As your time goes on, you will be able to become more heavily involved, perhaps helping run activities, lessons, units, and more.
The children attend school up until noon. Therefore, also being an Inquiry school, the day is generally broken into 5 main blocks:
- Start the day with a fun exploration-based activity to promote wonder and questions in children.
- Following this, the children will move into Literacy, where they will focus the learning activities around exploration or play-based activities.
- The children then break for porridge.
- After porridge, the play-based learning continues, however focusing on developing their early childhood math.
- Finally, the day is wrapped up with games, play, songs, or any other fun winding-down activities before the children head home!
After 12, you will head back to the accommodation, where you can spend your free time with other travellers, exploring the city, relaxing, and many continue working on developing ideas, resources, and activities for your school in the afternoons also.
At the accommodation, there are several weekend tours, safaris, daily activities, and events which you can also join to make the most of your time here in Tanzania.
Key Program Focuses and outcomes
- To understand and assess the challenges facing quality education and access to education in Tanzania.
- To develop an understanding of the Tanzanian Pre-Primary Curriculum and assist in delivering it in schools.
- To identify key learning areas which are lacking and focus on strengthening these learning areas through developing activities, lessons, units, and resources, which can also be followed by other volunteers continually.
- To help identify students who may be struggling in their learning and focus on developing their core skills through one on one.
- To assist in conducting activities with the children.
Statement on Ethical Volunteering
Fursa projects have a primary focus on having a sustainable and ethical impact on the community and placements we work with. As such, your program does have set guidelines and key focuses that ensure the people you work with are protected, their needs are put first, the community remains at the forefront of development and to ensure a that volunteers continually contribute to long-term, overarching goals. Unlike most other programs, Fursa Projects operates as any NGO project would, where we build our programs based on in-depth needs assessment with the local community, structures to measure our program’s success, and guidelines that govern the work of volunteers.
As a volunteer with Fursa Projects, you will also receive unique training and introductions to ensure your time abroad is both enjoyable, safe, and has a genuine impact.
Sustainable Development Goals
