Volunteer Work

Our goals for volunteering only became clear to us after the fact. We knew we wanted to help people and experience the culture in an authentic way, but we didn’t really understand what the meant because we didn’t know the people. Marnie and Jeremy at Voluntours (www.voluntours.co.za) developed several ideas for us and gave us tons of recycled materials with which to work. We had food boxes, newspapers, travel magazines, and the staples – tape, glue, markers, paper, crayons and glitter. For the smaller ones we focused on math, spelling and arts and crafts. For the older ones, we focused on sustainable projects that could generate income or improve quality of life. The world cup is coming in 2010 and the tourists will be ready to buy souvenirs, so we tried to give some ideas.

We used paper mache to create bowls, beads for jewelry, cover bottles for vase or candles and painted the objects in the traditional Ndebele style. The kids loved the hands on creation technique and loved painting even more. A couple of the bowls and bottles were painted beautifully and with practice could be sold to tourists.

Paper Mache

Mmakgashi, T, Kagiso

The boys enjoyed creating Tippy Taps, which are milk jugs converted into water taps that conserve water. This was very relevant because there was no running water in the village and washing hands sometimes falls in priority to drinking water and can increase illness. And the kids’ hands were constantly dirty from playing baseball and arts and crafts. We hung two tippy taps on the front gate and the kids could rinse off their hands after the potty, a messy play session or before lunch.


The gogos make beautiful beadwork and we tried to think of ways that they could capitalize on this skill. They make cute little bead dolls that we taught the kids to sew onto regular clothes pins, which are readily available. They could be used to hold down a table cloth, for chips or anything else you want to clip. We also told gogo Sulume out wine glass charms as another income opportunity. I think the tourists would snap these up and they could even end up on the shelves of Pier One or World Market with the right connections.


The girls and a few boys constantly asked to learn math and English. We practiced spelling, writing, phonics, shapes, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I tried to teach them to read a clock, but the concept of time is very different in the village and the language barrier was too high. My favorite activity was when the children wrote the story of what they want to be when they grow up and how they would achieve that. Neo wants to be a teacher. Thaimo wants to be a police officer. Kagiso wants to be a journalist to tell the story of the village people and to help them.

Kagiso & Neo

 Kagiso and Mmakgashi Practicing Shapes

At the end of the day we would have clean up time. The kids would race to grab the broom to sweep and rags to scrub the glitter and paint off the primary colored kiddie tables and chairs. They would take the rag from my hand and carry out my task. When we said “thank you,” they would reply “pleasure” (pronounced /ple-sha/) with a huge smile and I think they truly meant it. What kid ever enjoyed clean up? These kids are good, good through and through.