Volunteer

All volunteer programs are through Light for Children Ghana, the non profit that I am the Director of External Relations & Media for. If you have any questions or are interested in volunteering in Ghana please email me at kuntzr@gmail.com

Program Fees:
Minimum stay is 2 weeks, no maximum stay.

Program fee includes:

Pre-departure information and support
Airport pick up
One night in Accra at hostel
Transport to Kumasi
Accommodation for the duration of your stay
Food
Support from volunteer coordinator (me) and project coordinator

Length of Stay	Fee
2 weeks	$450USD
3 weeks	$550USD
4 weeks (1 month)	$750USD
5 weeks	$800USD
6 weeks	$900USD
7 weeks	$1,000USD
8 weeks (2 months)	$1,100USD
10 weeks	$1,200USD
12 weeks (3 months)	$1,300USD

Volunteer Programs:
1.Preventive Child Sexual Assault Workshop
2. Orphanage
3. Teaching
4. Medical
5. Internship

1. Preventive Child Sexual Assault Workshop-
Location: Kumasi
Time: June-August (You can come for any length of time during those months)

Child sexual abuse in Ghana is rising at an alarming rate and it is estimated that only 10% of the abuse cases are reported, because threat of social stigma. This offense attracts heavy punishment and often the abusers (perpetrators) offer incentives to the families of the abused children to opt out for out of court settlement. Religious leaders, teachers, fathers and cousins are the main perpetrators of this crime and recently step-fathers have become the main focus in the crimes.

Many of the victims of sexual abuse suffer from guilt, fear, and sexual dysfunction, and withdrawal, performance problem in school and non-participation in social activities. According to the Ghana police service in 2010, 40% of the victims of the sexual abuse cases became pregnant and dropped out of school.

In response to this Light for Children came out with a project in 2010 named “Preventive Child Sexual Assault Workshop” to reduce the incidence of child abuse cases in the country and to mitigate the effect of this heinous crime. As of July 2012 the program has covered fifty-nine (59) basic schools and seventeen thousand and one hundred (17,100) pupils and students within the Kumasi city.

The project seeks to create awareness among school children on sexual assault, educate them on how to prevent themselves from this abuse and eventually to sensitize them on the help lines and support systems that are available for victims who report their ordeals to the appropriate authorities.

Volunteers will-

Be educated on the problem of child sexual assault in Ghana
Be trained on how to conduct the workshop
Present the workshop in school classrooms (You will present with other volunteers and Light for Children staff, not all by yourself)
Answer the students questions after the presentation
Help arrange educational sponsorship for victims that you come across in the course of the workshop and continue to monitor their situation and preform frequent home visits.

Personal Opinion:
On my first trip to Ghana (and Africa) back in June 2011, I worked for 6 weeks on the Child Sexual Assault and loved every minute of it. After being exposed, by Light for Children staff, to the HUGE problem of sexual assault in Ghana through newspaper articles, personal stories, tv interviews, statistics, I was handed the outline for the workshop and knew what they had created was something special. The project is unique because it has the support of the Ghana Police Service who normally provides technical support and the Ghana Education Service which facilitates the timing and the type of the schools that we conduct the workshops in the schools. I found this program very rewarding because every single day you are working directly with the students. You are in the classrooms presenting the workshops, and seeing real results. Students come up to you after the presentation and say they have been sexually assaulted but are scared to tell anyone. Students come up to you and say their friends have been sexually assaulted. And some students come up to you and say thank you for the workshop, because they now know something they didn’t know before and how to keep themselves safe. Read more about the Preventive Child Sexual Assault Workshop Workshop here and a day in the life of a Preventive Child Sexual Assault Workshop Volunteer here.
csa9-1
csa4-1 csa5-1 2. Orphanage
Location: Kumasi or Mampong
Time: All year-round

**These orphanages are not run by Light for Children. Light for Children partnered with these organizations so volunteers could be placed there.**

Mampong Babies Home
The Mampong Babies Home is situated two hours north of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. You will stay in the town of Nsuta, which is just down the road from the Babies Home.

The home can currently currently has around 50 children aged newborn to 8 years old, with most of the children being toddlers and under 4 year olds.

Personal Opinion:
I had the opportunity to volunteer for a week at the Mampong Babies Home, please read about my experience here.

Missionaries of Charity
The Missionaries of Charity is located in Kumasi and looks after disabled babies, toddlers, and teens.

Personal Opinion:
I have never personally been to MC, but have talked to volunteers who have been placed there and they had nothing but incredible stories and experiences to tell me.

Volunteers at both homes will-

Feed the children
Accompany the children to school
Arrange the childrens beds
Organize games and activies
Play and socialize with them

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3. Teaching
Location: Kumasi
Time: All year-round (Light for Children Summer School runs from July to September)

Teaching Placement
If you would like to contribute in our efforts to offer education to disadvantaged, orphaned, and vulnerable children in the area, we would love for you to join us. Teaching experience is not required, just an enthusiasm for communicating and having fun with children.

We can place you in nursery schools, primary schools, and junior high schools teaching math, English, science, social studies, computers, creative arts, home economics, religion, French, or sports.

Light for Children Summer School
Lasting three months, the school offers core subjects to over 150 children who cannot afford the fees of traditional summer education in the region. They have an unending desire and excitement for learning and come to class every morning ready to learn!

Summer School will be open to children aged 8-16, whether or not they currently attend school, in order to encourage those children who cannot afford formal education to attend.

Staffed by international volunteers, the children will be taught English, Math, Science, and Sport to help them study towards their exams, and keep up with their peers. In addition to these subjects if there is another subject such as Art, French, Spanish, Social Studies that you would like to teach, we can easily arrange that as well!

Personal Opinion:
On my first trip to Ghana (and Africa) back in June 2011, I taught Computers and Art at the Light for Children Summer School and it was extremely rewarding. The students in the classes really wanted to be learning and jumped on every project I presented them with. At the beginning, I was really nervous because I had never taught in a structured class before, but Light for Children helped me organize lessons, review the syllabus, and prepared me for what it would be like to teach in a Ghanaian classroom.
312622_10150389021377754_1798851045_n-1 321286_10150389021552754_19531118_n 292039_10150389024307754_1781940871_n 4. Medical
We are looking for nursing students/nurses, Medical students/medical officers/paramedics who want to contribute towards health care and health promotion in the country. The student will shadow a medical officer and occasionally the medical officer will assign a task for the volunteer to perform. For the nursing students, they will be working closely with the matron of the hospital.

We have partnership arrangement with fifteen (15) health facilities both in urban and rural areas. Such facilities range from tertiary hospitals, regional hospitals, district hospitals, polyclinics, clinics and health centres where medical volunteers are placed.

The volunteers will have the opportunity to participate in one or many different medical departments-dentistry, eye care, surgery, pediatrics, physiotherapy, midwifery, emergency service, physiotherapy. The medical volunteers are advised to come with their own laboratory coats since it is expensive here.

We are also looking for groups of students who want to conduct health outreach screenings in surrounding villages. Dental screenings, eye tests, blood pressure testing, diabetes testing, malnutrition screenings, etc.

Personal Opinion:
I have never done a medical internship, but I have accompanied groups to do outreach screenings for HIV and blood pressure. The outreach was one of my favorite days on the trip. I was able to assist the students and interact on the ground with the community, who welcomed us with open arms. They were so thankful to have the medical team there, and the medical team assessed, treated, and helped diagnose everything from scraped knees to life threatening illnesses.
picture-19-1-1 61-1 july1-1-1 5. Internship
The internship programm is a unique learning initiative to enrich students’ education by expanding their horizons and enabling them to integrate classroom learning with practical world. It is specially designed to encourage students to maximize their full potential by going beyond the confines of the campus, their own academic disciplines and geographical boundaries. LIFOC places students in both public and private institutions and leading Non-governmental organizations.