Sustainable community volunteerism

• Email
• Tweet
• Print

Solar cooker volunteer project

© Voluntours

One of the most rewarding things you can do as a responsible tourism volunteer is to seek out sustainable community projects in South Africa.

Participate in a sustainable community volunteerism initiative at Mapoch Ndebele Cultural Village to teach families in Klipgat in the North West province, about the benefits of affordable, clean, renewable solar energy. Using everyday materials like cardboard and tin foil, you’ll learn to build a simple, effective, environmentally friendly solar cooker, and share this technology with your host family. By demonstrating to the group how to prepare meals and boil water using the device, committed eco-volunteers help to bring a ray of sunshine into an impoverished urban community.

One of the most rewarding things you could do as a voluntourist in South Africa is to seek out a sustainable community project where you can volunteer your time and skills.

If you’re keen to volunteer with children and have a passion for horses, You2Africa offers a chance to combine both these pastimes and make a difference in the lives of otherly-abled children. While on horseback, children with very limited mobility can experience the freedom of moving their limbs with the assistance of volunteers and trained instructors. Many of the children who come to ride at the stables are from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the time they spend on the horse is a rare moment where they feel they are no different to any other able-bodied person. It’s physically demanding therapy for the volunteer, but the confidence and sense of dignity the children gain is worth every tired muscle.

Help to rehabilitate an eco-system to its former pristine state, and experience Judah Square Rastafarian Community’s unique way of life. You’ll work side by side with members of South Africa’s largest Rastafarian community to remove invasive alien vegetation and replace it with indigenous plant species, thereby ensuring the environment and this eco-loving community survive.

Many South African communities are struggling with the challenges of poverty, malnutrition, and food insecurity. Abalimi Bezekhaya (farmers of home) assists impoverished families from the Cape Flats to generate their own food and income, in a self-sustaining way, through organic vegetable micro-farming. Wholly self-funding agri-volunteers with a genuine desire to contribute to Abalimi’s urban farming work among the poor, can work alongside the micro-farmers in one of the many community-run food gardens and gain real insight into the lives and livelihoods of the community, and the journey of food from seed to table.