Area
(iii) social
GOAL(s)
Select most relevant to SDGs, max. 3 goals (erase the not relevant ones)
GOAL 2: Zero Hunger
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality
GOAL 13: Climate Action
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
Summary (description and reason to be)
South Africa Volunteer Work Camp Association is volunteer based, and all our programmes are started and run by volunteers themselves. We encourage them to be innovative and help other young people develop. We do this by also including local, regional and international volunteers to the programmes themselves.
The contributes towards the development of South African communities both urban and rural through local, national, regional and international volunteers to work together towards the cultural, economic, socio-political well-being of young people and marginalised persons or groups through empowerment work camps programs and promotion of sustainable development.
In short workcamps are projects where young people are given an opportunity to travel, we do not promote young people travelling potentially huge distances for just a couple of weeks. We can still maintain our objective to promote a culture of peace through uniting people to live, learn and work together whilst promoting projects that can take place for up to one year.
This opportunity is given to all young people either from Global North or South with conscious view on the material, social and cultural barriers and to provide opportunities for more young people to engage whilst also focusing on improving the quality of these programmes, and in ensuring that everything is done in order to enable travel (visa, equal opportunities rights to travel) and that this is also implemented in the most environmentally sustainable way possible.
Target: Vulnerable Group (VG) and/or type of community
South Africa Volunteer Work Camp Association assists young people from ages of primary school up to secondary school and all those that are unemployed. Our primary focus is to make them be prepared for tomorrow and challenge is that people tend be relaxed to participate in our programmes after they have got work. We strive to see the volunteers give back to the programmes that given them something for their future.
We assist young people who will provide a holistic experience that broaden minds, expand horizons and empower young people and their communities to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.
Application setting: context
In our organisation we have motivated, adaptable and responsible social workers who are able to utilise skills developed through involvement in international development using International voluntary Services as a vehicle for pro poor development. We have self-motivated, organised people who can work under pressure and have a clear, logical minds with a practical approach to problem solving and a drive to see things through to completion. The people enjoy working on my own initiative or in a team. In short, we have reliable, hardworking, and eager to learn personnel and have a genuine interest for social development.
We also have regional trainings where our volunteers and staff benefit from training within the region and the international community at large too invites our participants to be able to benefit on international exchange programmes.
Objectives
- To conduct voluntary based work camps and community driven development programmes in South Africa nationally throughout the year and regional and internationally throughout the world participation.
- To conduct capacity building training and skills development for young people.
- To facilitate youth exchange for volunteers North to South, South to North, and South to South volunteer driven work camps exchanges and developmental programmes.
Requirements
The whole concept is promotion of volunteering, which is a way of finding yourself, connecting to the community, by helping with something small such as your time, and making a real difference and an impact to someone’s life. There are things that one can do not quantify in another person such as volunteering in something you know required all your presence and your time which we require people to least give.
Through voluntary work camps volunteers break down those barriers and perceptions that the world had been perceived to be. Growing up we grew up in communities where a child was brought up with the care of the whole village. You got the feeling of been taken care of shown the cultural, traditional ways passed down generation after generation. This we still instil in our volunteers to learn from each other and pass it on to others and learn to see the difference especially when they return to their normal lives.
Performance procedures
With volunteering especially in work camp setting there are criteria’s where the host organisation for the volunteer expects some results from the onset of the work camps and the period the volunteer completes the project. There are guidelines that as SAVWA we recommend the volunteer to evaluate themselves at each stage they are volunteering with us. We don not measure the performance as such but look at the impact your volunteer time has got especially with the community and yourself personally what changes are you seeing with your presence or changes you will be going through volunteering with us.
This is a nonformal way of education not based on grades or rating but the impact both to you as a volunteer and the community you will be engaging in as such.
Activities
We provide programmes such as After School Programme, Orphan Care Support, Sports Development Programme, Youth Entrepreneurship Programme Home Gardening Programme etc where our volunteers are empowered through various local, regional and international trainings. We invite our volunteers to participate in several international trainings and work camps where we are invited to send our volunteers for international exchanges. These volunteers are given that opportunity to come back and empower local volunteers after their exchange programmes internationally.
These programmes are also open for volunteers from the Global North to participate in our communities as we want the exchanges between our volunteers locally and internationally to have a meaning. We do not live in a vacuum but a global world. There are perceptions that things especially in Africa are lagging behind but there actually is that element of diversity and learning from one another that empowers the volunteers themselves at each programme.
Results
The results that we bare are from the last 11 years our organisation has been in existence. We have reached to many young people and changing their lives in different good ways and intentions. You see the long-term effect as volunteers from the Global North are given an opportunity to discover the Global South and see the real challenges that other youth grow up in. It’s a vice versa issue where young people from the Global South also are given an opportunity to travel to the Global North and experience that life too.
We see our work especially in voluntary development in communities as an essence to community development. We are seeing the kind of development where children are given first hand account from volunteers of opportunities that they can dream of experiencing. When we share knowledge and open up our minds and learn the other side of the person story we really learn and appreciate the part of life we can never be able to have experienced.
Strengths
- Networking
- Marketing
- Social media
- Fundraising
- Communication
- Volunteers
Weaknesses
- Sustainability
- Funds
- Strong management
- Teamwork
Difficulties or constrains for its implementation
None so far.
CRITERIA actors or stakeholder are using to assess it as a “good practice”
We have has several local and international exchanges with partners whom assess our programmes and even come to study how we implement our projects in South Africa. Carrying out these projects we and monitoring and evaluation in every project we conduct and results published and share with partners to the projects.
Year and length (duration)
From 2012.
