Volunteer in The Philippines

 

 

 

Volunteer in an Orphanage

Activities: General caring of children. Cleaning, changing and caring for nursery children. Arranging playtime and educational activities for older children. Assisting house parents with daily duties.

We place volunteers in a number of orphanages around the city and surrounding towns. Each orphanage houses between 45 to 100+ abandoned and unwanted children. All these children have come from poor families and many have suffered from malnutrition or neglect. The children thrive on the attention and love our volunteers can share with them.

Living with just the basic necessities, and few toys, these children also only have a limited staff to care for them. The caregivers at the orphanages are very appreciative of the extra help our volunteers can offer them. Volunteers are free to tutor the children, organize arts and crafts or sports activities, and help out with basic chores such as feeding the kids, and folding laundry. This is a meaningful way to learn first hand the hardship most children in the world face, and give back to the underprivileged children growing up in a Third World country.

Volunteers don't necessarily need care giving experience. All we ask is that you come with energy, enthusiasm, an open mind and an open heart. With little staff to organize recreational activities for the children, we ask the volunteers to organize activities such as sports, educational exercises, or arts and crafts. With little resources at the orphanages, it helps if the volunteer can bring educational resources, art supplies, or tapes with children's songs. This program is open as short as two weeks to six months.

Volunteer with the Community Building Project

Placement Availability: March - September
Activities: Build, renovate and/or repair homes, schools and community centres for impoverished communities throughout Tacloban and neighbouring communities.

Leaking roofs, crumbling walls and dirt floors are too common a sight at the houses of many impoverished families here in the Philippines. As a result our partner have created their own Community Build Project where they seek out the needs of local communities and help build and renovate different structures. The projects include, but are not limited to houses, schools and community centres.

Volunteers will work worth with trained carpenters and local helpers, be provided with onsite safety orientations and instruction and begin either building from scratch or providing much needed repairs to heavily dammaged buildings.

Volunteer at the Community Centre

Activities: Multi-faceted volunteer experience, assist playtime session, work with youth groups and mothers groups, assist with office admin, help support child sponsorship program by teaching after school tutorials, assist with community centre projects and outreach projects such as dumpsite feedings.

The community centre handles dozens of community based programs such as morning playtime sessions with daycare children, to daily feedings and after school tutorials of the many children on our international child sponsorship program. Volunteers may also get involved with our mothers club, not to mention our junior boys and girls clubs.

This placement additionally facilitates the opportunity for volunteers to get directly involved in our out-reach programs, including our dumpsite project and minor renovations and repairs to our local community.

No formal training or qualification is required for this program, however volunteers must be able to provide energy, work without supervision, be highly motivated, show initiative and be able to work closely with people who's culture is not of their own.

Volunteer to Teach English

Placement Availability: During Term Time (Summer Holidays = End of March to End of May, Christmas Holidays = 2 weeks before Xmas to first week in new year - Enquire for specific dates)

Activities: Teach and socialize with children in your class, act as a teaching assistant to assist current teachers with the large numbers of children in each class.

The children in the Philippines begin learning English in grade one, so it's not a surprise that most of the population can speak and understand English. The benefits of learning English from a native speaker are inspiring for the young children.

We place volunteers in rural elementary schools between twenty and forty minutes outside of Tacloban City to assist the local teachers with their English classes and other subjects. These volunteers are able to experience living in rural villages and will observe the true meaning of "community."

Teaching English experience or TEFL Certification is preferred but not mandatory. Volunteers must bring energy, enthusiasm and motivation to succeed in this placement. In addition to teaching English, volunteers may also be expected to teach basic lessons in other subjects such as Maths and Science.

Volunteer with the City Nutrition Office

Activities: Help assist barangay nutritionists with feeding programs, promote nutritional awareness.

The City Nutrition Office faces the everyday problems relative to basic human needs while integrating the communities to help diminish the number of malnourished children. This government department oversees the food intake of the families in 138 local barangays and monitors the malnourished children throughout Tacloban City.

Volunteers can work with the Barangay Nutrition Committee directly and organize nutrition education classes for parents, implement community and school vegetable gardens, as well as conduct weight surveys of the children in the different areas. Knowledge of nutrition is preferred for this placement.

Volunteer with a Womens Empowerment Centre

Activities: Help create and assist livelihood projects, teach informal education, organize team building activities, offer emotional support, assist social workers with pending cases, raise awareness of domestic abuse

This project helps empower women who are the victims of domestic abuse. It is a residential centre with all of the women living onsite for their own protection and monitoring.

Volunteers can be used to organize and run livelihood programs for the women, offer informal education, teach new skills, offer emotional support and run recreational activities.

Volunteers will form close bonds with the women and can work side by side with existing house parents and social workers on their cases. Individuals with experience in psychology and counselling are highly advantageous to this project given some of the traumatic experience women have experienced.

No formal qualifications or training is required however volunteers must be compassionate, caring, energetic and highly motivated.

Volunteer with the Street Children

Activities: Perform bonds with street children, help with informal education and organize recreational activities, attempt to improve attitudes of street children.

It is too much of a common sight to see children roaming the streets in search of money or food here in the Philippines. Most children who have settled on the streets have families of their own but turn to the streets in search of food. Glue sniffing, known as "rugby" in Tacloban, is a common addiction amongst the street children who turn to this drug to suppress their hunger pains. Volunteers can assist the Social Welfare Office in helping to give the simple things these children lack in life, such as compassion, trust, love, and food.

No formal training or qualifications are required for this program, however due to a matter of commitment, the project request that volunteers wishing to work on this project must have a minimum age of 20 years old and a minimum stay of 1 month on 2 months on the Tacloban Project.

 

Volunteer in a Community Health Clinic

Activities:(Dependent on experience and confidence) Shadow doctors, nurses and/or midwifes, record patient medical history, take vitals, assist in barangay health visits, assist minor surgeries, help perform diagnostics.

For this program volunteers are placed in community medical facilities in rural communities outside the city of Tacloban. These volunteers can shadow and observe the medical practices in the Philippines. Premed students, doctors, nurses, or volunteers with experience working in the health industry, are all needed to assist with the daily activities in Rural Health Units (RHU).

The only free facility for the indigent people in these rural communities has just one doctor to serve the entire community from the multiple barangays so the assistance of medical volunteers is greatly needed. Volunteers will assist the doctor and get hands-on practice working and interacting with the patients. In addition, they will learn about the health care conditions here in the Philippines. Some days will be spent in the health center and other days the volunteer will treat patients in the surrounding barangays. Volunteers must currently be studying or have finished studying in the health industry.

 

Volunteer to help Teach Children With Physical, Mental and Developmental Disabilities

Placement Availability: During Term Time (Summer Holidays = end of March to end of May, Christmas Holidays = 2 weeks before Christmas till 1 week after new year, enquire for more details)
Activities: Help mentor and assist teachers to teach students with varying degrees of physical, mental and developmental disabilities.

Students with physical, mental or developmental disabilities can often find it frustrating when trying to learn inside a standard educational environment, as a result, special opportunities for such individuals have been created in the Tacloban City area.

The role of the volunteer is to help mentor the children and assist teachers in conducting their classes. Volunteers with experience in sign language are highly sort for since they can help teachers translate lessons into sign language for deaf or mute students. Volunteers may also act as mentors for students, helping them to come terms with their disabilities and explaining to them that there disabilities do not limit them to what they can achieve.

 

 

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