Volunteering
I have carried out a range of different volunteering projects in different areas within art workshops, training and volunteering abroad.
Shamwari Art Camp
In 2018, I volunteered at an art camp assisting the teacher in a felt workshop with children aged 5 to 12. Students created felt squares with images on them and practiced drawing techniques with teamwork by creating collaborative mandalas.
First year mentor at National College of Art & Design
In 2020, I volunteered to mentor first year students as they started college. I was a base for mentees to ask questions about college life. I also facilitated welcome workshops online alongside my fellow mentors.
Active Consent workshop
In 2020, I volunteered to facilitate active consent and bystander training workshops with first year students. We explored the meaning of consent, the statistics of sexual assault in college and the role of a bystander in that situation. My training was carried out with Active* Consent at NUI Galway.
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Teaching and Community Support in Zanzibar, Africa
I traveled to Africa for 11 weeks to work as a volunteer in Zanzibar, an island just off the coast of Tanzania. On the island, many local people rely heavily on jobs in the tourism sector; in hotels, lodges, restaurants, and tour companies. Yet, Tanzania’s national level of English proficiency is very low and many adults struggle to access these types of jobs due to their poor literacy rate and inability to interact with tourists.
The volunteer program is run by African Impact, an organisation that has many projects.
I worked in education with children, young adults and women. I taught English while also working on community support projects to empower women in the local community of Jambiani.
The organisation requested my presence as a staff member and extended my trip by 3 weeks as an academy volunteer.
Nursery Schools
Two nursery schools that I worked in were Kikadini and Mwendawima with children aged 3-6/7 years old. We taught the students about oral and hand hygiene, road safety, numeracy, literacy and pollution awareness.
Our aim was to work on important topics with the children and introduce them to a basic level of English before joining primary school where Swahili is not practiced.
We also made a special effort to reward the students for good behavior with positive reinforcement to help the teachers practice this new way of teaching.
Adult Class
African Impact built a community school for adult class. Members of the community would sign up to learn English free of charge and volunteers would follow a set curriculum. Class levels were set to the needs of the students starting with literacy and evolving through beginners and low level. Members of the Maasai Tribe were students here as well.
I brought in the idea to run structured debates weekly. Each student prepared something to say publicly and each week we had a different topic. We covered 'Swahili is better than English', 'Everyone in the house should do chores', 'Tourism does more harm than good' and many many more.
After graduation, students moved up in levels as their English was improving. I took the highest class at the time at medium level. I taught multiple tenses along with fun and interactive layers of learning.
Secondary School
We worked within a local secondary school of the gifted and talented. Students were high achievers and were accepted based on high IQ scores and test results. Subjects taught were highly academic with goals for students to become doctors, scientists, engineers and teachers.
We came in twice a week to teach English to the students and improve their grammar skills. We did this by encouraging inclusive activities, holding debates and structured lessons.
Kenga Ladies
We worked alongside the 'kenga ladies' who are elderly women of the community that work with textiles. They receive commissions to manufacture pillow cases, dress alterations and recently made menstrual underwear for the local school girls. Our volunteers worked with the ladies once a week nd helped them with their orders, mainly sewing doormats with recycled rice bags and discarded scrap materials from dress making. Only women were to work with the ladies and volunteers would sit on the floor while sometimes working to music or sharing tea.
