Village Sustainable Development Projects Volunteering

Program Description

Beacon of Hope Uganda places volunteers with a number of small community based projects that provide counseling, care, and education for rural people and orphaned and underprivileged children. Each of these placements is located in a village setting within Mukono District and other districts around the country.

Each village placement provides a totally different experience, but main activities involve working with local children, youth, women and elderly. You can decide if you want to teach nursery, primary, secondary, and vocational education or if you want to be involved in a more free form work arrangement placed with an organization that provides community outreach services.

But you should know that you’ll be living at your school or host family. You’ll have the opportunity to really get to know your kids as many of them also live at your school.
As far as community outreach activities are concerned you’ll have to decide just what you’re into. We have projects that provide health care, HIV/AIDS prevention and AIDS care, counseling, youth mentoring, women’s rights education, and small business development. Let us know and we’ll figure out a good placement for your skills and interests.

A village placement is appropriate for you if you have great ideas and a seriously flexible nature. Expect your schedule to change daily with no notice. Expect to have time to relax. Expect to become a part of the village forever.

Highlights

Whether you volunteer in Mukono town or in a village, you’ll likely use Mukono town as your base for services and meeting other volunteers. It’s located on the Kampala-Jinja highway about 20km from Kampala. With a population of about 300,000, Mukono has several internet cafes, WIFI spots, a major university, a bunch of restaurants and drinking spots, supermarkets, several banks, and luxury hotels with a swimming pool and gardens. It’s easily accessible from all village placements by public transport.

By public transport it takes about 60 minutes to get to either Kampala or Jinja, which are good places to get specialized services or have some western fun.

Qualifications

All of our projects need volunteers who can bring new ideas, work with minimal supervision, and have a positive, self-starting attitude. The organization does not need just young volunteers, but older people with business skills and experience. We need those who can sort out bookwork and apply for grants. Just as these projects try to help all members of society, we need all ages of volunteers to help the projects function.

Volunteer Types

What`s Included

Each village based project will house you and feed you. They will fetch your water and wash your clothes. They will love you and take you places. Your village home will be secure enough for your stuff, but won’t have much running water or very much electricity. Your toilet and (bucket) shower will be outside (but fully enclosed). Your food will be local Uganda food, but will be served at weird times. You are welcome to come and stay in the Mukono Travelers’ Home with the other volunteers on the weekends. You will need to defrag with those like you.