What I Am Doing For My Internship

As I have mentioned in a previous post I am interning this summer with an organization called All Out Africa this summer in the Kingdom of Swaziland. All Out Africa is a non-government organization that strives to bring a quality preschool education to orphaned and vulnerable children in the Kingdom of Swaziland. (They also work on wildlife conservation at their research centers in Swaziland and Mozambique.) Swaziland has a major HIV/AIDS epidemic which has left many children in vulnerable situations. Less than 30% of the nations children have access to a preschool education due to the high cost. The majority of children who drop out of school in Swaziland do it within the first two years of their primary education.

It is due to these statistics that All Out Africa works to create NCPs, or neighborhood care points, in multiple communities across Swaziland. NCPs are preschools which have been created by All Out Africa in areas with large numbers of orphaned or vulnerable children as a space where they can gain a preschool education thanks to the local, qualified preschool teachers who work in the current 6 NCPs. The NCPs also provide the children with a nutritious meal which is cooked by local volunteers. The NCPs have a curriculum which teaches the children the skills they need to start primary school and be successful. The children who attend the NCPs (currently over 300 children are enrolled at our NCPs!) and their families also receive additional support such as health checks, nutritious meals, access to clean water, and learning basic life skills.

So where I come into this equation is I am doing a graphic design and photography internship within the marketing sector of All Out Africa as well as the All Out Africa Foundation. All Out Africa has many volunteer projects set up in Swaziland such as assisting in the NCPs as an aid to the teachers, sports development, wildlife conservation and building projects (assisting licensed builders in projects such as building structures, playgrounds, gardens, and water systems). The volunteers come to work for All Out Africa to volunteer their time and skills for free and are essential to the organization to be able to run all of its current projects. The organization also relies heavily on donations to be able continue to support the existing NCPs, and hopefully add more in the future. As a graphic design intern I have been helping create a fundraising kit so that the volunteers of All Out Africa can take home the kit and set up successful fundraisers for the projects they are passionate about while working in Swaziland. As a photography intern I have the amazing opportunity to get to tag along on many projects to photograph the volunteers and the children so we have more material to use in our marketing to hopefully get more people interested in coming to volunteer with All Out Africa.

Some of my favorite activities I have gotten to tag along on so far are the homework clubs and sports development projects. Homework clubs are clubs which met once a week per NCP after school where the children who graduated from those NCPs can come and get one on one attention and help with their homework. Some of the children at homework club are only in 1st grade and are newly graduated from our NCPs and some children are as old as 6th grade! The volunteers (and myself) are paired up with one or two children (in the same grade if possible when one gets multiple children) and you continue to work with those same children every week on everything from math problems to reading. Sports development goes to a different NCP every day and does PE with the children. It is mainly songs with dances, and relay style games because the children are between 2-5. After the organized games the children get to play freely with the balls, hola-hoops and other games we bring along with us.

I plan to write more about the work I am doing here as my weeks here go on so stay tuned for more updates!

Kelly

(also if you are interested in getting involved check out my fundraiser on my home page or go to alloutafrica.com)

#Travel #Internship #Swaziland