[QUOTE=MotoEdde;143311]CG;
BUT wow Bossies and Erik D...you guys must be experts in alleviating poverty based on your judgements of Peace Corps...could you please please please share with us your solution before you accept the Nobel Prize
QUOTE]

Well if you review what I said you will find it to be true regarding Peace Corps. Check their website.
They only accept you if you volunteer for more than 1 year.
They don't work with other NGO's
They don't readily provide information on potential opportunities
They have a "We will save you from yourself" attitude.
I was surprised how many volunteers are more excited about PC on their CV then the work they are actually going to do.

I am Namibian where PC have a ongoing mission supplying teachers. I worked in the north of Namibia for a number of years building schools and clinics and watched the PC come and go and befriended a number of them and still keep contact with them...

VSO who are also active in Namibia are not too disimilar to PC but they do interact more with local initiatives outside their sphere of influence.

These big charitable NGO's need to start thinking outside the box and develop projects that help locals help themselves. Teach teachers to teach, do not provide teachers for pupils.

__________________
If there's a will there's a way so I will anyway!
http://www.buyaikhaya.blogspot.com

CG - two links I've found that might be interesting for you:
YOU ARE INVITED TO OUR ORPHANAGE CENTER - Thorn Tree Forum - Lonely Planet
Volunteer in Kenya for FREE in August!! - Thorn Tree Forum - Lonely Planet

Kira

cancel your RTW trip and start a profitable business in a poor country. Will do some good,
and you'll learn a hell of a lot more about those fascinating "cultures".


"We do no benevolences whose first benefit is not for ourselves." (Mark Twain)

Hi,


My organization locates grassroots projects and sends volunteers to them. Volunteers will typically live within the orphanage/school/hospital etc or within a walking distance/short bus ride. You will not offend anyone by walking to the project. Many of our volunteers choose to walk distances that even locals would normally take a short bus ride.


Projects that host volunteers are able to have the accommodation fee go to them. The extra is used for airport pickup, communication expenses etc.


Some of the projects we have in Kenya include;


Dream Project Children's Home - African Children & Orphans and
Brightstar Kindergarten - Kenya Slums - African Orphans & at need Children


We are locating others in throughout Africa and uploading on the website soon. Most of the administrators of these projects have no access to the Internet and cannot be able to recruit volunteers. Without our service, they would not be able to get volunteers. They are not known to donors and therefore do not get funding.


We target only projects that are absolutely in need. Some Orphanages attract so much of donor funding and corporate funding – we avoid these; they also tend to get all the International volunteers because they are well known.

See: Volunteer in Kenya | Volunteer Opportunity Abroad | International Volunteer Work

All the best in your tour

Picking up on the link someone put earlier in the thread, about TEFL opportunities...does anyone have experience/opinions on how this is viewed in various parts of Africa? Would the 'well-educated' Africans who have asked for all NGOs and aid workers to bugger off, as stated in a couple of posts, also have a similar view of teaching?

I ask, partly because I am interested in doing this on my trip through Africa (having done a year in China a few yearrs ago) and don't want to stick my oar in where it is not wanted, and partly because it would be interesting to know what sort of 'services' are welcome, and which ones are not.

I can see how young Westerners paying thousands to go and build huts to make themselves feel generous (not that it is bad per se, maybe just misguided) could be damaging. Especially when I have read reports criticising the lack of overall structure/follow-through/continuation in these sorts of projects. Is there still a need, or a demand, for English to be taught? And if so, do they need native speakers of English to help with this or are they quite capable of teaching it themselves?

Apologies if this is a slight de-rail, but I would be interested to know how teaching compares to the big bad NGOs.

You have to look at the bigger picture, in the long run!

As long as Westerners keep hopping in to help out and teach kids, as an example, the authorities will not bother to set up a decent system to teach locals how to teach! Consequently the dilemma of this thread will still be relevant in 30 years!

If you go look for a post where you can teach teachers how to teach or improve their skils, you might break the vicious circle!

So, yes. It's my opinion that even teaching is disturbing the natural processes and devellopment if not considered with great care.

cheers,
Noel
exploreafrica.web-log.nl

I don't even think it's the 'big bad NGO's' it's the new 'gap year' companies that are sprouting up all over .. kids paying a thousand or more to go somewhere, have no help, the money doesn't reach the site (goes into the pockets of those behind desks) and the locals are left with a kid just out of school who's 'meant to know what they're doing' ... even teaching English.

Personally I think they should all be shot (gap year companies that is!) and let the 'decent' NGO's get the 'right' people in to do the job ..

Kira

Cheers Noel, useful to see it from another point of view. Your website link suggests you are Dutch, but your name seem Italian? Either way, I wonder if you have anything similar in your education system to what I experienced at school? Granted, it was studying French and Spanish, but we had a couple of young 'assistants' in the departments. They were used sparingly in the younger classes for the occasional 'flavour' of real culture from their respective countries. In the older (16-18) classes there would be individual oral sessions, mainly designed for familiarisation with colloquial speech and accent work.

We found it very helpful to have someone in the position of a 'semi-teacher', in that they were easy going, friendly, not part of the school hierarchy; in other words, not in the usual authoritarian position of teachers. So when left to speak with them they gave a very good idea of where they came from, their society etc. It provided a stark contrast from the usual, repetitive, phrasebook/category type work, 'The Restaurant', 'Buying Tickets' and so on.

Do you feel this is an appropriate function for native English speakers to provide? Is this sort of work used in Africa yet? Certainly my experience teaching in China was that this is as helpful over there (with caveats) as it was to me. The kids would often come back to my room after classes, chat about where I came from, my family and so on. They'd play games on the PC I had, or show me their favourite films, music, cartoons and so on. They were able to discuss things they normally would not.

Would value your opinion, and/or anyone else's, on that :-)

I know what you mean, though I didn't specifically mean NGOs per se, was just giving a nod to what's already cropped up in the thread ;-)

Sad to say...I was one of those GAP year kiddies, or at least partly. Not the hut building type, but the TEFL type. Neither did we pay more than would cover our teaching program and orientation time in Beijing IMO. As you say, my school didn't help me out at all, so was a bit in the dark. Being honest, I would say that my time there was useful to half the kids (the brighter ones) but not the others. With the lower sets, their discipline problems (try controlling seventy 13 year olds when you can't speak Chinese and the school don't assist you in any way!) and lack of any basic English hampered what they might be able to get from me being there. With the brighter kids I would say they did find a good deal of use, particularly as a contrast to the methods usually used to teach them (not that one way is better than another necessarily). And when I had a few chances to teach the older (16-18) year olds, they were able to use me for things they wouldn't normally learn in a class IMO.

It's a knotty issue, this altruism lark! Liked the quote from Twain though.

Assuming that Noel and Bossies' views, that teaching the teachers is a more beneficial use of time (and I can see why, good point), what can be done for work in Africa then? Be that 'charitable' in any way or not, do you see any volunteer schemes currently available that are worthwhile/that aren't destructive? Just to throw that into the mix ;-)

People are often horrified to discover charity workers are concerned with their own careers and wage packets... it's a spiralling process of disappointment that starts (and should end) with the tooth fairy.

Aid-dependency is unhealthy, but the fact is NGO's, large and tiny, have an important role in all societies, even the wealthiest. You can't rely on governments and market forces to solve all problems.

__________________
Pictures, Mauritania 2011