On arrival, all volunteers will attend an orientation session, which will last for 1 or 2 days depending on the length of their project. The aim of this session is to help volunteers to team-build and share practical information about the country, the host community and their volunteer project.
Halfway through the volunteer team will hold an evaluation to reflect on their learning and experiences, so that they are better prepared for the second half of the project. This allows host families and work placements to have time to evaluate their experience and prepare for the second half.
Volunteers will also participate in a one-day evaluation session to sum up the project. The evaluation will be facilitated by the volunteers and project leaders, and sometimes also by external facilitators. One of the aims of this session is to discuss the results achieved during the project and confront them to the initial objectives, to see whether these have been fulfilled or not and why/why not.
Since volunteers come from a variety of countries, with living conditions that are probably different from the ones in Tanzania, living with a local family may constitute a new and enriching experience for them. On the other hand, the host family should ideally be willing to involve volunteers in all aspects of family-life and work. For these reasons, host families are chosen according to their interest in learning about different cultures and in sharing their lifestyle with our volunteers.
The volunteers' time is divided between their work placements, educational activities, activities within the host family and free time. Volunteers are encouraged to contribute wherever possible to the life of their host community and to learn as much as possible from their environment.
Volunteer placement
UVIKIUTA regard their program as a non-formal educational one for the volunteers. The family and the community constitute the classrooms. The interaction with the local people and all the experiences the volunteer lives within the community, provide chances for a tremendous amount of learning.
Work placements provide both an overall focus for the project and a major foundation upon which the total experience is built. The aim of the work projects is not to enable volunteers to acquire specific skills, but rather to expose them to situations and environments of general interest and utility. Nevertheless, if you get some skills by working in the project that will indeed only help you in the future!
Past experience has shown that the greater the responsibility and challenge, the greater the potential for learning. All volunteers are expected to display flexibility, commitment and initiative. Most projects imply some simple work to be done, and the volunteers will work for a number of hours appropriate for their workplace. In cases where the project involves less than a full working day, volunteers are expected (with the help of their project leaders) to look for additional activities in order to increase their involvement and hence their understanding of the host community. To try to avoid any misunderstanding about what the volunteers will be doing, a plan indicating the goals of the project and how they are to be realized has been designed ahead of time. Volunteers are advised to sit with their project leaders to understand their positions and what is expected from them before starting the work.
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