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Volunteer Health-Care Assistant Program
(includes Guinea-Worm Eradication Project)
- The program
- The accommodations
- The feeding
- Entertainment and sight-seeing
- Minimum qualification required of volunteers for the program
- Rough estimate of total cost involved
- Apply for this program
- Next steps — after you have been accepted and given your placement information
- Other relevant facts on the program
- Sign up for our Newsletter
- Submit a question
The program
There are two under our Volunteer Health-Care Assistant Program. You may choose to volunteer in either one or both of them. The two departments are:
Out-Patients Department
Guinea Worm Eradication Project (This program is currently on hold)
OUT-PATIENTS DEPARTMENT VOLUNTEER
As a volunteer assistant in the Out-Patients Department (OPD) of the hospital, you would assist in the following areas:
- Checking and recording patients vital signs
- Physician's consulting room
- Treating uncomplicated diseases
- Treating minor cuts and wounds
- Pharmacy department
- Physiotherapy department
- Maternal and child care services
- Outreach programs by midwives
- Drafting programs to educate the public on health issues
- Any other duties your supervisors may want you to assist with
Program location: Northern Region and Volta Region (East)
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GUINEA WORM ERADICATION PROJECT VOLUNTEER (This program is currently on hold)
As a volunteer or intern in this project, you would:
- Be trained to extract the guinea worm live from the infected patient
- Accompany surveillance teams to the field to educate communities to adopt practices that would reduces their chances of getting infected
- Help in the distribution of free water filters to communities
Program location: Northern Region
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The accommodations
You will be staying with host-families. All host families live within 30 minutes of the hospital. There are always other people in the house as well; and they would be willing to provide you some assistance. You would be placed in the same location with another volunteer - except you specifically state that you prefer to be placed alone. Volunteers coming as a pair or couple will not be placed with other volunteers in the same bedroom. The volunteer(s) have their separate room - with a lock and key. There are two beds in the volunteers' room; each with a mattress and in most cases a table and chair. It is advisable to bring along a mosquito net and a spare bed sheet. Many homes have a shower and flush toilet. In others you would have to manage with a bucket of water and a pit toilet - more likely in smaller towns and villages. Laundry is usually done with a couple of buckets.
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View more VIGS-GHANA volunteers' accommodations
The feeding
You will be served three meals daily. Breakfast is usually tea/ coffee/ oats or corn porridge and bread with jam/ butter/ egg omelet. Lunch could be plantain or rice or yam with vegetable stew or similar. Dinner could be rice, yam, pasta or plantain with vegetable sauce or stew or soup. For dessert you'd be served an orange or pineapple.
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Entertainment and sight-seeing
Weekends are free days. You may choose to travel out of town to see the many interesting sights and sounds in other parts of Ghana or hang out with your fellow volunteer(s) and/or locals in the neighbourhood. VIGS-GHANA frequently puts together sight-seeing trips: as a volunteer on one of our programs, you'll first be given the option to sign-on to our tours. The remaining slots will be offered to the general public
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Minimum qualification required of volunteers for the program
Applicants for this program must have at least completed high school.
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Rough estimate of total cost involved
- Flight to and from Ghana: US$800-1250 (Round-trip)
- Ghana visa: US$50-150
- Vaccinations: US$100-250
- Miscellaneous personal items: US$300-900
- Personal Spending money whilst in Ghana: US$200 upwards
- VIGS-GHANA Program fee: starts from US$420
So, a rough estimate of the total cost for a two-week program duration (the minimum duration) would be about US$2,000 - 3,300. Check the equivalent in your currency.
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Next steps — after you have been accepted and given your Placement information
After you have been admitted to participate in the program, you would now have to execute the following:
- Book a flight. See our Ghana flight information page. The earlier you book and confirm your flight, the better.
- Go through the suggested checklist of items to do and bring and start getting (or packing) them
- Send us your flight itinerary
- 60-30 days before your departure date, you must start processing for your Ghanaian visa. VIGS-GHANA will provide you with the needed references in Ghana — which are needed to obtain a Ghanaian visa
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Other relevant facts on the program
- We will send you a document on how to fund-raise for your trip
- We will meet and greet you at the Airport in Accra (ACC) on your arrival day
- We can loan you a local mobile phone with IDD on your arrival into Ghana
- The average work day is 3-8 hours for this program
- Saturdays and Sundays are leisure days
- We will give you a Certificate of Participation on successful completion of your volunteer work
- You can contact VIGS-GHANA local staff on cell phones all the time — 24 hours a day — seven days a week
- You may pay your program fee securely online through our VeriSign-certified-secure payment processor using any of the following credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Maestro UK, Solo, Diners Club or JCB. You also have options to pay by PayPal, Check, Wire Transfer, Money Order, Local Bank Transfer, Phone or Fax. Alternatively, you may choose to pay your program fee in easy cash installments after arriving in Ghana — so long as you are not in arrears of more than one week.
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