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Volunteer Orphanage assistant Program
- The program
- The institutions
- 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
The volunteer orphanage assistant would be helping to:
- Maintain children in the orphanage by giving them the necessary care and attention as their mothers would have given them. This is achieved by feeding, bathing and ensuring general cleanliness of the children
- Supervise day to day activities of the children in the orphanage i.e. sweeping, bathing, fetching of water
- Keep the girl and boys dormitories clean, plan extra-curricular activities, physical education, music and culture, indoor and outdoor games, morning and evening studies, organize excursions and so on
- Organize children for extra-curricular activities such as sports and games etc.
- Organize children fro extra classes after school
- Organize them cultural activities such as singing, dancing, drumming etc
- Teach the children any subject that you will be interested in at the school
- Teach handicrafts, art, music, playing with the children
- Any other activities related to children
The institutions
Several orphanages located in the Volta and Northern Regions of Ghana.
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The accommodations
You will be staying with host-families. All host families live within 30 minutes of the orphanage. 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 be able to communicate in simple English since English is the language of communication.
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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 3-7 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 oe week.
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