African Orphanage Volunteer Program

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• The program
• The orphanage
• Volunteer accommodation
• The feeding
• Entertainment and sight-seeing
• Volunteers’ safety
• Minimum qualification required
• Rough estimate of total cost involved
• Apply for this program
• Next steps — after you have been accepted
• Other relevant facts about the program
• Sign up for our Newsletter
• Submit a question

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The program
The orphanage volunteer 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 classes after school.
• Organize them cultural activities such as singing, dancing, drumming etc.
• Teach the children any subject of your choice at the in-house school.
• Teach handicrafts, art, music, play with the children
• Help with the income-generating activities of the home: mushroom, vegetable, fruit, cereal and livestock farming.
• Any other activities related to children.

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The orphanage home
The VIGS GHANA orphanage is located in a lovely little town called Bawjiasi; in the Central region of Ghana — within just 50 km of the capital city Accra.   Back to top

 

Volunteers’ accommodation

You will be staying at the orphanage’s ‘Volunteer House’: All volunteers stay in a self contained house, which is about a 10 minute’s walk from the orphanage. The house has four bedrooms which can accommodate up to 12 volunteers maximum. Inside the volunteer House’s kitchen, Isaac, the greatest cook in Ghana prepares all kinds of sumptuous foods; and the volunteers eat in a common area. There is electricity but no running water. The water is brought by volunteers – from a water reservoir within the compound of the house. The rooms are equipped with beds, fans and mosquito nets.  Back to top

The meals
8.00am – Breakfast;
12.00pm – Lunch;
6.30pm – Dinner.

Volunteers will be fed a variety of food including local dishes such as fufu, banku, kenkey and red-red, as well as ‘foreign’ meals such as rice and pasta. Vegetarians and vegans, as well as people with any other diet restrictions (e.g. gluten / lactose intolerance etc.) can easily be catered for. Volunteers have to budget for their own drinking water. Bottled (as well as filtered, bagged) water is available for purchase in many parts of the village. A 1.5 liter bottle costs about US$0.85 whilst a pack of bagged filtered water (popularly known as ‘pure water’) costs about US$0.90. One pack of bagged filtered water contains twenty-five 0.5 liter pieces of ‘pure water’ sachets or bags. An alternative to buying bottled or ‘pure water’ would be to treat the tap-water with water purification tablets. Water purification tablets are not readily available in Ghana so you would have to bring some along if you intend to treat your own drinking water.  Back to top

Entertainment and sight-seeing
Weekends (Friday afternoon till Sunday evening) are free days. Volunteers at the children’s home usually would organize entertainment and sight-seeing trips as a group to interesting places near and far.  Back to top

Volunteers’ safety
Your safety is of paramount importance to VIGS GHANA. As such we give you all the relevant safety tips, plus we place you only in places where good medical services are within easy reach. In addition, we’ll give you a smart phone – so you can call or text or email or Whatsapp the in-country supervisors whenever the need arises. Our in-country support staff are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.   Back to top

Minimum qualification required
Applicants for this program must be able to communicate in simple English since English is the official language of communication in Ghana.    Back to top

Rough estimate of total cost involved

• Flight to and from Ghana: US$600-1250 (Round-trip)
• Ghana visa: US$80-170
• Vaccinations: US$150-250
• Travel Insurance: US$70-320
• Miscellaneous personal items: US$300-900
• Personal Spending money whilst in Ghana: US$200 upwards
• VIGS GHANA Program fee: starts from US$450

So, a rough estimate of the total cost for a two-week program duration would be about US$1,870 – 3,560. Check the equivalent in your currency.   Back to top

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 things 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.     Back to top

Other relevant facts about the program

• Minimum volunteering time: four (4) hours.
• Maximum duration: 6 months.
• Age range accepted: 18 – 75 years.
• We will send you a document on how to fund-raise for your trip – after you’ve confirmed your participation.
• We will meet you at the Airport in Accra (ACC) on your arrival day.
• The average work day is 3-8 hours for this program.
• Saturdays and Sundays are free days.
• You can contact VIGS GHANA local staff on cell phones all the time — 24 hours a day — seven days a week.
• We can give you a Testimonial on successful completion of your volunteer or internship work.
• You can pay the program fee through any of the following methods:

1. PayPal or debit/credit card.
2. Cash installments (or full payment) upon arrival into Ghana.

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