Volunteer Kenya

Program Website: http://www.volunteerkenya.org/prog_education.html
Program Location: Kenya
Program Duration: 6-8 weeks . Volunteers are welcome at Epico Jahns Academy any time during the year, except from mid-November through the first week of January, at which time the school is taking final exams and then out on Christmas break.
Program Cost: Total Volunteer Fees for one month are $985 USD. Not included in this fee are airplane tickets, bus tickets to/from Nairobi / Bungoma - $15USD, safari fees, leisure travel, souvenirs, and food/drink outside of the home stay. It does not include your flight to Kenya. Volunteers need to purchase and pay for their own flight separately.
Program Eligibility: Must be at least 20 years of age. Volunteer Kenya accepts not only experienced teachers but also international volunteers who have an interest in teaching local children.
Program Description: Through the Education Program, Volunteer Kenya runs a Primary school that has a pre-school class and Grades 1 through 4. The school, Epico Jahns Academy , currently has over 300 students enrolled and is run by a staff of local Kenyan teachers and overseas volunteers. The school has consistently received the highest marks in the area in terms of the quality of education and student development. The school also provides lunch to the students, which for many is the only guaranteed meal each day. Volunteers in the Education Program take an active role in not only teaching at the school, but have recently been active laborers in helping to build the additional classrooms (through funds they raised before their trip). Volunteer Kenya's goal is to add on one additional classroom each year until a complete primary school has been built (i.e., pre-school through Grade 8).
Volunteering at Epico Jahns is a very exciting and rewarding volunteering experience. The local staff of Kenyan teachers is always very excited to have new volunteers join them in the classroom. Volunteers are able to teach alongside trained staff of local teachers in their choice of Pre-school through Grade 6. If volunteers have a particular knowledge in a certain subject area (such math, geography, or science) they are encouraged to focus their experience on teaching those subject classes. Most of the previous volunteers at Epico Jahns have been college or graduate students who are Education majors and are looking for a once in a lifetime experience to teach at the grassroots level in rural Africa .
Volunteer Kenya has also had numerous volunteers with non-teaching backgrounds. The main requirement is a love for children and teaching, and a desire to be a part of a dynamic and interactive classroom environment. The students at Epico begin learning English in pre-school and by Grade 4 have very good English skills, so a knowledge of Swahili is not needed. Although only trained teachers and Education majors will be given the opportunity to teach unsupervised, the local teachers always welcome a helping hand and will assign tasks that are appealing to individual. Volunteers are able to contribute on whatever level they feel comfortable.
For further information on volunteering at Epico Jahns, please email Jennifer Klinck at jenniferklinck@volunteerkenya.org.
Program Includes:

• Pick-up from the Nairobi Airport (if you are doing a safari)
• Program materials and expenses
• Program transport (such as vehicle repair and gas)
• Room and Board
• 3 meals a day, 7 days a week while on the farm
• Housing in 4-person volunteer huts located on what used to be a sugarcane farm in the heart of rural Africa

Program Website: http://www.volunteerkenya.org/prog_healthcare.html
Program Location: Kenya
Program Duration: 6-8 weeks. Volunteer placements are available year-round.
Program Cost: Total Volunteer Fees for one month are $985 USD. Not included in this fee are airplane tickets, bus tickets to/from Nairobi / Bungoma-$15USD, safari fees, leisure travel, souvenirs, and food/drink outside of the home stay. It does not include your flight to Kenya. Volunteers need to purchase and pay for their own flight separately.
Program Eligibility: Must be at least 20 years of age. Volunteers in the Healthcare Program must have previous clinical experience. The healthcare volunteers must be doctors, nurses, or medical students. As part of your application, please include a short description of your medical education and clinical experience so that Volunteer Kenya can confirm your qualifications for the Healthcare Program. Volunteers working in this program will receive a Healthcare Program Orientation Manual before arriving in Kenya. This will provide you with a lot of detailed information on the clinic and mobile clinics programs, as well as an introduction to many of the medical problems you will encounter while in Kenya. The Healthcare Program is not open to undergraduate and pre-med students.
Program Description: Through its Healthcare Program, Volunteer Kenya operates the Bill Selke Memorial Clinic (which is located in the rural village of Kabula) and mobile clinic services. The mobile clinic program is coordinated on a rotating basis through very rural village centers, churches, and homes in the Western Province. The program is most active during the summer months (May-August) when more overseas medical students are on the ground. During these periods anywhere from 20 to 100 patients are treated a day that likely otherwise would have no access to quality healthcare.
Each doctor or medical student will work at a patient consultation station, alongside a clinical officer, nurse or a translator. The volunteer takes the lead in the patient interview, and fills out the patient record form. The volunteer will take a history, perform a physical examination. In collaboration with the local healthcare workers, you will formulate a working diagnosis, prescribe medication if appropriate, provide counseling and education, and write a referral note if necessary. If you or the local healthcare workers are unsure about diagnosis or management at any time, or concerned about a patient, the patient will be referred to a local hospital.
Nurses will spend their time on the mobile clinics in a similar manner as they would back home - i.e. taking vital signs, helping to prioritize patients if there are matters that need attending to urgently, providing education, ensuring the patient understands their medical problems and empowering them to take an active role in their healthcare.
If you have any specific questions on this program, please contact Dr. Hank Selke at hankselke@volunteerkenya.org.
Program Includes:

• Pick-up from the Nairobi Airport (if you are doing a safari)
• Program materials and expenses
• Program transport (such as vehicle repair and gas)
• Room and Board
• 3 meals a day, 7 days a week while on the farm
• Housing in 4-person volunteer huts located on what used to be a sugarcane farm in the heart of rural Africa

Program Website: http://www.volunteerkenya.org/prog_hivaids.html
Program Location: Kenya
Program Duration: 6-8 weeks . Volunteer placements are available year-round.
Program Cost: Total Volunteer Fees for one month are $985 USD. Not included in this fee are airplane tickets, bus tickets to/from Nairobi / Bungoma-$15USD, safari fees, leisure travel, souvenirs, and food/drink outside of the home stay.  It does not include your flight to Kenya. Volunteers need to purchase and pay for their own flight separately.
Program Eligibility: Must be at least 20 years of age. Anyone interested in participating in this program needs to contact their local Red Cross and undergo an AIDS Instructor training course.
Program Description: HIV/AIDS Education has been Volunteer Kenya's main area of focus since 1998.  Over 200,000 Kenyans have been sensitized about the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS. In the past two years the number of international volunteers working in Kenya has grown dramatically and as a result the organization now reaches over 75,000 rural Kenyans each year. In April of 2003, an intensive HIV/AIDS peer training program, EMPOWER, was launched. In the first 18 months of this “training of trainers” program, over 1,000 Kenyans were trained to teach about HIV/AIDS and serve as resources for their peers.
At schools, community centers, bars, nightclubs, churches, and women's groups, the Volunteer Kenya team presents two to three hour HIV/AIDS programs. Discussions at these programs center on transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS and other STIs. We supply facts about HIV/AIDS that assist in dispelling the multitude of rumors and myths concerning the disease that are rampant in Western Kenya and elsewhere. HIV/AIDS awareness films such as Silent Epidemic and Facing the Challenge (from Ace Communications) and Understanding the Disease (from Glaxo Welcome) are effectively used as teaching tools.
The goal of EMPOWER is to train high school students and/or community groups such that they can be a resource for others within their schools and/or communities. It is the hope that the information supplied within the EMPOWER manual will be a reference that can be used in answering questions posed by their peers and that, following training, they will be comfortable giving a presentation about HIV/AIDS to a group.
All volunteers will be given our extensive training manual on HIV/AIDS prior to arrive in Kenya. You will need to study this manual thoroughly and then supplement it with additional online research. If you have any further questions or are interested in volunteering with the HIV/AIDS Program, please contact John Motter at johnmotter@volunteerkenya.org.
Program Includes:

• Pick-up from the Nairobi Airport (if you are doing a safari)
• Program materials and expenses
• Program transport (such as vehicle repair and gas)
• Room and Board
• 3 meals a day, 7 days a week while on the farm
• Housing in 4-person volunteer huts located on what used to be a sugarcane farm in the heart of rural Africa