'Mosi-oa-tunya' - The Smoke That Thunders - is the local description of the spray created by the world famous Victoria Falls, the magnificent number one tourist attraction in Zambia. This is an exciting and worthwhile project - of particular interest to sports enthusiasts - who can get involved in coaching the under-privileged children from the Mwandi Primary School - who may be the super stars of tomorrow! This is an opportunity for them to begin working out their dreams under the watchful eyes of a volunteer coach. It is an opportunity for volunteers to pass on their own passion and skills to the very enthusiastic pupils in this part of Africa. Resources are very limited but the enthusiasm and excitement shown by the children more than makes up for the shortage of equipment. Some previous sports experience is useful but not essential. Opportunities are also available to help out in the local community, either building desperately needed classrooms or refurbishing older schools.
Duration & Fees
- £799 - 2 weeks
- £995 - 3 weeks
- £1,195 - 4 weeks
Start Dates
2012: 2 Jan | 16 Jan | 6 Feb | 20 Feb | 5 Mar | 19 Mar | 2 Apr | 16 Apr | 7 May | 21 May | 4 Jun | 18 Jun | 2 Jul | 16 Jul | 6 Aug | 20 Aug | 3 Sep | 17 Sep | 1 Oct | 15 Oct | 5 Nov | 19 Nov | 3 Dec | 17 Dec
Payment
£180 deposit at time of booking – balance payment of project fee due 12 weeks before departure
What's Included
- A contribution to the project itself to fund items such as coaching/building materials and equipment
- Transfer from Livingstone airport to the volunteer accommodation and daily project based transport
- Orientation and introduction to the project
- All accommodation including 3 meals a day, Monday to Friday
- Full support from the local project managers throughout the time spent on the project
What's not included
- Personal travel insurance (to include cover for repatriation)
- Transfer by air or bus to Livingstone
- Personal items eg clothes, travel goods
- Use of internet (email) and telephone
- Laundry service
- Wines and spirits, soft drinks and snacks
- All visas for border crossings
- Any trips/activities undertaken other than in the planned expedition
Volunteers have the opportunity to:
- Coach very excited and often-talented children in sports and games at local schools.Be part of new projects to train and teach vulnerable girls in the communities using skills and knowledge to improve the coaching techniques of the community sports leaders.
- Assist in the "Kicking out Aids" programme that combines football training and HIV education
- Help build/paint/refurbish schools/clinics/community centres
- Visit Victoria Falls and enjoy some of the amazing tourist activities that Livingstone has to offer including Bungee Jumping, White Water Rafting on the Zambezi, Helicopter Flights over the Falls, Zambezi River Cruises, visit Botswana's Chobe National Park to experience Africa's highest density of elephants and weekend excursions to Zimbabwe and much more.
Sports Coaching
Sports volunteers spend their time training, guiding and working with football teams in the Livingstone community and providing PE in schools which is badly neglected due to lack of trained teachers. Sport is an useful way of teaching about subjects such as HIV, nutrition and healthy lifestyle. Qualifications are not necessary but enthusiasm and a willingness to work hard are more important. The sports programme has three main areas of work:
Training the Team
Volunteers will help with the training of an under 11s to under 16s team in Livingstone. The team, an all boys community team, has been established for some time and also has players who do not attend the local school. The aim is to help the players gain a wide range of skills.
Physical Education within Schools
Volunteers will spend the mornings assisting in various community schools offering PE lessons, not only to pupils, but to their teachers also. PE is not offered within the Zambian educational curriculum but as it improves health awareness and encourages an active life style, the need to train the teachers is important to make this sustainable within the community. Attitudes to PE still need to be changed but the children love it and really enjoy their time with the volunteers.
HIV Education in Sport
Volunteers will work with different community teams to give an HIV in Sport workshop. This will involve HIV games, team building games, a time for questions and a football match. This is one way of using sport to increase HIV awareness and is a highly effective teaching method for young boys in particular and something rarely done at school.
Specialist Sports
Volunteers with particular interests or skills are very welcome. The children are always keen to learn new activities and classes can be arranged for tai-kwon-do, athletics, cricket or any other skills that volunteers may have - even gymnastics or yoga! Resources are limited and volunteers are encouraged to bring any sporting equipment they can with them. Please note that it is not possible to coach swimming in Livingstone.
School Term Dates for 2012:
Term 1 : 9 January - 6 April 2012
Term 2: 7 May - 3 August 2012
Term 3: 3 September - 30 November 2012
The Sports Project: During school holidays volunteers will assist with running holiday clubs with the children and coaching local team sports. They will also help with holiday club teaching.
School holiday periods offer students valuable time to catch up on learning missed due to the Zambian "hot seating" system as well as a safe environment in which to spend their summer holidays. It is also a lot of fun and volunteers from the teaching and sports coaching projects work closely together to teach lessons for the first half of the morning and then move on to recreational activities and teaching the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
Community Projects
Volunteers will combine sports coaching with a variety of projects in the local community, enabling them to make a difference in other areas and not just through sport. The following projects are available:
Building, painting and refurbishing schools and clinics
Schools are very short of classrooms resulting in most children being able to attend one session per day only. Volunteers will help the local builders and community to build as many classrooms as funds allow and will help with mixing cement, bricklaying, plastering and painting. Hard but very rewarding work!
Home Based Care / Farming
There are several home based care projects run by local volunteers in districts of Livingstone such as Maramba, Ngwenya, Libuyu, Linda and Dambwa. The women spend each morning visiting patients with HIV, TB and malaria within the local community who cannot afford to go to the clinic or hospital. They may contribute by way of basic first aid and help with advice on basic health care. The home based care community volunteers rely on government medical supplies or donations but some have their own land that they use to raise money for their work. This is the most sustainable way to ensure the project continues independently and volunteers may assist with setting up more farming initiatives as well as simple farming. The goal is to help in the initial set-up stages by assisting with the acquisition of land, tools and seed and then with the practical work of planting, watering, weeding and harvesting the produce which is sold to raise money for medical supplies. Although visiting these very deprived areas can be quite a shocking experience, volunteers consider that the opportunity to work with this group gives a real insight into the lives of those suffering from terminal illness and a good understanding of Zambian society.
Reading Club
Pupils from various schools attend the afternoon reading club where volunteers help out with literacy skills - encouraging the children to read and helping out with difficult words. Volunteers will go armed with a box of books and offer the opportunity to the children to practice their reading outside the limited lessons available.
Art Club
Volunteers are encouraged to plan these themselves using their own creative ideas to deal with a variety of issues. For example, the art club could produce posters for an anti-drugs campaign or make Christmas cards or decorations, Easter masks etc. The children also enjoy finger painting and making papier mache models.
Adult Literacy Club
This is a very important club and one that is very popular with volunteers - aimed at helping local adults become more employable through improved literacy. There is a structured syllabus with beginners/intermediate and advanced classes, and relevant testing and a certificate issued to those who are successful. The course improves the students' understanding of written and oral English as well as mathematics.
Study Group
Students come from various schools throughout Livingstone for structured study led by volunteers. The specifically designed programme aims to help the children get a greater grasp on subjects taught in class as well as tackle subjects that are not covered in the curriculum. Many of these children are orphans and don't get the support at home. This is a great opportunity to monitor students' academic and personal progress.
Maramba Old People's Home
Culturally, older family member are looked after within their community so old people's homes are not common. Therefore people who come to this home have no-one to look after them and come from far and wide. There are few staff and volunteers help with daily tasks such as cleaning and cooking and also with providing stimulation for the residents and improving the living conditions.
A Day in the Life of a Volunteer
| 7am |
Rise and shine and time for breakfast. Then prepare for the day ensuring you have everything you need for your morning activities |
| 7.45am |
Off to the assigned school or class and after greeting the children make preparations for the morning of PE - or community projects if preferred |
| 11.30am |
Volunteers will be picked up from the project and taken back to the volunteer house for lunch |
| 12noon |
Lunch |
| 1pm |
Time to plan and prepare for the afternoon sessions - perhaps drawing up a training schedule, or practising some skills |
| 1.30pm |
Depart for the community project which may be farming, building or painting, or even an art club or reading club or assisting at the Maramba Old People's Home. Perhaps it will be delivering a workshop to the children at the community school on a topic such as basic first aid, drugs and alcohol, HIV and AIDS or life skills. |
| 5pm |
Back to the house for supper and an evening free - perhaps for a meal out, or just enjoying a beer in front of the tv whilst planning for the next day. |
Volunteers should be aware that projects are constantly evolving - some may be completed and new ones take their place - hence the above information is given as a guide only.
The number of volunteers at each project will approximately be 10.
Livingstone volunteers live at a comfortable and secure complex, a 5 minute walk from Livingstone town centre where there is a wide range of amenities. The accommodation features a dining area, bar, swimming pool, large garden and even a climbing wall! The house sleeps up to 68 people and accommodates volunteers from the medical, teaching and sports projects at Livingstone. Accommmodation is multi-sex, but with separate bedrooms for males and females, each bedroom sleeping 6 people with three bunk beds in each room and each room has a lockable cupboard for each volunteer's valuables. There are three bathrooms in house which volunteers share. Bed linen is provided (apart from towels) and beds are made and rooms cleaned daily. A laundry service is also provided for a small fee. The house has 24-hour security and a safe for valuables.
Three meals a day are provided from monday to friday. Breakfast is on a self-serve basis and usually consists of cereals, porridge, toast, tea and coffee. Lunch and dinner are full meals and will be prepared by the resident chef. They are usually simple but nutritious. Any food allergies or specific requirements should be advised before departure. Volunteers are required to arrange their own meals over the weekend, this could involve eating out in the surrounding area as weekends are a great time for tourist activities. However you will have access to the volunteers kitchen if you prefer to prepare your own meals and there will be a fridge for you to store your food.
Experience has shown that volunteers living and working closely together with their volunteer co-ordinators is the best way to guarantee their safety and attend to any needs. Volunteers are therefore expected to stay in the accommodation provided for them and are not allowed to spend nights away in the town or nearby villages unless they are on pre-arranged sightseeing excursions.
Zambia
Why visit Zambia?
For anyone out to experience the ‘real’ Africa, Zambia is that diamond in the rough. The country boasts some of Africa’s best game parks and shares (with Zimbabwe) some of the region’s major highlights, such as Victoria Falls, Lake Kariba, Lower Zambezi National Park and South Luangwa National Park. South Luangwa National Park is one of the best parks in Africa for night game-drives. More than 60 mammal species and over 400 bird species are found in this Park, which is also renowned for thousands of hippo and crocodiles. Luangwa is the birthplace of the Walking Safari and there is no better way to explore this wilderness. Featuring leafy woodlands, slow-moving river channels and lily-bedecked lagoons, South Luangwa is renowned for the expertise of its guides. It is also excellent for spotting leopards and is home to about 15,000 elephants and the same number of hippo. The Thornicroft's giraffe and Cookson's wildebeest are unique to the region.
The mighty Zambezi River is tamed by the Lower Zambezi valley, becoming gentle as it spreads languidly across the Valley. Islands and floodplains create a densely vegetated habitat for a wide variety of wildlife, elephant in particular. This area is seasonal and many of the lodges and camps are closed from November to March. It is also an angler’s dream as fishermen try their luck on the mighty Zambezi, with the hopes of landing a tiger fish or rare, giant vundu. Avid birdwatchers also flock to Zambia to glimpse its fabulous diversity of birds.
Game viewing along the upper Zambezi River by canoe or cruise boat is rewarding and relaxing. Adrenaline junkies may want to experience the spectacular view while bouncing upside down from the end of a bungee cord off the Victoria Falls Bridge. Intrepid travellers will also be attracted by the white-water rafting excursions on the swirling waters of the Zambezi Gorge. Helicopter or micro-light trips over the Falls, game-drives in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, horse trails along the Zambezi River and a visit to Maramba Market are also available. Most activities are accessible from the quaint colonial outback frontier town of Livingstone.
Highlights of Zambia
- Renowned for its pristine National Parks, including Kafue, South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi.
- It is named after the mighty Zambezi River flowing along its southern border, which is fed by the Kafue and Luangwa tributaries.
- Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River are accessible from nearby Livingstone Town.
- Livingstone is home to numerous activities for adventure seekers, including bungee jumping, white-water rafting and abseiling down the gorge.
- It boasts one of the largest areas of land under the protection of national parks in Africa, featuring abundant wildlife.
- Canoeing, rafting and fishing safaris, upstream from the Falls on the Zambezi River, are possible, as are canoeing trips on the Lower Zambezi.
- Kafue National Park is about the size of Wales or Massachusetts, with exceptional bird watching.
- The country, shaped by three great rivers, is characterised by water, including a trio of massive lakes - Lake Tanganyika, Lake Kariba and Lake Bangweulu.
Climate
| Seasons | Max | Min |
| Summer (November - April) |
30 ° |
26 ° |
| Winter (May - October) |
23 ° |
20 ° |
| Rainfall: April - May (Long rains) November - Mid December (short rains) |
Zambia's elevation on a plateau gives it a moderate climate, despite the fact that it is within tropical latitudes, and the average monthly temperature remains above 20 °C most months.
There are three seasons:
- cool and dry from May to August, when temperatures drop at night but the landscape is green and lush;
- hot and dry from September to November, the best time to see wildlife as flora is sparse;
- warm and wet from December to April, ideal for bird-watching.
The Victoria Falls are spectacular in April and May after the rainy season.
Key Facts
Population – 12.9 million
Capital - Lusaka
Currency – Zambian kwacha (ZMK)
Language – English is the official language, with Nyanja, Bemba, Lunda, Tonga, Lozi, Luvale and Kaonde being recognised regional languages.
Time difference – GMT +2 hours
Telephone – country code 260, international access code 00
A totally amazing experience. From start to finish I was supported but challenged within my placement, the only thing I would change is to stay for longer!
Claire, UK, aged 33 (Zambia Sports Coaching Volunteer)
I immensely enjoyed my time at the project - the staff were excellent and the experiences great fun and unforgettable. The projects regularly address their aims and the feedback from locals was tremendous. I fully recommend the experience! I felt everything was organised and under control prior to departure. When I did have questions they were answered fully and promptly. I was impressed with the staff at Amanzi Travel - so much so that I recommend Amanzi Travel to everyone who has asked me how to get involved in volunteering in Africa.
Mike, New Zealand, aged 38 (Zambia Sports Coaching Volunteer)
I volunteered in Livingstone, and it was the most amazing experience of my life and I only wish I was out there for longer!
Stephanie, UK, aged 20 (Zambia Sports Coaching Volunteer)
My time in Livingstone was amazing, so much more than I could have ever experienced. I was 100% happy, in fact 110% happy with my whole experience.
Mandy, Australia, aged 19 (Zambia Sports Coaching Volunteer)