Surf and sports coaching in South Africa

Planet

Our volunteer placements are designed to contribute towards sustainability of the environment. We always educate our volunteers of the environmental impact the create and how to best avoid or reduce this.

Water: We make sure that our volunteers always refill bottles at home rather than buying mineral water

Energy: We always ensure that our volunteers conserve electricity by turning off lights and fans when leaving for projects or not using these.

Transport: We always recommend walking and using bicycles where possible instead of walking. In South Africa most of our projects are in walking distance of the house and we also try to take all our volunteers in one van to avoid multiple journeys and more fuel usage that pollutes the environment.

Waste: We encourage all our volunteers to dispose of waste carefully and separate our plastic, glass and food waste.

Besides this we make sure that our projects are not harming the environment any further. We provide volunteers with guidance and our staff provide on arrival training on what the local practices are.

People

Our Partner organisation situated in South Africa, was founded in 2006 when the need was identified within the local impoverished communities. Many groups, educare centers and schools were unable to provide effective programs due to lack of funding & resources. With the assistance of volunteers, these shortcomings were addressed and they has slowly grown and now provides assistance to several communities in 4 countries across Africa. As well as humanitarian programmes we also assist several wildlife conservation projects.

Through the help of volunteers we have; grown from a single community-based organisation to an international level, built and started 3 preschools for 60 children a year, started and maintained several vegetable gardens, created a computer lab in a local primary school and taught computer literacy to almost 1500 children, taught approximately 300 children to swim and 80 how to surf, started construction on a brick school for disabled children, cared for over 903 animals including; 133 primates, 129 cheetahs and 79 African wild dogs.

Volunteers pay a fee that covers the costs of their stay. This includes; accommodation, transport and meals as well as a donation that assists to finance the projects. In return, volunteers get to experience African culture, see our beautiful countries, learn some new skills and make a difference to those in need. Every little bit helps and anyone can volunteer for anything from two weeks to two years.

Cultural sensitivity:
We emphasise the importance of showing respect for local people and their customs in our briefing material. Participants will work alongside permanent staff, forming close bonds and getting an insight into real life in rural South Africa. Our policy is to send people to the developing world in small groups or individually. This minimises the environmental and social impact that the participants have on the destination and helps them to integrate into the local community.

We also want to ensure that Teaching projects are following the guidelines of responsible travel. This includes :

Having Qualified teaching applicants taking classes only. Non qualified applicants can assist teachers only.
Accepting long term applicants of 4 weeks minimum
Making DBS checks compulsory
Minimum of a days training on arrival
Having a child protection code