August Volunteering 2024

July and the start of the third term in South Africa is always an exciting month for our Project Zulu partner schools; this year 41 students and 13 staff members were warmly welcomed and volunteered their time over a four week period.

Teaching students joined Project Zulu schools in Madadeni and three schools located outside Dundee and spent the month teaching lessons across the curriculum in Grade 5-7 classes. This year Siyabonga Primary School joined the Project Zulu partnership. The students placed there loved their time at this friendly and welcoming school nestled in the rolling mountains outside Dundee. Each year students raise money for their school before they leave the UK and money raised is used by each school to meet some of the essential needs at the time. This year students worked with principals to purchase new IT equipment, sports equipment and kits, science kits and various essential classroom resources. 

YWCA Special School received three occupational therapy and learning disability nursing students for the month. Students were kept busy in the daily school routine whilst additionally refurbishing three of the school’s sensory rooms and facilitating training on using these rooms to meet the sensory needs of autistic learners. The YWCA students also delivered training sessions focused on specific classroom strategies for managing sensory, cognitive and behavioural needs associated with ADHD, worked closely with educators to establish classroom behaviour management strategies for these students and looked at how they could adapt techniques and toys that would be suitable to their learners. Before leaving, the three students placed at YWCA Special School created and donated 25 specialised fidget boxes which learners could use.

For two weeks a team of students from UWE Rugby Club partnered with local South African club Madadeni Bears and former Sharks and Springbok player Thinus Delport, to run coaching sessions in partner schools, lead physical education lessons and join training sessions with the Madadeni Bears, even playing with them in a local club match. Their two weeks concluded with a highly competitive interschool tag rugby tournament where the U10 team from Sithobelumthetho and U12 team from Mntimande were respectively crowned champions!

A new high school joined the Project Zulu community this year; Isikhalisezwe High School became the second high school to run the Business Entrepreneurship Project alongside Phendukhani High School. With two UWE business students placed at each school, learners spent two weeks developing a business idea and model before implementing their ideas and running their business. By the end of their time, students at both schools celebrated finishing with profitable businesses and the real-life experience of the ups and downs of running their own businesses. 

The technology team spent two weeks setting up a new computer lab at Sithobelumthetho Primary School with laptops donated by UWE and refurbishing the computer lab at Mntimande. Both schools took part in digital literacy workshops and were excited to be able to begin incorporating more computer and IT skills into their lessons. The technology team also ran training sessions for IT Champions from each PZ partner school which built on and continued training from previous years.  

The film team spent a busy two weeks visiting all the Project Zulu Schools around Madadeni and Dundee capturing footage for specific project videos and updating videos for various schools. With an exciting upcoming choir tour next year, they were also able to capture some of the choir rehearsals in anticipation for May 2025!

Last year Tim Carter, head of Safeguarding for the Methodist Church across England, continued working with local partners and stakeholders delivering training focused on safeguarding in schools. This year an exciting new multidisciplinary student team of paediatric nurses and police led by Tim spent a week continuing the delivery of this new Safeguarding Project. They spent time with local police, specialist safeguarding teams from the local police force and teachers before delivering tailored workshops and wider conferences on child protection, safeguarding policies and bullying and anger management. 

Whilst students were busy so too was the team of staff from UWE that travelled out to South Africa this year. District-wide language skills conferences were conducted over two days for educators from local schools and specific professional development sessions focusing on reading and phonics were run with staff from all Project Zulu partner schools. IT Champion training was continued with staff and behaviour management workshops ran in four Project Zulu partner schools. The behaviour management workshops were attended by every staff member from the four schools and elicited some exciting and enthusiastic responses to introducing more relevant and conducive whole-school behaviour management strategies. There was very positive feedback from staff following the workshops and great excitement to begin implementing the ideas discussed to begin changing the environment of their classrooms and schools.   

A highlight for many students is their host family! Most students are hosted with families from each school and are well and truly included in daily school and home life. Families and students alike are greatly missed at the end of the month. Thank you to all the wonderful host families who opened their homes again this year to accommodate and care for the students. And thank you to our Project Zulu partner schools who continue to open their schools to UWE students.