Teaching with a local volunteer

Teaching with a local volunteer

People from all over the world come take part in the GVI volunteer programmes – whilst I have been here in Mombasa, there have been volunteers from the UK, Canada, USA, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Japan, to name a few. The appeals of teaching abroad are vast – learning about a new culture, seeing new places, meeting new people, but sometimes, people want to learn to teach, volunteer their time and meet new people, without having the opportunity to travel. GVI runs a National Scholarship Programme (NSP) in Kenya, to support locals with passion and ambition who wish to get involved. This has been very successful here in the past, with one NSP volunteer, Madam Josephine, progressing to a teaching position at one of the schools here, and doing a great job of it. A new volunteer has recently joined us through the NSP, Sharon is from Mombasa and has recently finished secondary education and at that stage in her life where she wants to get some experience to help her make decisions on what she wants to create a career in. 

Volunteer Sharon teaching Std 4 at Olives

I have been teaching alongside Sharon for a few weeks now and have already seen her confidence growing as she teaches and learns from the children. It has been interesting for me to see the different ways the children react to having Sharon around, compared to a non-Kenyan volunteer, and I’ve been very impressed with how she has got stuck into the work and bonded with the children already. It’s also been very helpful having someone around who can speak Swahili much better than I can, making communicating with a couple of children a lot easier. 

Volunteer Sharon teaching Std 4 at Olives

I asked Sharon for a few words on why she wanted to get involved with GVI and how she is finding the experience so far, this is what she said;

“I joined GVI in order to get some experience and be a part of a great team which works extremely hard. It has been amazing working with the GVI community and the children are wonderful. I have a lot to learn about teaching and I am looking forward to learning through experience with GVI”.

Sharon has a natural gift with the children, she has the abilities to both get and maintain their attention and also teach in a way they understand, making them want to learn more. I look forward to seeing how she progresses over the coming weeks and months. 

Volunteer Sharon teaching computers at community

 

Laura Dunnill, Volunteer staff member

Teaching with a local volunteer