November 17, 2015

Working for awarenet

A short summary of what volunteers can expect during their time at the awarenet project

First of all: What is awarenet and what is the Village Scribe Association? The awarenet project, which gives youth in the Joza Township in Grahamstown access to free formal IT-education as well as giving them access to the Internet and computers in a more laissez-faire kind of way. The Village Scribe Association (VSA) on the other hand is the trust which is running the project. The volunteers help learners and teachers from local schools to enhance their ICT skills. While under the supervision of the Village Scribe Association manager and course coordinator, who is also the awarenet project manager, they train selected school children and their teachers at the Joza Youth Hub as well as at the surrounding schools.

The volunteers use their experience gained back home to design IT clubs and projects for the users of the Open Lab. Such projects are oriented around different topics such as culture, music, language, media or sports. There are no boundaries to your creativity! Additionally, IT courses that follow a curriculum are offered for teachers only by awarenet, which are prepared by the awarenet course coordinator.

The different fields in which we operate can include the following tasks for our volunteers:

  • Teaching small groups of learners and teachers
  • Planning of after school activities for learners 
  • Planning and realizing own projects, according to individual interests
  • Social Media Marketing and fundraising
  • Website maintenance, designing posters and flyers etc.
  • Reporting and creating documentations
  • Planning and realizing events
  • Supervising computer lab users

What are personal requirements for successful volunteering?

  • Having fun while working together with children, youths and adults
  • Basic pedagogical knowledge
  • Patience and teamwork
  • Responsibility and self-organisation
  • ICT skills and social media affinity
  • High motivation for working in projects and leadership
  • Being open-minded towards other cultures and traditions

Are you interested in working for awarenet? Feel free to apply and take your chances!

Beside teaching the volunteers have have to assist with administrative tasks such as maintaining the computer lab and fundraising. This is done in the VSA office at the Joza Youth Hub.

The VSA shares the space with five other ambitious NGOs: the Access Music Project, a free-to-use eye-clinic, a journalism project called Upstart, a toy library for small children as well as a Reading & Chess club.

Our target group:

Local community members and teachers and learners from local township schools in particular.

Working languages:

English

isiXhosa