Kenya: Volunteer Care Work with Children

• Placement locations: Nakuru
• Types of care projects: Day care centres, kindergartens, orphanages
• Age of children: 0 - 14
• Number of people cared for:
  15 – 60+
• Role: Assisting with local staff including playing with children, basic teaching and giving general help
• Accommodation: Host families
• Price: From £1495
• What’s included? Food, accommodation, transfers, insurance, personal webpage, induction and orientation, 24/7 support, social activities
• What’s not included? Flights, visa costs, spending money
• Length of placement: From one month
• Start dates: Flexible

Voluntary Care work in Kenya is a rewarding way to help improve conditions for disadvantaged local children. You can contribute towards this important development work during a gap year, career break, or during holiday time. Volunteers with qualifications and experience are welcome but you do not need to have either to volunteer. Energy, passion and a commitment to the underprivileged children that we work with should see you through.

Kenya is the most industrially developed country in East Africa, however, the HIV and Aids epidemic has had a huge impact on the population. The number of new cases of HIV/Aids is slowly decreasing; however, the situation is unlikely to improve significantly for years to come.

Thousands of children in Kenya have lost one or both parents to Aids. Many orphans are taken in by extended family members, but those families already afflicted by poverty may struggle to cope both financially and emotionally and find themselves unable to care for these already traumatised children. The children are therefore often placed in orphanages and care homes.

Voluntary Community Development and Orphanage work with Projects Abroad

We have a variety of volunteer options in Kenya, working in both orphanages and care homes with children aged from 0 to about 14 years old. Our Care placements are located in and around the town of Nakuru, 160km north west of Nairobi.

We also have some placements in smaller care homes and day care centres that look after children from single parent families or the children of street beggars.

Whichever volunteer Care project you join in Kenya, you need to be ready for a challenge. Many of the children are desperate for attention and there may sometimes be children in your care who have health problems or who need special attention due to disabilities.

Volunteering Abroad on a Care Project in Kenya

It is in your role as a volunteer - spending quality one-to-one time with a child, playing games with a group of children and finding a way to put a smile on their faces - that Projects Abroad volunteers are so valuable.

Whether you are feeding and bathing babies and toddlers, taking a group of children out for an afternoon trip, helping older children with English school homework or playing a game with the younger ones, you will be an essential part of their development. Please let us know about any extra interests or skills that you have which could be used at your placement.