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In many underprivileged communities around the world, children are in desperate need of assistance with their primary and secondary education and development. South Africa is no exception. In spite of the beautiful scenery surrounding the communities of South Africa, many rural South Africans live in very difficult circumstances, and the children do not get the opportunity to receive a good level of education. The gap year volunteer teacher program aims to provide gappers an opportunity to teach English to the children from disadvantaged families.

By contributing your time as a volunteer teacher during your gap year you will be helping to develop the lives of the underprivileged children in this community. To quote Nelson Mandela, “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

Your Gap year Volunteer Role

Many schools in South Africa are understaffed, and by being a gap year volunteer teacher you will be helping to alleviate the shortage of teachers in the classrooms. It is easy to be a gap year volunteer teacher. You do not even have to possess TESOL or TEFL qualifications in order to teach English in the underprivileged communities of South Africa. Your role as a gap year volunteer English teacher will be helping the local teachers to teach English with the correct pronunciation and intonation.

Not only will you get to enrich the lives of those you teach, as a volunteer teacher you will also get to experience living with people from different cultures in the “Rainbow Nation”. The time you spend helping out in the areas of extra curriculum activities will help enrich your own life experiences.

For the majority of the time as a volunteer teacher, you will be teaching conversational English to these communities. You will have the opportunity to talk about where you live and how you live in your own community back home. In some cases it can even help to bring clarity to your own life as a result of these reflections. Normally, as a volunteer teacher, you will be teaching about 18 to 20 hours per week. In addition, you will take time out to prepare your lessons prior to the next days activities.

Your Gap Year Experience

The volunteer teaching program can be a very rewarding and varied gap year experience in South Africa. The teaching is not formal and your voluntary work can be adapted to your own interests and skills. Regardless of what your input is, the focus is on creating a stimulating environment conducive to learning, and you as a gap year volunteer can help stress the importance of education to your students and their parents. This way, you will be helping the poor farming communities to escape the hardships that they face every day.

Mark Bottell is the General Manager for Worldwide Experience, an online tour operator offering extended breaks on gap year and other wildlife conservation holidays for adults.

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