Reviews of Volunteer Programs in Zambia

Izabela Forys, African Impact alum

The stunning Victoria Falls!

Morning: We would get up around 7am and help ourselves to toast and cereal before setting off on the project at around 7:45am. As I was on the medical project I would spend my morning either in clinics or on home based care in the community. When I was in the clinics I would be checking blood pressure, taking temperatures, weighing babies or helping out in the pharmacy. If I was out on home based care we would be going round the communities with a caregiver and offer advice or some very basic medication, for example, pain killers or multivitamins. Once the morning was up we would be taken back to our backpacker’s accommodation for lunch.

Afternoon: After lunch we would head out on the community projects. There were a variety of afternoon projects so you would be somewhere different every day. You could be painting the inside of a school, doing some farming at a local farm, teaching at art club or taking part in reading club. However, my favourite was family support where we would take books, balls, colouring books, skipping ropes and lots more to an empty piece of land and all of a sudden all of these young children would appear. They would always be smiling and would just want to play with you or read with you. Many of the children have no toys at home so this was their only chance to actually be children.

Amazing ride on an elephant

Evening: In the evenings we had our own free time to do whatever we liked, sometimes we would catch some rays before our evening meal or we would go out to a local bar for some drinks as a group. One of the evenings we went to see an African dance show which showed lots of different dances from all over Zambia. There was a bar at our backpacker’s so a lot of the time we would chill out, grab a drink and play cards or prepare for the following day of volunteering.

Read more about the African Impact Program in Zambia.