We need you

As well as donations, WEPOGA\MAP relies heavily on volunteers in order that our many programmes can continue.  We welcome people from all over the world, of all ages and genders, who can offer help through their experiences, skills and hard work.  Although there are specific roles that need filling, we also encourage individuals who have alternative project ideas (as long as they fit in with WEPOGA\'MAPs aims and objects) to contact us.  We want you to get as much out of your experince as possible whilst at the same time, making a difference in the lives of some of the most poverty-stricken people in Kenya.

Volunteer with our organic farming programme

We need volunteers who can help us to run our educational serminars. The topics we promote at the moment are:

1.   Organic pesticides                                         

2.   Organic fertilizer 

3.   Intercropping

4.   Crop rotation  

5.   Integrated Pest Management

6.   Double digging 

7.   Animal husbandry       

8.   Mixed cropping 

9.   Agroforestry

10. Water harvesting

11. Cooperative farming

We are also always open to more ideas from experienced persons in either organic farming, agroforestry, land managment, environmental studies and other related subjects.

As well as being part of the education and advice branch of WEPOGA\MAP, we need volunteers who can help with manual labour on our newly purchased land in Shibanze.  This is good, honest, hard work! Lots of sweating, digging, planting and carrying, all for a good cause.

Volunteer at the Amani Academy

We need volunteer classroom assistants to help out on a daily basis at the Amani Academy school.  As classes are large, it is not possible for the teachers to provide one to one support for every child and so classroom assistants are always welcome. 

Volunteers are required to provide hands-on help with the children (i.e. with writing skills), help with PE lessons and help to tidy the classroom at the end of the day. 

The children's first language is the local Luhya dialect but they are required to learn English and Swahili.  Qualified teachers wishing to volunteer must bare in mind that we already have trained teachers leading the lessons and that your role would be primarily as an assistant, except when required to help with English!

Volunteer in fundraising and administration

As with all organisations, WEPOGA\MAP always needs volunteers to help with fundraising and administration.  We need people who are able to write grant applications and source potential donors as until WEPOGA\MAP is able to become self-sufficient (our dream for the future), we require continous outside support.

As well as fundraising, we also need people to help us manage the day-to-day running of WEPOGA\MAP, responding to emails, updating the website, helping with the monthly newsletter (writing and distributing) and helping to organise WEPOGA\MAP's diary with regard to seminar and visit dates.

       WE NEED VOLUNTEERS ON MOBILE CLINICS

On health we are running mobile clinics in the remote\marginal areas in the district. We do 5 clinics per week and attending to about 200 patients mostly children, around the following Districts: Teso, Bungoma south, Bungoma North, Bungoma West, and Mumias Districts. We need volunteers who can help us in the running of the same project. HIV\AIDS clients are supported by giving them free home based care treatment and counseling, ensuring that they access ARVS\ART from the medical centers.

Generally we need the volunteers in the varios activities that are run by the organisation. Please you are allowed on which of the organisation activities that you really want to work i.e.

         We need teachers volunteers.

         Though who are ready to work with micro=finance.

         The youth,women, men on HIV AIDS, awareness, ARV provision by taking to the hospitals to get the drugs,sponsor the youth tournaments,sports which we intend to organise every year.

So feel free to choose which part you can handle best you are much welcomed.

Costs and general information

Until the compound is built at the Shibanze demonstration plot, volunteers are housed with a local family just outside the main town of Bungoma in a village called Kabula.  You will sleep in a traditional mud house and have all your meals provided for by the family you stay with.  The cost per week for accommodation and food is US$70 (US$280 per month) and is paid directly to the family you are placed with, and you pay a pick up fee of $ 200.  In addition, volunteers are also required to make a minimum one off donation{program fee} of US$750 directly to WEPOGA account before you arrive in the country and please do not give to any individual that may come to collect you from the airport, to cover administration costs and to help enable us to keep our projects going and paying salaries to the teachers and other admistrations that the organisation is going through. As the vulunteer you can fundraise the above amount from your friends and family by simply explaining what the fund is for and i think people would be willing to help.Please we really need that donation for it to make us grow and being stress free on how we are going to support the orphans and the rest of the community.  We can only ever estimate how much money you will need for personal spending (about US$300 per month), as this depends entirely on what you like doing in your spare time! 

Volunteer placements are for a minimum of 3 months, although we do make exceptions for highly skilled persons.  The reason for the minimum period is to ensure continuity of projects and that persons volunteering are serious about what they want to be able to offer WEPOGA\MAP, as well as being serious about what they want to get out of it for themselves.  For every 3 months you volunteer, you can have 2 weeks off mid-placement to sample the delights of Kenya and its neighbours, be that on safari to places like the Maasai Mara, city visits, trips to the coast or across the border to Uganda or Tanzania.

What we need from you

Initial enquiries about volunteering at WEPOGA\MAP should be addressed to Benson A. Keya at wepoga@googlemail.com and should include information on the following:
-Your name, age and qualifications or relevant skills. 
-Experience, if any, of Africa or any other developing country, or any volunteer work you have already carried out. 
-Length of time you are available to volunteer and when.
-What kind of work you would be most interested in doing.

We hope to hear from you soon!