This volunteer project brings you to the vibrant city of Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, and the Bombolulu slum where urban migrant and impoverished communities live next to the upmarket residences of Nyali. You will work alongside volunteer teachers at the Olives Rehabilitation Center offering free education to the most vulnerable children, improving literacy, supporting counseling, environmental and social awareness of HIV / AIDS and drugs. Out of school arts and sports programmes help combat social pressures that lead to substance abuse and crime. You will help this community-based initiative raise funds needed to continue and expand their work. Gain an insight into the challenges faced by urban communities in East Africa and learn how grass-roots organisations offer real opportunities and care for the children most in need, with minimal resources. Experience history, traditional Swahili culture and cosmopolitan Kenya in the nation's second largest city. Visit Haller Park, home to giraffe, hippo, crocodile, monkeys, antelope and giant tortoise.

How this program makes a difference:

The Olives Rehabilitation Center aims to provide under-privileged children with free education, taken for granted in developed nations. Critically the center provides lunch for the children; hunger is one of the most common reasons children fail to attend government schools. In a holistic approach the center offers counseling to children that come from broken or abusive homes or are orphaned, as well as to parents. Entirely reliant on independent donors to rent small, basic classrooms, and volunteer teachers, the center achieves remarkable results - children sponsored to go onto private mainstream education are typically within the top 10% of their class. The project delivers opportunities to children from disrupted home lives, supporting health and social awareness in an area with high HIV prevalence, prostitution and drug abuse, and limited access to health care. Volunteers not only make a direct contribution caring for and educating the children but increase the capacity of the center to improve facilities, programmes and funding.

Highlights:

-       Live changing experience caring for orphaned and vulnerable children

-       Support primary education and receive training in communicative teaching

-       Develop health, social and environmental awareness programs through arts and sports

-       Put your skills and experience to use improving facilities and resources or fund-raising

-       Live amongst, learn from and support Kenya’s urban impoverished communities

-       Explore Mombasa’s history, culture, beaches and nightlife