Community Outreach Roundtrip

• You will spend 2 and half weeks in Knysna, helping with our community outreach projects 
• Enjoy our beautiful beaches, turquoise lagoon and indigenous forests 
• Be part of a close-knit welcoming community 
• Knysna is full of restaurants and coffee shops; and has a vibey marina with great shops 
• The area offers every activity you can think of, including hikes, boat trips, animal experiences, sky diving, the highest bridge bungee jump in the world and shark cage diving which you will have the opportunity to do if you are brave enough 
• You can also extend your time volunteering in between the Cape Town and Addo Trips.
  

Our TB Screening South Africa Project uses a non-invasive questionnaire based method to identify people who are presenting symptoms of TB and refer them to local health clinics.

With the assistance of our volunteers we go house-to-house and conduct a questionnaire – if it is apparent that someone is potentially infected with TB we provide them with a referral letter and advise them to visit a local health clinic for formal testing and treatment where necessary.

House-to-house screening is considered by the World Health Organisation to be a highly effective method for active case finding.

Please note: This project is carried out within the general population – it is not specifically aimed at people with TB and therefore there is no increased risk of contracting TB.

This community volunteer project focuses on an ongoing Community Survey. This survey is aimed at giving us a better understanding of how the local people feel about their community; as well as highlighting issues that our projects are already tackling and areas where we may be able to develop new projects.

Volunteers go house-to-house and conduct questionnaires. The content of the questionnaires varies depending on the current aims of the project.

Through this project we have been able to gain insight into unemployment rates; living conditions and access to services; skills that local people have; projects/classes that locals are interested in; and animal welfare issues.

Volunteer for Elderly residents who live at a care home in Knysna, South Africa. This project is aimed at providing company and support to the residents of a local old age centre.

Our volunteers provide an opportunity for residents to enjoy a range of different programs, including exercise programs, arts and craft activities, group games, story reading, gardening and more! They especially love a game of bingo and making cards for their loved ones.

Through this project we are able to keep the residents mentally and physically active, provide them with emotional support, and provide an opportunity for many hours of fun they otherwise wouldn’t have. Many of the residents do not have family members that visit often. Not only do we help to break up some of the long days but it is a great opportunity for cultural exchange.

Help us run a project teaching kids the value of looking after their community and the concept of using recycling to meet their immediate needs through a recycling exchange incentive scheme. Our swop shop also creates an effective means of cleaning up the local environment.

Local children collect plastic, paper, tins and glass which they bring once a week to the Swop Shop. Their recycling is weighed by EDGE of AFRICA volunteers and depending on the amount and type of recycling the child receives a certain amount of points which they can then spend in the ‘Swop Shop’.

The shop is filled with clothes, toiletries, toys & stationery (and the list goes on!) all donated by Knysna locals and International volunteers. There is no money involved in this scheme and the Recycling Swop Shop is entirely reliant on donations and volunteer participation.

The recycling that is collected through this project is put to good use, for example we use 2 litre plastic bottles to create eco-friendly greenhouses (see our Food Security Project); and we are developing a business empowerment project that will employ local people to create functional products out of “waste” materials!

Our Food Security Project is aimed at providing locals with the assistance and education that they need in order to be able to grow food for themselves and their families.

The current focus of this project is to assist community members in building eco-friendly greenhouses. There has been a constant battle with developing vegetable gardens that are exposed to local animals in the informal areas of our Knysna Community. There is also an on-going problem that 2 L plastic bottles block drainpipes causing many houses and streets to flood. In order to tackle these issues we began constructing greenhouses using a wooden frame (making use of alien wood wherever possible) and rows of 2 litre plastic bottles (collected via our Recycling Swop Shop and through local competitions).

We have begun by creating greenhouses at local schools, both to assist the schools in providing food for their students and also to serve as prototypes for the wider community. Our long term goal is to assist individuals in creating their own greenhouses and to develop opportunities for food exchange and business empowerment opportunities.

We also run our “Ipana Banye” (“sharing together”) project once a week, where we prepare and distribute nutritious soup. Each week we rotate around different areas of our local community to try to reach as many people as possible.

Volunteer with Teenagers through our weekly Support Group. This project is aimed at providing local teenagers with an opportunity to discuss and learn about issues important to them; and to build their self-esteem through positive reinforcement.

This is an 8-part workshop covering the following topics:

• Bullying
• Peer Pressure & Gangs
• Body image, Self-esteem & Puberty
• Relationships & Sex (2 parts)
• Effects of alcohol
• Communication skills
• Personal Development

As well as discussing these important topics we also encourage the participants to set personal goals and to consider how the choices they make affect their ability to achieve their goals. Many of the children we work with come from backgrounds that aren’t always able to provide the direction that they need to lead the best life possible. We hope that through our workshops we inspire the children we work with to make responsible decisions and be the best they can be!

These workshops are aimed at local children aged 12-18 years old and play an important role in the fight against the HIV epidemic.

In Sub-Saharan Africa nearly 1 in 20 adults are living with HIV and this region accounts for 71% of the people living with HIV Worldwide. Around 29.5% of South Africa’s population is infected with HIV.

Through our years of experience of working with children in Knysna’s township areas it has become increasingly apparent that although many of the children have heard about HIV/AIDS, their understanding is very minimal.

Our fun and interactive workshops cover all aspects of HIV/AIDS & TB:

• How HIV/AIDS works and the facts about transmission
• The link between HIV/AIDS & TB
• Prevention
• HIV testing and treatment
• Effects of prejudice

In order to assess the effectiveness of our workshops, participating children complete a short quiz before they begin the workshops and the same quiz after they have finished the workshops.