“The iSimangaliso Wetland Park (formerly known as the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park) must be the only place on the globe where the oldest land mammal (the rhinoceros) and the world’s biggest terrestrial mammal (the elephant) share an ecosystem with the world’s oldest fish (the coelacanth) and the world’s biggest marine mammal (the whale)” – Nelson Mandela.

St. Lucia is situated within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a beautiful area that was declared as South Africa’s first Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and which is called by many “Africa’s premier bush-and-beach destination”. Encompassing almost half a million acres, it is a stunning and ecologically diverse area, where five different eco-systems join, and where you find savannahs, wetlands, swamps, beaches, and a great wealth of wildlife.

The area is home to the Zulu tribe; a group of people with a very lively and colourful culture. It is within this impressive setting, we offer you the opportunity to gain a unique insight into the rural South African medical field, and to make a positive impact on the local community through our specially structured Medical and community assistance programme.

Project Highlights:

• Gain basic medical experience in local clinics and on home based care with supervision from nurses and our staff.
• Help raise awareness on preventing the spread of the HIV / AIDS virus as well as on healthy living in the local community.
• Help with community assistance tasks, especially home-based care.
• Immerse yourself in local Zulu culture.
• Make friends for life, both with other volunteers and with those in the local community.

Project Achievements so far:

From January 2008 to May 2009 African Impact volunteers contributed over 580 hours to medical and clinic assistance in the St Lucia area of South Africa. Our project structures, together with the support and advice of our charitable foundation team at The Happy Africa Foundation, are continuously assessing our work and project strategies to ensure that these hours are meaningful with measurable outcomes.

Since working at the clinic, African Impact volunteers have taken the blood pressures, weights, and temperatures of hundreds of patients which assists the nurses to attend to the patients more quickly and be able to concentrate on more advanced treatment.

Volunteers have also visited over a hundred homes in the area to care for chronically ill or injured patients.  We have treated wounds and sores, delivered food parcels and vitamins to fortify nutrition, offered remedies to those who are ailing, and transported many to the local clinic.

More about our St. Lucia Medical Assistance Programme:

Location: St. Lucia, North East Coast of South Africa. A comfortable and charismatic town within walking distance of the beach.

Age Limit: Minimum 18 years, maximum decided on potential participants’ health.

Required Experience: For this project, no specific experience is required although any medical training/experience is useful.

Medical Assistance:

The clinics and caregivers are under-resourced and the help we provide is much needed. This project gives you the chance to gain invaluable medical experience whilst making a difference to people who need help.

As a volunteer you will spend your mornings based at a medical clinic or with a Home Carer out in the villages, helping sick people in their homes. The clinic is the first point of call for many people and is often very busy. The nurses struggle to consult all of the patients each day and the caregivers are limited on the number of patients they can visit in the community and the resources they have to help, so the help from volunteers is gratefully received. Volunteers will never be required to make decisions regarding patient treatments, but will be immeasurable in helping with basic medical tasks and providing improved care to people who need it.

You will build rewarding relationships with the nurses at the clinics. You may also spend time training the nurses to assist them with their paperwork, and recording the statistics of the clinic. This is a fantastic way to experience all aspects involved in running a rural clinic.

Some mornings you will also help Home Carers look after sick people in their homes. This may include helping around the patients house, preparing food, making sure patients are taking their medication, assisting with their medical care and helping them feel cared for by having visitors.  You will also give out much needed food and donations to these patients.

HIV/AIDS Education:

In St. Lucia’s local community, many myths about HIV/AIDS still prevail. A large percentage of local South Africans believe that the virus is a result of witchcraft, and people infected with it are often rejected from their own communities and families. As a result, many people who are infected do not admit to having the virus. Not many people know how to prevent infection, and even fewer people know how to deal with the virus once they have it.

Working together with our Volunteer Coordinator with experience in teaching this subject you will be involved in teaching adults and children about the virus. During your placement, you will visit both schools and community centres, and do the following:

• Explain, through a simple method approved by the UN what the HIV/AIDS virus actually is, and how it affects a human body.
• Educate people about how the virus is transmitted, and how infection can be prevented.
• Explain how, after infection, life can be prolonged through medication, healthy food, and a more healthy lifestyle.
• Be involved in an HIV Support Group to help people affected by the virus.

“Home based care was amazing, and was the project that I probably enjoyed the most. I felt privileged being able to see patients at home, and it was really rewarding when we could do something to help them. It was an absolutely fantastic experience.” Jenna Crook, UK.

Additional Community Projects:

Besides looking after orphaned children and raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS virus, you will be involved in the following community projects:

Clinic or Patient Home Refurbishment: The Clinic is in need of refurbishment. This run-down clinic sees over 100 patients per day. You will work with local people to fix the roofs, windows, and drainage, paint walls, put up shelving and storage units, and possibly build new walls and rooms.

Farming: To help encourage positive living, volunteers will help local people create and maintain vegetable patches.  These will supply people with much needed healthy food and encourage them to be more self sufficient for them and their family.  The farming activities may include digging, weeding, fencing, planting and watering. Watching the vegetables grow and be used by more and more people is a great way to make a difference.

English Reading Club (Optional): English is extremely important for children in Kwazulu Natal, as all high school lessons are taught in English. Many fail their tests because they do not fully understand the language.  To help high school children with their English volunteers are involved a Reading Club. It is a great fun way for the children to improve their English and much appreciated by the teachers and children to help with the communities’ education.

Project Cost:

2 weeks: GB£890 / 4 weeks: GB£1,360 / 6 weeks: GB£1,750 / 8 weeks: GB£2,140 / 10 weeks: GB£2,500 / 12 weeks: GB£2,855

Project Cost Includes:

• The project fee entails financing that goes directly back into the project that you are involved with. It facilitates funding for items such as medical supplies, building materials, equipment, etc.
• Transport between Richards Bay Airport and St. Lucia.
• Orientation programme.
• All daily transfers to and from your projects during your stay.
• Full board and lodging, which includes 3 meals a day at our volunteer house (except Sundays).
• Laundry service during your stay.
• Assistance at your projects by African Impact staff and volunteer coordinators.
• Any visits to other African Impact programmes based in St. Lucia.

Project Cost Excludes:

• Personal travel insurance for the duration of your placement, which must include cover for evacuation and repatriation. We recommend WorldNomads.com.
• All transport by air or bus to Richards Bay.
• All items of a personal nature, such as curios, gifts, clothing (work and other).
• E-mail / Internet and telephone calls.
• Soft drinks, wines and spirits.
• All visas for border crossings.
• Any excursions over-and-above your planned itinerary in St. Lucia (see below for more information on some of the great travel options available in and around the area you will be staying).

Project “Day in the life”:

Here is how a typical day in the life of a St. Lucia Medical Assistance and HIV/AIDS Education volunteer might take shape. Please note that your itineraries may differ from this, depending on your own experience and the number of other volunteers on the placement at the same time; this is simply to give an example:

• 07:00 – Get up, eat breakfast, and start getting ready to depart for your project.
• 08:15 – Depart for project.
• 09:00 – Start your work at the clinic or with a home carer.
• 12:00 – Lunch break. You will be picked up from the centre, and taken to your volunteer house, where lunch will be waiting for you.
• 14.00 – Start of your afternoon projects. You may be visiting schools or community centres to teach people HIV/AIDS awareness, or doing farming, painting or refurbishment activities to help the local community.
• 16.30 – End of the working day. You will be picked up from your project and taken home, where we clean tools, evaluate the day’s work and discuss the schedule for the next day, including preparing lessons for the next day.
• 18.00 – Dinner at your volunteer house. After dinner, you may wish to go for a few drinks in one of the local bars.

Project Orientation:

Upon arrival in St. Lucia you will have a comprehensive orientation programme, which is included in your fee. This is facilitated by your project volunteer coordinator and includes:

• An introduction to St. Lucia and the surrounding area.
• An overview of the Day Care Centre and some basic teaching skills to prepare and deliver lessons to the children.
• An introduction into the syllabus we use for HIV/AIDS education.
• An introduction and visit to the projects to see where you will be working.
• A basic language course. You will learn some basic words and sentences in Zulu, the local language in St. Lucia, so that you can communicate with people in their own language. In addition, you will learn some of the local cultural nuances
• At the orientation, you will also receive and be taken through our detailed “Welcome Pack”, which will contain further useful information for your time with us.

Project Support:

Throughout your placement you will have the support and guidance of our experienced Volunteer Coordinators. They are part of our greater African Impact support team, which will provide you with competent 24-hour field support and assistance.

Project Meals:

You will be provided with three meals a day except Saturday dinner and Sunday lunch. Our cook has Saturday evening and Sunday lunchtime off so we invite volunteers to try the local restaurants for dinner and there is a small supermarket and cafe available for lunch. Dinner costs around GB£ 5 – 7 so is very reasonably priced. Please allow for this in your budget.

Breakfast is on a help-yourself basis and usually consists of cereals, toast, tea and coffee. Lunch and dinner are full meals, and will be cooked for you by our cook at the volunteer house.

Project Accommodation:

During your placement, you will stay at our large and comfortable project house situated in the middle of St. Lucia. It is a fully furnished house with a large lounge, satellite television, barbeque area, garden, and a swimming pool. The house is staffed with cooks and laundry/cleaning ladies. All bedding is provided, so you will not need to bring a sleeping bag with you, although sometimes it is useful in the colder months (June – September) or if you are planning going on excursions. You will however need to bring your own towels please. You will be sharing a bedroom with one to four people. Members of our African Impact team will be staying on the same property, so that they are always available to assist you with any questions or issues you may have.

We find that volunteers living together and working closely together with their volunteer coordinators is the surest way of ensuring their safety, and of being able to attend to their most pressing needs. For this reason, we expect all volunteers to stay only in the accommodation provided for them and do not allow volunteers to spend nights away in the town or nearby villages, unless they are away on pre-arranged sightseeing excursions.

How to get there: We will meet you at the airport!

The nearest airport to St. Lucia is Richards Bay Airport, which is about a forty five minute drive from St. Lucia. There are daily flights from Johannesburg to Richards Bay and these can be booked online at www.flysax.com.

One of our representatives will meet you at the airport upon your arrival in Richards Bay. You will then be escorted to your volunteer base in St. Lucia.

10 Reasons to volunteer in St. Lucia at our Medical Assistance Project:

1. Become a source of love and encouragement – care for the many ailing people in the surrounding communities.
2. Share knowledge of health and medicine – and in exchange learn from the experiences of the local nurses.
3. Enlighten the local community – with life-saving information, such as HIV prevention and infant care.
4. Enable proper nutrition – deliver food parcels to those who need them most: the poor, the infirm, those on ARVs, and those who can otherwise not provide for themselves or their families.
5. Help improve clinic facilities – through refurbishment, farming and building we can improve the small local clinic offering better facilities to care for people.
6. Experience St. Lucia – with its remarkable proximity to the Indian Ocean and its beaches, the estuary and its countless hippos and crocodiles, and iSimangaliso Park and its collection of buffalo, rhino, leopard, and elephant.
7. Embrace the Zulu culture – sample Zulu cooking, taste the local beer, put your Zulu dancing skills to the test, and learn about their fascinating history and traditions.
8. Make friends for life – the people you meet and the experiences you share as volunteers will last a lifetime, transcending age nationality, and background.
9. Observe South Africa’s magnificent wildlife – see the Big 5 in their raw and natural habitats, and if you happen to be very lucky, witness the thrill of a lion hunt or the tenderness of a mother caring for her young.
10. When it’s time for you to go, leave Africa with a Zulu accent, countless photographs, and memories to last forever.

St. Lucia Medical Assistance and HIV/AIDS Awareness Project notes:

• We have found in the past that the more you as a volunteer put in to your involvement, the more you will get out. You are welcome to contact a member of staff to find out how you can best prepare for your stay to assist the local community.
• You will be living with the St. Lucia Photography & Conservation and Orphan Care & HIV/AIDS Awareness volunteers and the community sections are the same. You will thus be potentially working alongside them in the afternoons, depending on the need of the projects at the time.
• Please also understand that our projects are continuously evolving, being improved, and adapting to the needs of the local communities that we are involved with, so involvement areas do change from time to time. Rest assured your work will be necessary, rewarding and exciting. We invite you to be more than a tourist…

St. Lucia Travel Highlights:

These are not included in your volunteering fee, but our coordinators are able to assist you with making the necessary booking arrangements.

• Game drives in the beautiful Hluhluwe and Umfolozi National Parks.
• Visits to the beach, and snorkelling at Cape Vidal.
• Whale, dolphin, and sea turtle viewing (seasonal).
• Hippo and crocodile cruises on the St. Lucia Estuary.
• Weekend trips to the stunning Phinda Private Game Reserve, Kosi Bay or Mozambique.

Here is a guideline of the prices for some of the most popular activities, in South African Rands:

Hluhluwe National Park – SAR 725 (About GB£ 58).
Hippo and Crocodile River Cruise – SAR 130 (About GB£ 10)
Whale Watching – SAR 750 (About GB£ 60)
Mozambique dolphin swim (overnight)  – SAR 2000 (About GB£ 160)

(Based on exchange rate of GB£ 1 = 12.5 Rand).

Working with the Zulus, wouldn’t that be a tale to tell! Contact us today.