Volunteering opportunities: Make a sustainable difference
Kayamandi township; Image credit: Lily Pace, Warwick in Africa Student Volunteer 2018
The Warwick Laksh Programme
What is The Warwick Laksh Programme?
The Warwick Laksh Programme aims to offer a sustainable route out of poverty for children in rural Haryana, India by combining the talents of Warwick students with the vision of the Laksh Foundation and their teaching centres.
The Laksh Foundation began ten years ago as a small NGO, organic farm and women's sewing co-operative. In time, it also started to offer free education to the children of local farmworkers, offering a way for them to improve their lives. Warwick has worked with The Laksh Foundation since the start, and have helped to shape their teaching programmes over time, sending groups of students each year to live and work at the Foundation during the summer. Warwick's student volunteers work with the Foundation's teachers, holding daily workshops aiming to strengthen and improve their knowledge of English and Maths, and demonstrate new pedagogies to use in the classroom.
The Programme's approach has proven to be sustainable, and has seen a significant rise in student numbers and an improvement in results, with 85% of their learners in 10th standard passing their end of year exams in 2018 (The Warwick Laksh Programme Impact Report, 2018).
How do I get involved?
Application for the 2020 Warwick Laksh Programme is now open (exact dates of the placements to be confirmed). Please see here for the job description, person specification, FAQs and the application form. A Learn About Laksh event is also being held on Wednesday 30 October 2019 from 1pm-2pm in the Social Sciences Building, Room S0.18, where you can find out more about the programme, how to apply and be inspired to make a difference.
Warwick in Africa
What is Warwick in Africa?
Warwick in Africa combines the talents of Warwick students and staff with the talents of local teachers, learners and corporate volunteers. Together, the aim of the programme is to improve the knowledge, motivation and ambition for children in their partner schools across Africa. The programme has grown from a small pilot in 2006 to a multi-layered project now working in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania.
In 2018, 67 Warwick Student Volunteer Teachers delivered Maths and English lessons to over 15,000 learners, with 28 secondary schools involved in the programme. The programme also offered professional training and professional development support to 700 local teachers.
The work to date has proven to be sustainable, with a significant increase in academic results; in 2018 average test results increased from 40% to 59% after just six weeks of teaching (Warwick in Africa Impact Report, 2018). Returning to many of the same schools year after year also ensures that the impact is sustainable.
Liberal Arts Volunteers
Students and staff from the Liberal Arts Department have previously taken part in the Warwick in Africa programme, and have found it to be a transformative experience.
Warwick in Africa 2019
This summer, one of our final year students, Virág Bélavári, who is studying a Sustainable Development and Education Policy Pathway on her degree, spent 6 weeks teaching English in a rural secondary school in Mtwara, Tanzania. Find out more about her time spent teaching here.
Warwick in Africa 2018
In 2018, Marco Casanova, a first-year student at the time, worked as a Volunteer Teacher in Agona East, Ghana. Dr Kirsten Harris also took the opportunity to get involved, collaborating with South African Lead Teachers to deliver a professional development workshop for English teachers in the Soweto area. Read more here.
How do I get involved?
Please visit the Warwick in Africa site for information about the role. Applications for Warwick in Africa's Summer 2020 programme (exact dates of placements to be confirmed) will open on Monday 4 November 2019. The deadline for applications is Sunday 12 January 2020.
