VOLUNTEERandE

Experiential Education and Service Learning
In Cape Town

Since 1997 SAEP has provided experiential education and service learning opportunities in Cape Town for volunteers and interns from South Africa and abroad. Participants in our programs have contributed to educational and socio-economic development in the township communities of Cape Town through working in early childhood development, high school academic support and enrichment, the arts, environmental education, and a wide range of support activities from repair and construction of pre-school buildings to fundraising and NGO administration.

In 2006 we launched under the aegis of SAEP a Center for Innovative Education and Community Service to expand and improve opportunities for undergraduates and recent graduates to gain valuable experience while contributing to educational improvement, youth leadership development, and environmental awareness and activism in the communities we serve. We did this in large part because of the increased interest on the part of US colleges and universities in providing learning experiences abroad that include a substantial element of public or community service along with, and ideally related to, academic studies and research.

We are exploring partnerships and other collaborative relationships with colleges and universities in Cape Town and internationally in developing model programs for service learning and post-graduate career development. Our experience and strong ties in the schools and communities provides us with a unique platform for hands-on involvement in education, community development, and NGO management of development programs.

SAEP’s programs are managed by Jane Keen, a social worker (degree in social work from the University of Cape Town) with twenty-five years experience in social work in Cape Town, including child welfare, street children, and domestic violence, and Norton Tennille, a former environmental lawyer and Rhodes Scholar from the US who founded SAEP in 1994. Jane is the Director of SAEP and responsible for the early childhood development (ECD) program. Norton is Executive Director of SAEP’s US 501(c)(3) organization and supervises the high school, gap year, volunteer, and environmental programs. Jane and Norton are supported by two paid staff members, Asanda Lugalo, manager of the high school, volunteer, and environmental programs, and Phozi Alfred-Egwu, office administrator.

Types of volunteer/internship experiences we offer

"Summer" internships. Since 1997 we have hosted undergraduates who have joined us during the North American summer vacation (late May to August). While most have come from the US (including, recently, Duke, Emory, Grinnell, Swarthmore, Harvard, and St. John’s, Annapolis), we have had summer interns from the UK (including Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh), various continental European countries, and other countries around the world. Given the short term (two to three months) of these stays, the resources required to support them, and the amount of orientation required to integrate participants into ongoing programs, we have increasingly treated these internships as an experiential learning experience with a volunteer component and seek financial support from the volunteers or their funders in covering the costs of this program.

"Long-term" volunteers (recent graduates or undergraduate who want to take a gap year or semester off). Given the need for volunteers who can work with us for at least half of the school year, we increasingly seek volunteers/interns who can join us full-time for six to twelve months. We have two such volunteers on our staff at this time, one a recent graduate of the University of Cape Town and the other a 2005 graduate of Bowdoin College. The former is developing our Arts Programme, while the latter is managing our “gap year” internship program for recent high school graduates. We hope over the next few years to increase significantly the number of such volunteers from South Africa and abroad. We are especially interested working with career development offices in placing recent graduates who wish to spend up to a year in community service or explore careers in international development, NGO management, education, social work, and other careers.

Volunteers who are studying at the University of Cape Town (UCT) or other local universities. This constitutes in numbers the largest group of our volunteers. They include two different categories of student:

Ø South African full-time students at UCT who volunteer in the afternoons and/or on weekends. Many make a sustained commitment and work with us over three or four years of their undergraduate careers. Most of them work through the UCT student service organizations with which we partner, including some we helped establish, including the Township Debating League, The Media School (journalism), TeachOut (academic tutoring), PracSci (science practicals in the high schools), the UCT Mountain and Ski Club (hiking and mountaineering), and others.

Ø International students (including full-time students from US universities studying for a semester or two at UCT). These students are usually carrying full academic loads and unable or unwilling to give more than one afternoon a week. Since the UCT term starts up only six weeks after the high school term has begun in January, they are rarely able to make a sustained contribution to our programs. They do not receive any course credit, and their volunteering is typically in no way related to or coordinated with their formal academic programs. They generally become involved through one of our UCT partner organizations rather than directly with SAEP.

Our objective with respect to international students studying full time for a term or year at UCT is to develop partnerships with their home institutions to provide a service learning experience that would be an integral part of their academic program, require a significant commitment of time, and for which they would receive academic credit.

Student placements (e.g., social work). This term Jane is supervising for five months two social work students, each of whom is doing a placement required by their academic programs. One is a master’s student from the University of Tennessee: Knoxville, the other a fourth-year undergraduate from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. Both are working in the pre-school support program. We believe student placements at SAEP offer excellent opportunities for those required to do a long placement to satisfy their degree requirements.

Short-term (1-3 week) Service Projects. Three or four times a year, we host small groups that are with us from one to three weeks to do a special project, such as working with a group of high school students, working with the staff of the pre-schools we support, or helping in repair or construction of classroom facilities for a preschool. A major project of this type is under way at the moment staffed by a group of technical students from the Netherlands supported by a grant from the Dutch government.

Other short-term involvements. There are two:

Ø Supervision of SIT students. Every term Jane supervises one or more students in a three-week intensive research project under contract with the School for International Training (SIT).

Ø "Very short-term" volunteers. Occasionally we have volunteers who wish to join us for varying periods of time, which could be from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Most, but not all, of them come from the US, Germany, and the Netherlands. We do not generally encourage such volunteers, given the amount of time it takes to involve them in our programs. We treat such involvement, where we allow it, as an educational experience for which we make a charge.

Future directions

Service learning for “in term” international volunteers. As noted above, international volunteers who are studying at UCT do not provide consistently valuable support in our programs because of their limited time commitment and the lack of a link between volunteering and their academic programs. SAEP would like to work with students for whom an internship with us is an integral part of their experience studying abroad. Service learning is a major focus of our efforts to develop partnerships with institutions that wish to provide such an experience for their students studying in South Africa. We have the flexibility to develop creative programs suited to the needs of each.

Long-term volunteers/interns/fellows. The Community Service component of the Center we are developing is designed to provide the infrastructure for experiential learning, community service, and community-based research for recent graduates of South African or international colleges and universities. Our objective is to provide opportunities for recent graduates to explore career alternatives in education, community development, international development, and other areas while making a significant contribution to the communities we serve. Our major potential partners in this regards are career/placement offices, community/public service offices, and graduate programs at US colleges and universities.

Sustainability of SAEP programs. SAEP must find the funds, through fundraising, partnerships, “user charges,” or other means, to support the work we do, which both delivers services to our township beneficiaries (pre-schools, high schools, and “gap year” interns) and provides a unique educational experience for the volunteers/interns who participate. Our basic costs include office rental, supervisory staff, computer equipment and maintenance, telephone and internet access, transport to the townships and for activities, books, publications, and other educational materials.

Long-term relationships with US colleges and universities. We hope partnerships with tertiary institutions in the US will be an important dynamic in our new Center. We believe our experience over the last ten years working in the Cape Town townships -- and our involvement in education, environment, social work, youth development, community development, and international development -- enables SAEP to offer a unique partnership in experiential education, service learning, and career development to US colleges and universities and their students.

For further information, contact Norton Tennille at norton.tennille@gmail.com or Jane Keen at janekeen@worldonline.co.za .