Program Reviews

Time: 5 weeks

#teaching #freetime activities

Highlight:
THE PEOPLE and the kids

e.g.: the lessons- when they've been able to solve a difficult math exercises by singing the numbers and when they noticed there's no point to be scared of that pushes them and they exceed through exercised which they didn't expect to solve

the love- South Africa shows you, the kids do and the people do without a reason there's just love and good vibe and all this positivity pushes you over all your limits

Difficulties:
Using one and the same transparency again and again
the hygienic condition of their school toilets (sad)

I've made many experiences in my life,
I've met many people in my life,
I've visited many different countries in my life,
but there have been nothing which is special enough comparing to the SAVE project. This experience changed my life and since then it gave me this magic click and there's nothing which I am more thankful for...

Thank you Save Project and Salty Crax
for this beautiful time
Nevina from Kapstadtmagazin

Last year I spent 4 weeks at Elundini project in Dunoon with my daughter. From the picking up from the airport until we left we felt very welcome and experienced a lot of support from the staff. Working at the project is one of the best things I ever did in my life. The women are so warm and the children are so pure. Even with little things you really make a difference for them.
The reason we've chosen SAVE is that the money that's left over goes to the projects. So you help with your time and with some money. While we were there SAVE introduced a townshiptour. You can see how life is in one of the poorest parts of Dunoon, visit the church, learn some Xhosa, cook at a home. It's very impressive and by doing it you are supporting the people.
The social events with the volunteers were Always great, so were the braais verytime new volunteers arrived. Since I'm 55 I didn't join the others in the nightlife, but I never felt standing outside the group.
We liked it so much we'll be going this year again and I can't wait!!

Early mornings during the week spent meeting up with leaders and heading to programs. A bus ride that always turned into fun with singing and jokes took us to do the most rewarding work I've ever done. The people we encountered were amazing (the kids AND the volunteers)! Nights were spent making friends, enjoying the nightlife, and exploring. Never felt unsafe and there was always someone to spend time with!

Highlights: backpacker's pets, braai nights (like a cookout), and the amazing friends I made that are still my friends to this day.

I LOVE SAVE!!!

Had an awesome time working with all the kids and teaching them English, swimming and surfing. Teaching the kids another language improves their chances of a better life and teaching them how to swim and surf keeps them from the streets and gives them a good time. Also you get the chance to meet a lot of new people from all over the world and have the time of your life.

Save is a really well organized organization which offers lots of different programs including programs with animals and people. I did the surfing project in July and August and even though the weather was not that good to do surfing with the kids I still had an amazing time.
In the mornings you will spend time on the creches with younger kids or at the computer classes doing maths with older kids and in the afternoon you'll do surfing or swimming with the older kids. Before I came here I had never done surfing and thanks to the surfing lessons I got (for free) I know the basics. So surfing skills are not required!
Volunteering for SAVE is more than just volunteer work. You'll meet lots of people from different countries who wanna go out, do day trips and like spending time together. You'll make friends for life and most of them will come back to SA, and so will I!

Me and my girlfriend have volunteered at this program for three weeks last february (2013). We worked at a creche to teach the little kids there some English. We had a great time there and at the end of the week we could really see that they picked up what we taught them (how to introduce themselves).

We like to think we made a little impact in their lives, but they definately made a huge one in ours. SAVE really let us bring our own ideas into the program and gave us the responsibility of educating the kids on a day-to-day basis. There was a creche leader there who unfortunately didn't speak English but was very helpful with handeling the kids and looking after the youngest ones.

We had awesome experiences with the kids like taking them to the beach (they had only been there once before) and taking kids from a settlement to a birthday party.
The other volunteers and the people from SAVE were really great. They helped us when we needed them and they provided fun nights out with the other volunteers like bowling night and barbecues.

Sometimes there were little problems like who was going to drive or which people would help at which creche but we really admired how the SAVE people handled things and made sure everybody was happy. This is a great program and a great experience. We want to go back a.s.a.p., if you are thinking about doing it, you should.

I had an amazing time working SAVE, specifically on the Dunoon program where I assisted in teaching children English which was a very rewarding experience. The children are great and the program is really well put-together. I would recommend anyone who is interested in doing meaningful volunteer work while making new friends to join a SAVE program!