Volunteer at a School in Rural South Africa and Change Lives

I am currently privileged to be at Tshega for six months and am enjoying this time to the fullest. The people there are a true example to me in terms of joy and contentment. Through the outreach program, I gain profound insights into the local life and culture. It is incredibly beautiful to bring a smile to the children's faces, to give love, and to spend time with them. The entire TCM team is a great role model for me in terms of their loving and appreciative interactions with one another, and I am experiencing a special spiritual enrichment in my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In addition to these experiences, I have the opportunity to explore the country with its beautiful nature and unique wildlife through various excursions.
I came to serve, and I will definitely leave feeling enriched.

Wonderful people in a wonderful and very important program. I realy loved to work with this guys and enjoyed to be a blessing for them. The program works only with volunteers, so you need to go there. It was so nice to see the children smiling and making fun with them. Education for them is a solution for the hole situation in the village and worthy to support with money or your precens. It is also very cool to have so many different ways to help and be a part of TCM. I will go there again in the future.

I absolutely loved how free we could be to really expand ourselves.
Everyone is so kind and encouraging , open to suggestions and ideas.
Working with the Team at Tshega gave me a sense of belonging and I do plan to return and give more of my time to the children of our future South Africa.

As a woman in a male dominated world myself, getting to know the Basadi ladies and their vision to become independant women has touched me deeply.
I will be assisting wherever I can as Tshega has touched me I would like to extend my hand to reach further and together we can create a brighter future for all to blossom

The entire team at Tshega Missions were incredibly helpful, and made settling in as a volunteer so easy. Their excellent integration of the volunteer program into their projects made sure that as a volunteer I felt both useful and valued, and I'm really pleased to say that I feel like I have helped them in making a great contribution to this community, as this is a community where even the smallest change can make a profound impact.
Marina, the volunteer coordinator, and Ellanie, the project founder, made sure that the volunteer's experiences were always positive, right from the moment we were welcomed to the project by the lovely children of the Lighthouse Academy.
They also ensured we had a wonderful time during our time off, as we enjoyed the swimming pool at the volunteer house, weekly evening trips to town in Tzaneen, as well as incredible weekend trips, including an amazing day at a local wildlife conservation centre with some young lions, as well as a truly incredible safari in Kruger National Park.

Tshega South Africa is an excellent programm which is supporting the community of Fobeni Village in a way of partnership to improve sustainable development.
The focus of the Programm consits of education,health and income for disadvantaged families and children.
The staff is using resourrces and skills which are already there.
As a Volunteer I could bring my own thoughts and ideas in and was feeling part of the Tshega family.
Because of the different programms I could have an input in several fields.
(School, social work, health prevention, youth work, handcraft...)
The support from the staff members to help me settle in was awsem, they really became friends.
The work with the children made my stay very special because I could see and hear from them the real African culture.
If you want to look inside Africa and outside of the tourism picture?
Than you are right at Tshega Christian Mission South Africa!
Cant wait to be there again :)

I did the volunteering program of Tshega Christian Missions during August and September 2014. From Monday to Tueasday we went to the the Lighthouse Acadamy and Lamb's Haven Kindergarten, what is the "main" project of Tshega. There we supported the children from Grade R up to Grade 3 during the classes and helped the weaker ones in reading and writing.
There are also 3 Outreaches in which the vonunteers are included. The first one ist Sara's Pirmary,a public School. At Sara's we had to teach the children of grade 1,2 and 3, because they don't learn that much from their teachers. So all the children were always really happy, when we learned with them!
The second outreach program is the disability centre. There we played, danced, painted, read... with the disabled children.
The last Outreach is the feeding scheme. The children can go there after School to get a warm meal by two ladies who cook for them. After lunch we volunteers did homework with them or played with them outside.
I really had fun with the children and all the members of Tshega. Everyone is so friendly, that you always feel very welcome and also "needed". And the most amazing thing is, that you really can recognize that your help is worth it. You can see an improvement and the children are really willing to learn something.

On the Weekends we always did great excursions. Marina, the volunteer manager, always brought us to very nice places. We did a Panorama tour in the mountains, visited Baby lions and tigers, went to the Kruger Nationalpark and so much more.

For me the volunteer project of Tshega Christian Missions was a really, really good decision. I learned so much about their culture, their way of living and I got so many new impressions. I really felt like beeing a part of a family with the other volunteers, because I got along very well with all the others.

I was overwhelmed by the work of the whole Tshega Team under the leadership of Ellanie van Royen. Everyone does a great job in the kindergarten and school and cares about the people in the villages. Tshega offers a much better education than the government school system to help children to escapes the circle of later unemployment and poverty.