community outreach
STEP Africa Community Outreach
With our Outreach Program we focus on people and communities that are disadvantaged due to their family situation (e.g. single parents), economic situation or housing situation (especially in the rural areas of northern Tanzania) and do not have regular access to information services, medical care, counselling and further education as well as sports and team-building activities.
The aim of the outreach program is to mentor, educate, support, empower and initiate intercultural exchange. Our outreach programme actively involves international volunteers and is led by a team of qualified educators and social workers. The outreach program is open to all our volunteers and can be supported full time or on a day-to-day basis alongside another main project.
Below you can find an overview of our current programs.
Outreach Topics
- Environmental Education & Tree Planting
- Nutrition Workshops
- First Aid Training
- Business Training & Set-up
- HIV / Aids Awareness
- Workshop on Safe Birthing
- Family Planning
- Risks of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
- Rape Discussion and the risk of teenage pregnancies
- Puberty and personal and emotional development
- Community Health Days (health check-ups conducted by medical volunteers)
- Know your Rights & Self defense training
- Arts & Crafts at Pre-Schools in Maasai Land
- Sports & Games at rural public primary schools
- Painting / Decoration of classes
- Building of new classrooms for rural daycares
- Construction of rain water harvest systems
Here's how the Outreach Program works
Even though our outreach program takes place in the rural areas around Arusha, as an outreach volunteer you will live together with all other STEP volunteers in one of our two volunteer houses or in a host family. The outreach programme is divided into preparation days and ‘field days’, during which you travel out to the areas of operation together with Juma and Nancy. Preparation always takes place on Mondays and Tuesdays, where, in addition to general information and special features of the respective projects, the content of the topics to be presented is worked on further. We have saved our preparation materials online so that everyone can benefit from the knowledge and preparatory work of former participants.
The field days (Wednesday to Friday) then consist of various elements. Some are lectures and workshops on various topics, which are presented by the outreach team and developed together with the students or women’s groups, while others are action days on which the target groups are actively encouraged to participate through games and sports, counselling services, environmental campaigns, craft days and more. When planning the content of the outreach programme, we always take into account the qualifications, experience and ideas of our volunteers.
The journey to the outreach projects takes place in a hired bus and usually takes 1-2 hours. Some destinations that are very remote cannot be reached during the rainy season. It is always an adventure!
"Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much."
Juma Amuko
