Sahil Khan, a Windsor Housing employee was granted the opportunity to partake in a ten week development internship volunteering in South Africa. Sahil spent time with a local family in a small rural town an hour outside of Cape Town to learn about South African culture and experience voluntary work with lots of local organisations, learning about issues in a developing country. The programme was organised by Platform2 and funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) to allow young people aged 18-25, who usually would not get the chance to volunteer abroad, to take part in a fully funded volunteer programme in a developing country and learn about development issues.

The programme currently operates in six countries including South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, India, Nepal and Peru and has funding to run the programme till 2011. Over its three years of operating it will have managed to send 2,500 18-25 year olds to volunteer abroad. Volunteers have the opportunity to live with local families in basic conditions and work within the local communities to learn about life and development issues in the country of their placement.

Sahil was part of group of 15 volunteers all aged 18-25 years old from across the UK, who went to volunteer in a small community of about 9,000 people in a village called Mamre an hour outside Cape Town.

“We lived with local families and worked with in the community to increase our knowledge of development issues, whilst using some of our expertise to help local residents. I used all the skills I learned doing community and youth work in the UK to help local people and organisations set up projects that help meet local needs.”

These projects included the Mamre Youth Enterprise, where Sahil helped a group of local young people aged 12-13 to set up their own social enterprise to learn business skills, whilst making money to help local causes. The young people bought baskets produced by a local voluntary group, decorated the baskets and baked cookies and cup cakes, which they sold for Easter and Mothers Day. The business proved to be very successful and profitable and money raised helped the local voluntary group, local businesses and the young people had enough left over to organise a day trip to the cinema, bowling alley and ice rink.

The Mamre Community Vegetable Garden was instigated by Sahil knocking on doors to learn if there was any waste ground fertile enough to cultivate. A very kind local resident agreed to let the UK volunteers use his very large and overgrown garden to start a community vegetable garden to grow fresh produce to share with the local soup kitchens. Members of the community agreed to help and offered a range of support including older members teaching younger people gardening skills, donating tools and seeds. The volunteers managed to clean the plot and fill two trucks with rubbish, dig a well and get the plot ready for the next group of volunteers to plant vegetables. The project has been a successful pilot and there is interest to replicate the model with other disused pieces of land in the area.

They also ran afterschool clubs at Mamre Primary School which included arts & crafts, drama, singing, music and sports. All the volunteers worked with Leef & Leid, a local voluntary group providing training and work opportunities for local people with disabilities and learning difficulties. The volunteers helped with marketing the group and developing new ideas to generate income and immersed themselves in all aspects of local life including helping at local youth clubs, attending local forums, work shadowing local MP’s and Councillors, attending local places of worship and regularly going to local rugby matches.

“I want to take this opportunity to thank Windsor Housing allowing me to take a sabbatical from work to participate in this life changing experience that really helped me learn lots about life in a developing country and the community work that is taking place there. I would especially like to thank the Community Development Team for encouraging me to apply for the programme and supporting me every step of the way. I really want to encourage people to look into Platform2 and apply for a place on the programme, as it is truly life changing. ” Sahil Khan.