Creative Arts and Expression Educator Volunteer – Desert Voicebox, Saharawi Refugee Camps

Desert Voicebox is an after-school English and creative arts programme run by Sandblast, a UK human rights and arts charity, in the Boujdour refugee camp in southwest Algeria. Creativity sits at the heart of the programme and reflects the Saharawi people's own deep tradition of artistic and cultural expression. This role brings that dimension to life.

We are looking for a Creative Arts and Expression Educator to design and lead workshops for primary school-aged children across areas such as music, visual art, dance, theatre, photography, movement, or performance. Workshops should support children's creativity, confidence, emotional expression, teamwork, and imagination, adapted to a low-resource, cross-cultural setting where resourcefulness is essential.

Workshop delivery takes place for three to four hours per day, two days a week. On the remaining programme days, volunteers support the music teachers and wider Desert Voicebox team with planning, preparation, and classroom assistance. You will work closely with local teachers throughout, and are encouraged to share methods and approaches they can continue using after your placement ends.

Past volunteers have led projects including art from trash workshops using recycled materials found in the camps, movement and performance workshops combining theatre games and basic acrobatics, and photography workshops exploring storytelling and low-resource film-developing techniques. We welcome practitioners from any creative discipline and encourage you to bring your own ideas.

Placements are available from approximately 15 October 2026 through 1 June 2027. A minimum commitment of one month is required, with longer stays of up to three to four months possible depending on programme needs and fit.

Candidate profile

Candidates should have strong skills and formal training, or serious equivalent experience, in at least one creative field, alongside at least two years of experience leading creative workshops for children. Fluent English is essential; Spanish is a useful additional asset. Experience in low-resource or non-traditional settings is important, as is the ability to plan and adapt activities independently without relying on materials that may not be available. We are looking for someone who is warm, adaptable, genuinely at ease with children, and motivated by collaboration and knowledge sharing rather than simply delivering a set of workshops.

What we offer

Sandblast covers accommodation and food for up to one month and provides in-country transport between the local airport and the refugee camps. Volunteers are responsible for their own international flights. Accommodation costs beyond the first month are estimated at approximately £400 per month