CHILDHOPE-ZAMBIA Community Volunteers

The following is what the volunteers will be doing;

• Promoting education, health and nutrition for Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) children and those attending primary school in order to improve health.
• Developing capacities of caregivers and teachers and improving parents, teachers and community members’ knowledge and practices on early childhood development and education (ECDE), primary education and health.
• Educating mothers on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding and the importance of growth monitoring.
• Delivering responsive early stimulation and viable nutrition practices through home visits for the children 0-2 years old.
• Identifying children and pregnant women with malnutrition or at risk of malnutrition and support them with targeted food and nutrition.
• Promoting Parent Support Groups (PSGs) to enable parents learn activities to play with their babies and toddlers, and discuss their children’s development, health, hygiene and responsive caregiving.
• Constructing Early Childhood Education learning centers, primary schools, play parks/ grounds and toilets and painting and renovating school buildings.
• Educating the children and their parents on the importance of hygiene.
• Availing common drugs to the children by working with the local health facilities.
• Sensitizing parents and other community members on the importance of ECDE, primary education and child health.
• Distributing teaching, learning and play materials and furniture to ECE centers and primary schools.
• Promoting hygiene literacy and practices and basic health services for children to control the spread of diseases among the children.
• Sensitizing parents and community members on disability and inclusive education and identifying, screening and enrolling children with disabilities into main stream.
• Providing assorted assistive technology to the children with disabilities to enable them attend school.
• Identifying the out-of-school children with collaborative families and bring them back into school especially the girls.
• Conducting community sensitization fora on-the-out-school children especially the girls to provide an opportunity for the community members to educate them on government education policies and improve their knowledge on plight of the out-of-school children.
• Promoting school feeding programme.
• Promoting sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS activities among the youth and adolescent girls.
• Promoting early reading skills for children in order to create early learning prospects among the children.
• Promoting combined early nutrition and stimulation in the first 1,000 days for the children 0-3 years old, this being the critical stage of child development, for the children to live and thrive.
• Establishing and promoting reading camps in the villages surrounding primary schools, income generating activities (IGAs) and Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLAs).
• Promoting schools and school communities WASH knowledge, skills and practices.
• Assisting community members to form breastfeeding support groups for mothers and other family members.
• Promoting school and community interactive education sessions on hygiene and sanitation.
• Conducting eye screening and dental services for the children in schools and community to promote eye health and improve oral health reduce pain, absences, and academic struggles caused by dental problems.