Volunteers are essential to Umoja. Volunteers raise much-needed money for operational costs, help out with administrative tasks, manage the website, co-ordinate our Youth Sponsorship Programme and teach. They play an incredibly important role in ensuring Umoja’s ability to provide free education to the disadvantaged youth of Tanzania.

Once at the centre, volunteers may be asked to undertake a variety of tasks, and at times hold multiple roles simultaneously. It is often busy, and volunteers will need to be flexible and have an ability to multitask and prioritise. As with any job it can be stressful or frustrating, but ultimately volunteering at Umoja is incredibly rewarding and worthwhile. You will be reminded every single day of the difference you are making.

There is free accommodation on the site for full time volunteers. Live-in volunteers work fulltime (8:30am to 5pm, with a half hour lunch break) and are asked to stay for a minimum of two months.

Accommodation here is relatively basic, but volunteers have their own bedroom plus a shared living room, electricity, hot water, Western-style flushing toilet, fridge, oven, stove, cutlery and crockery. The living quarters may be shared, depending on the numbers of volunteers we have, and the kitchen is shared.

Lunch is provided on work days for live-in volunteers, but the volunteer will need to provide his/her own breakfast, dinner and food on weekends.

The centre is a short ride into Arusha town on the 'dala-dala' (minibus) which is a tourist centre right in the middle of safari country. Mt Kilimanjaro is just an hour away and the only slighter lower mountain Meru towers over the town. So there will be opportunities to include adventurous tourism in your Tanzanian itinerary.

Current opportunities

IT Teacher and Website Manager

A person with IT experience is needed to teach our IT classes, update our website, and troubleshoot for the computers at the Centre.

Tasks:

- Teach beginner and intermediate IT classes. Knowledge of Microsoft Office programmes essential

- Update the Umoja website (using Joomla platform)

- Regular maintenance and problem-solving for the students’ computers as well as the staff computers

Grants Officer

This role involves securing grant funding for the Centre. Good written English skills are essential and previous experience would be useful.

Tasks:

- Researching trusts, foundations and organisations that offer grants or funding we are eligible to apply for.

- Writing proposals and applications.

- Updating the Grants and Research databases

Youth Sponsorship Coordinator

This role involves liaising with, and is the link between, the students and their sponsors.

Tasks:

- Securing sponsors for each of our students

- Sending regular newsletter updates from our students to the sponsors

- Passing on correspondence from sponsors to the students

- Hold ‘letter-writing’ classes with the students when they write letters to their sponsors

- Sending ‘thank-you’ emails to new sponsors

Volunteer Coordinator

This role involves being responsible for the coordination of our international volunteers.

Tasks:

- Liaising with the Ujamaa Hostel, where many of our part-time volunteers come from

- Communicating with current and potential volunteers and coordinating their tasks and schedule

- Organising tuition for the students who need extra support

- Updating the volunteer database

- Managing the Umoja profiles on websites where we have accounts (e.g. betterplace.org, idealist.org) and keeping them up-to-date

In addition, volunteers will have the opportunity to teach English and teach an extracurricular club (clubs currently taught by volunteers are art, music and newspaper). Volunteers may also be asked to take on additional administrative tasks such as report writing, filing, and updating databases.

If you are able to fulfil one or more of the above roles, or have other skills that you can offer, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Likewise, if you are flexible, easygoing, happy to learn new things, have good written and oral English skills and want to change a few lives, do get in touch!

For more information on The Umoja Centre or volunteering, please contact our Programme Manager, Caroline Goody: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

You can also download our volunteer manual here.