UGANDA: Volunteer Programs for High School Students

Ssamba Foundation, a community based development organization in Mukono district, Uganda, offer volunteer abroad programs for high school students.

Ssamba Foundation recruits and places foreign high school students as volunteers with small community based projects and schools around Uganda. Through our volunteer abroad programs for high school students, we aim to build the capacities of local projects and raise awareness around the world about the successes and challenges of life in Uganda

The Projects:

Many local community development projects lack the money and skills to grow themselves. We hope that with our volunteer abroad programs for high school students in place, our projects will overcome some of the more serious challenges they face.

These include: lack of money for operations (wages, office space, transport, training courses), lack of skills (book keeping, marketing, strategy, grant writing), and lack of up to date knowledge (Counseling/mentoring skills, English language, HIV/AIDS and life skills information).

Our Program:

Ssamba Foundation offers a safe and family-like environment in which to come to Uganda and give your time. We offer pre-arrival support by answering your questions about Uganda and by finding a project that best fits your skills and interests.

We offer in-country assistance by collecting you from the airport, getting you to your placement, and unravelling some of the more complicated cultural issues you face when entering Uganda for the first time.

It is not easy to come to a completely foreign culture on your own. We want to be there to give you encouragement, advice, and support in order for you to be most effective while you are here.

Volunteering Life:

While working with us, volunteers learn about the real situation at the grassroots level in Uganda. Life in Uganda is tough for everyone, not just HIV/AIDS patients, orphans and refugees.

Wages are low, corruption is rampant, and education is not universal. In spite of this, Ugandans are some of the most welcoming, friendly, and open people in Africa.

Volunteers become part of the family, learning about the local culture: how to cook, how to speak the language, how to sit peacefully with their neighbors and talk about life in general.

We hope that volunteers take that knowledge home with them, spreading the word about Ugandan development issues and culture around the world.

If you can spare a month, we will find you volunteer work with projects based in Mukono and other districts around the country. Our organization provides primary and secondary education to needy children, youth mentoring, community outreach and counseling.