Many of our volunteers find that their teaching schedules and highly-respected standing in local communities allow them to commit themselves to undertakings far beyond the classroom.  We encourage you, in consultation with our community special projects guidelines, to seek and create these opportunities, which often lead to a deeper cross-cultural experience.

Below are several projects developed by WorldTeach volunteers around the globe.  Feel free to use their stories as your inspiration, or transform your own passion into a special project!

Books & Libraries  |  Building Improvements  |  Technology  |  Communication  

Educational Empowerment  |  Environment  |  Arts & Music  |  Public Health  |  Sports

Katie built a library for her school in Ningyuan, from getting book donations to decorating the walls. She and the other foreign English teachers at her school collaborated with the Charlotte-based Echo Foundation and Charlotte-area high schools to gather 1300 books. ABX Logistics, a shipping company, transported the books to China for free. Katie and the foreign teachers then purchased comfortable furniture, set up two long discussion tables, made a reading nook in the corner of the room, set up a music station with a CD player and speakers, and painted the doors. To top it all off, they hung large National Geographic maps and 40 framed quotes from classic literature on the walls.

Ann Pullum, Costa Rica Summer volunteer
At a rural school in the Telesecundaria program, "Anita" organized parents in the community to build the school's first library. In addition, she put together a computer room and had her students paint the entire school building.

Sara McClellan, Guyana Year volunteer
When Sara returned home to Massachusetts to teach 5th grade, she made sure to keep her connection to Guyana alive by establishing a pen-pal relationship between her old and new students. Two of her 5th graders soon came up with the idea of a book drive to benefit their penpals at the Port Kaituma School in Guyana. Each child in the 5th grade agreed to donate a book that she or he had finished reading at home. A local bank donated money for shipping the 360 books to South America.

Krishna Prabhu, Namibia Summer volunteer
Insufficient funds at the rural school where Krishna taught meant that up to thirty children could be sharing a single textbook at one time.  Krishna determined that the best way to solve this problem using the sparse resources he had- knowledge of keyboard shortcuts and the school's only computer- was to help teachers create worksheets to make up for the lack of textbooks.  Krishna was able to further alleviate the school's dearth of textbooks by purchasing some with his own money and matching funds from his father.

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