Local Volunteering
Corporate Employee Volunteering
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” – Mahatma Gandhi
Employee volunteerism can be defined as a planned, managed effort that seeks to motivate and enable employees to effectively serve community needs through the leadership of the employer.
Habitat for Humanity Kenya encourages corporates/Foundations to sign-up their staff for volunteering opportunities with our organization, popularly known as “Work Camps”. This will not only raise your company’s profile within the local community, but it is also very valuable for corporate cohesion and team work.
Your staff will have an opportunity to interact with one another in a non-work setting in a way that stimulates communication and company team building. This in turn will have a beneficial effect on productivity as employees return to work feeling motivated and inspired.
Habitats for Humanity Kenya tailor-makes volunteer engagements to suit your corporation’s goals and preferences. The engagements usually last from 1 to 3 days, during which your team works on a build site under professional supervision, alongside the beneficiary families.
Below are examples of the kinds of “Work Camps” we can organize for your corporation/Foundation:
- VIP builds
- Leadership builds for executives or cross departmental managers
- Team building trips
- Builds with corporate clients and trade partners
- Women builds
- Major company build events
- Company staff and their families build
Volunteer opportunities are also available for individuals, families, schools, churches looking to give back to the community.
If your corporation is interested in sponsoring a team on one of Habitat for Humanity’s build sites, please contact:
Peris Mwangi
Local Volunteer Engagement Coordinator
Cell:+254 101 454 380
Habitat for Humanity Kenya
3rd floor Kasuku Lane, off Lenana Road
P.O. Box 38948 00623, Nairobi, Kenya.
Tel: +254 717 454 380
Email: build@hfhkenya.org
Learning Institutions
Habitat Kenya provides a platform for learning institutions to fulfill their community action service programs or other relevant education interests through high quality outreach volunteer initiatives. We work with various learning institutions (schools, colleges and universities) to develop outreach plans for build events as part of the community service curriculum. The choice of a site for a build event is most often determined by the need for proximity in relation to distance of the organization and build host location. The Local Volunteer Engagement Program encourages students and spurs them to utilize their acquired skills and creativity to meet the growing need of affordable and lasting housing solutions, and use these opportunities for end-of-course projects. Further on, these skills also provide them with entrepreneurial opportunities through strategic partnerships and fundraising.
Volunteering also helps students to get in touch and contribute to real needs of fellow Kenyans, and engage with new communities thus enhancing their social skills and behavior. Habitat Kenya has a variety of learning institutions that volunteers would engage in other than just donating money or working on a construction site. Higher learning institutions encourage their students to acquire hands on field based practical skills during the community service and volunteer initiatives. This is turn builds into nurturing interest in long term volunteering aspirations of an individual student.
Students do join even with no prior experience in building, construction or any volunteer work. Students are drawn from primary and secondary school as well as higher learning institutions. During the build events the students get a chance to interact with the other children from the host community. Besides working on the build students will also get the chance to explore the local culture, and interact with other schools and community. Feedback is an integral part of volunteering experience and the students are accorded the opportunity to do so. Many students describe their experience as transformational and eye-opening. They finish the volunteer program with a deeper knowledge and understanding for other cultures, regions and most importantly the need to prioritize on improving the housing conditions for the poor communities especially the vulnerable.
Individual Volunteering
Borrowing from the Habitat’s Global Volunteer program, HFK Kenya reaches out to individual Kenyans and invites them to give back to the community. This component is marketed through vibrant mass media campaigns, HFK Kenya website and social media platforms to enlist membership. HFH Kenya packages and markets the opportunities for volunteering around specific days/seasons.
Individuals will be organized into groups of about 10-15 per build event. Friends, families, church groups and individuals can come together and form a team to build a home for another family. HFHK provides opportunities for skilled volunteers to provide professional services on a pro-bono services. Habitat for Humanity Kenya offers local volunteer programs for people who would like to contribute to our mission of a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Families and friends all over the country partner with us to build decent, sustainable homes and stronger, more stable communities.
Churches & Faith-Based Institutions
Habitat for Humanity works in partnership with God and people everywhere, from all walks of life, to develop communities with God’s people in need by building and renovating houses, so that there are decent houses in decent communities in which every person can experience God’s love and can live and grow into all that God intends.
To achieve this mission, Habitat for Humanity Kenya identifies and partners with various churches and faith based institutions to develop an outreach plan to participate in community volunteer activities based on a church’s or institutions specific area of interest. With the belief that all people should have a safe, decent place in which to live, Habitat for Humanity as a non-denominational Christian housing organization, presents opportunities where you can put God’s love into action by giving back to the community through participation in builds. In this regard partnership focuses on a shared goal that impacts the welfare of the society.
We call upon churches and other faith based institutions to support Habitat’s work through participating in building a home for a family, fundraising and creating awareness on the issues pertaining housing poverty as well as providing linkages to potential partners.