Volunteer in Tanzania

Share what you’ve been given.

Nelson Mandela wrote, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nowhere is that truer than in the rural villages of the Southern Highlands in Tanzania. Here, families work tirelessly against formidable obstacles to give their children a decent start in life, including limited healthcare, insufficient nutrition, schools stretched thin and intergenerational poverty.

One of those children needs your help! She needs something you know how to do. She needs a week or two of your time so her life’s arc will be forever changed. And your life will be forever changed too. You have the opportunity to become significant in ways you could not imagine by becoming a Global Volunteer.

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We partner with parents, teachers, healthcare workers, and community leaders who know exactly what their villages need. The communities who invited Global Volunteers to conduct our Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP) Program are part of the rural poor. In the Iringa region, where we work, 59% of the families live below the poverty line. The average level of education for women is third grade, and the vast majority of men never attended high school. Most are subsistence farmers who produce food primarily for their family’s consumption.

Local people ask us most for added know-how and extra hands. They want science-based knowledge for every mother and in every classroom. They want to know how best to raise their children, and they need volunteers to teach conversational English and tutor math, science, geography, and public health. These parents’ days are full just trying to put food on the table, so they need extra hands to help construct chicken coops, handwashing stations, rainwater harvesting systems, and fuel-efficient stoves; plant container gardens, raise chickens, and improve their small plots were they grow corn; and care for patients at the health clinic, present parent workshops, and conduct home visits.

That’s where you come in. Experience the beautiful highlands of southern Tanzania. You’ll stay in a modern, comfortable guest house. Enjoy delicious fresh food grown immediately outside the dining hall. Venture on a weekend safari where you’ll see every animal you’ve ever read about. What’s more, you’ll learn from the remarkable people who call Ipalamwa home.

Impact

Parents in these villages tell us that their children who were born after they enrolled in Global Volunteers RCP Program are healthier, smarter, and perform better in school than their older brothers and sisters born before the program. Headmasters tell us many more children are now enrolled in school, they are attending all day, and test scores show they are performing better. Church pastors tell us that during Sunday School these young kids ask questions that they can’t even answer.

“This trip truly changed my perspective on life, making me incredibly grateful for even the small things,” Calissa Brothers, 2026 UCM volunteer

“This trip showed me what is really important in life: the people I care about, the love I am able to show and the lives I am able to impact. Service-learning with Global Volunteers opened the door to learning life lessons from a culture unlike any I have experienced before.” Caleb Phillips, 2026 UCM volunteer

“Working in the clinic in Tanzania put into perspective for me that not all clinics have unlimited resources like we do in the United States. This strengthened my compassion, my understanding of cultural differences in healthcare, and my love of nursing.” McKenzie Holmer, 2026 UCM volunteer

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Tanzania Service Program Information

Explore Ipalamwa, Tanzania at the top of the mountain, at the end of the road.

Click the tabs below to learn more about our Tanzania service program.

The Difference You Make As a Volunteer in Tanzania

Click the tabs below to learn about the community work projects available in Tanzania. 

Why Volunteers Are Needed

Why volunteers are needed: Global Volunteers mission is to create, nurture and sustain the wellbeing of the world’s children, so that they might realize the full promise of their human potential. The first 1,000 days of a child’s life shape everything that follows, yet many families in rural Tanzania have little access to the science-based information and critical resources that make those years healthy ones.

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Malnutrition, chronic illness, and lack of appropriate stimulation are common in infants, toddlers, and young children in Tanzania. Together, those insufficiencies significantly inhibit brain development and physical growth resulting in a condition the World Health Organization calls childhood stunting. When a child is stunted it means that their brain and other vital organs likely didn’t fully develop during their first 1,000 days. Insufficient food and nutrition, inadequate disease prevention, and lack of child stimulation during the first 1,000 days lead to impaired cognition and chronic health conditions. So, when these kids are ready to go to school they struggle to learn. And when students struggle to learn, many just drop out because school is too hard .

In some rural areas, like the Iringa region where Global Volunteers works, childhood stunting is 50% or higher. That’s 1 out of every 2 kids stunted; the vast majority will not get beyond primary school. The World Bank’s most recent numbers show that enrollment in rural secondary schools in Tanzania is only 30%.

Sadly, many stunted children are destined to a life of poverty because they will not do well in school. They will struggle to earn as adults. They will suffer from greater disease burden. Their contribution to society will be limited. And they will continue the cycle of intergenerational poverty. Simply stated, childhood stunting dramatically constrains human and economic development.

This is totally unacceptable because childhood stunting is totally preventable. Moreover, the return on the investment to prevent stunting is huge! Adults have a moral obligation – the absolute responsibility to ensure every child has at least the chance to reach their potential. Eliminating childhood stunting is the most effective thing Tanzania and the rest of Africa can do now to help their children reach their full potential.


The Difference You Make

You’ll be a part of Global Volunteers Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP) Program, a comprehensive effort that integrates increased nutrition with improved modern healthcare and enhanced education. These three components are inextricably interconnected to improving children’s lives.

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Parents education is the first step. At the Mohammed Kassim Learning Center in Ipalamwa, you’ll help present interactive parent workshops using science-based knowledge on maternal and child health, nutrition, early childhood development, mental wellness, and other vital topics.

You’ll accompany our staff caregivers on home visits to reinforce the workshop lessons, play and engage with young children, demonstrate handwashing practices, and offer moms and dads encouragement and psychosocial support. You may also help plant household container gardens, build fuel-efficient stoves, and construct rainwater catchment systems and chicken coops. Along the way, you may help tend greenhouse seedlings or distribute prepackaged nutritious meals to mothers and their babies who need them most. All these small acts add up to real food security over time.


Impact

Women learn practical knowledge and discover newfound confidence to raise healthier children. Parents become better equipped to plan their family, have healthier pregnancies, prevent illness, strengthen their food resources, and build homes where children can truly thrive and strengthen communities that are more resilient for decades to come. Childhood stunting is reduced! Parents enrolled in RCP have dramatically reduced stunting in their children in just five years. An evaluation conducted by the Tanzania Food & Nutrition Center, the research arm of the Ministry of Health, reported that the prevalence of childhood stunting in these villages was 57% lower than the rest of the region. That is off the charts! But not surprising. These children’s brains fully developed during their first 1,000 days.

Why Volunteers Are Needed

Education is the most effective passport out of poverty, and in many places around the world, that path requires English. In Tanzania, English is the language of instruction in secondary school (high school), and without conversational fluency, many capable students never make the leap from primary school. Primary school classrooms are often overcrowded, resources are thin, and few students get to practice with fluent English speakers, never having the opportunity to build real confidence speaking the language. Further, when students struggle to learn because their brains didn’t fully develop as toddlers, many just drop out because school is too difficult. The World Bank’s most recent numbers show that enrollment in rural secondary schools in Tanzania is only 30%.

The Difference You Make

Any fluent English speaker can make a positive difference in primary schools in the Tanzania Highlands; no teaching experience is required. For most students, Global Volunteers offers the first fluent English speakers they’ve ever spoken with. Working alongside local teachers and volunteers, you’ll help students from kindergarten through secondary school practice conversational English through reading, tutoring, classroom support, and, during North American summer, English language camps. It’s less about lessons and more about conversation. You’ll meet students where they are at, befriend them, and offer a compelling reason to keep practicing English. Further, if you have a background in math, science, or another academic subject, you’re needed to share that too, along with classroom techniques that local teachers can carry forward long after you’ve gone home.

Impact

Each year, a higher percentage of primary school graduates pass the national English exam, a prerequisite for attending secondary school. Conversations with volunteers help build the confidence and skill students need to keep climbing toward secondary school and beyond. Local teachers gain fresh energy and ideas, and students gain a wider view of the world and their place in it. Students also increase their knowledge of and appreciation for math, science, geography, public health, and other topics taught by volunteers.

Why Volunteers Are Needed

Quality healthcare is hard to come by in rural Tanzania. In most rural communities, local government health dispensaries are ill-equipped, understaffed, and lack medicines needed to treat even common conditions. Preventive screenings, maternal care, pre-and postnatal exams, well-baby checks, dental and vision services, medications, surgeries, and mental health support are most often simply unavailable. Health conditions like depression, trauma, grief, and anxiety frequently go unnamed and untreated because there’s no one trained to help or even understand. Moreover, transportation to professional healthcare providers can require several hours by public bus or on the back of a motorcycle. Even then, patients often must wait many hours for a nurse or physician.

The Difference You Make

Global Volunteers owns and operates a fully equipped modern health center in Ipalamwa. Healthcare professionals and students work alongside Tanzanian medical staff at the clinic. You’re needed to help provide patient care, health screenings, maternal healthcare, dental and vision services, and health education in support of local professionals. Those who have a background in mental wellness share knowledge, offer counseling, decrease stigma, and provide psychosocial support. Stress, postpartum depression, trauma, grief, addiction, and difficult family relationships are mental health challenges that can be helped with open conversations, but are subjects too often left unspoken.

Impact

Patients have access to professional healthcare and information close to home. Families begin to understand both physical and mental health issues with less stigma and more confidence to seek help early. Volunteers don’t replace local healthcare providers; rather, you’ll extend their reach, so more people throughout the area can receive care.

Why Volunteers Are Needed

Women across rural Tanzania work tirelessly to support their families. Most village women are subsistence farmers, part of the rural poor, dedicating the bulk of their workday to growing corn in their fields, walking long distances to fetch water for cooking and bathing, and preparing meals for their families.

Although there’s not much time left each day, nearly 100 women have started cooperatives to produce food, make clothing, and buy groceries in bulk which they repackage and then sell to their neighbors. Earning business income is extremely difficult in poor areas due to lack of startup capital, business training, financial skills, and reliable markets. It is challenging to run any business but especially in communities where most families are poor and have little if any discretionary money. You are needed to help with what they need most, including bookkeeping, pricing, production, marketing, and basic financial management.

The Difference You Make

Global Volunteers has facilitated the start-up and growth of eight women cooperatives in five villages. You will work alongside these women helping them better understand the principles of small business, how to track their income and expenses, and ways they can improve production, sales, and marketing. Additionally, if you have specialized skills in knitting, sewing, or another craft, you can be particularly helpful by teaching income-generating skills like knitting school uniform sweaters to help meet local demand.

Impact

When a woman’s income grows, so does everything around her—children’s nutrition, education, and healthcare, and her family’s overall stability. Through volunteer assistance, women gain business skills, increased income, and real financial independence. And because these gains ripple outward, enhanced women’s enterprises mean healthier families and more resilient communities for the long run.

Why Volunteers Are Needed

Most rural Tanzania families rely on subsistence farming, but unpredictable weather, limited land access, tight budgets, lack of quality seeds, and no machinery make it hard to grow enough food year-round. Subsistence farmers use traditional farming practices to grow primarily corn, relying on intensive manual labor with basic hand tools. In the Iringa region, less than 1% of farmers have a tractor or power tiller. Only 5% own an oxen or a plough. They lack money to purchase high-quality seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs. This most often results in modest harvests that barely meet their family food needs. Children pay the highest price for insufficient food and poor nutrition, which adversely affects their growth, school attendance, and ability to learn as a child and earn as an adult.

The Difference You Make

You are needed to work directly with local families to distribute and plant Earthbox® container gardens, tend seedlings at the greenhouse and local schools, construct chicken coops that provide an important source of protein, and help farmers increase their yields in their fields. You may also help distribute nutritious prepackaged meals to families who need extra support, or construct fuel-efficient stoves, reinforcing lessons on healthy eating along the way. Every project is designed to use materials families can access and maintain long after volunteers leave.

Impact

More families are using appropriate homestead technologies to grow vegetables to increase micronutrients and raise chickens to enhance protein for their families and hopefully for the market. Together with volunteers from agricultural universities, subsistence farmers are learning modern farming practices to increase productivity in their fields. Families are benefiting from sustainable sources of fresh vegetables and protein. Children have access to nutritious food, families’ health improves, and those who can produce surplus are able to generate extra income to increase self-sufficiency.

Why Volunteers Are Needed

Diarrhea is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Tanzania, particularly among under‑five children. It is a feces to mouth disease that is most effectively prevented through a combination of personal hygiene and proper food handling. Handwashing with soap and clean water is key. Diarrhea and other diseases still spread easily in rural Tanzania simply because clean water and places to wash hands are too often not within reach. Homes do not have tap water, so women and girls walk great distances to fetch water for cooking and bathing. However, too often the water is contaminated by human or animal effluent. Contaminated water can be purified by boiling, but that requires additional wood which is also scarce.

The Difference You Make

You’re needed to work with community members constructing handwashing stations in homes and schools and installing rainwater harvesting systems. Ideally, schools and homes should have multiple handwashing stations, both near where food is prepared and nearby the outdoor toilet. Each family enrolled in the RCP program currently has one handwashing station and many schools have several, so most family members and students can wash with soap and water. The water is purified with a few drops of bleach, and the soap is attached to the handwashing station.

Rainwater harvesting systems collect rainwater from roofs during the rainy season and store it in large containers for use throughout the year. The water runs through a filtering system which helps remove contaminants. In addition to constructing handwashing stations and rainwater harvesting systems, volunteers help lead workshops and conduct home visits focusing on safe water practices and proper handwashing habits.

Impact

Clean water changes almost everything. Families and schools gain ready access to clean drinking, food preparation, and bathing water. They focus on the simple, life-changing habit of handwashing with soap and water. Preventable illnesses go down, children stay healthier and able to attend school regularly, and homes become safer places to grow up. These impacts last for decades, well beyond your service program.



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Volunteer Voices: Read and Hear What Volunteers Say About Serving in Tanzania

Recent Stories from Tanzania

Recent Stories from Tanzania
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Global Volunteers
375 East Little Canada Road
St. Paul, MN 55117-1628 USA
(800) 487-1074 | toll-free
(651) 482-0915 | fax
globalvolunteers.org
email@globalvolunteers.org
Federal EIN: 36-3352680

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