Volunteering with Dramatic Need.
Volunteering with Dramatic Need is a life changing experience.
We send professional actors, artists, musicians, dancers,
film-makers, photographers, (anyone in the creative arts) from all over the world to South Africa or Rwanda to conduct workshops in rural schools and community centre.
Volunteers can go for a period of between three weeks and three months*, either individually or in companies. Workshops are based around the particular expertise of the volunteer, be it drama, visual arts, music or dance etc.
Volunteers are billeted within the local community or on site at community centres and will usually workshop at two to three different primary schools during their stay. We encourage volunteers to stay as long as their work/study schedule permits, so both students and volunteers can get as much out of the programme as possible.If this all sounds like just your thing, then you can read more details about the programme, request a digital volunteer pack (without any obligation, of course) or hear stories from volunteers and students.
Hear from previous Dramatic Need volunteers.
 Miranda Egan Langley, Dublin, IrelanAs a drama facilitator I have always been incredibly interested in the impact of the arts in vulnerable communities. My primary focus of work has been in theatre for development or theatre in conflict zones so when I heard from a friend about a charity called Dramatic Need I was immediately intrigued. After some research I discovered that the organisation was primarily based in South Africa, working with some of the most challenging rural communities in the country. Read more> |  Kate Douglas, New Jersey, USAVolunteered with Dramatic Need in the North West Province, May 2010 As a young performing artist, I find myself constantly challenged to answer questions of what drama practices can do outside the theatre for non-artists, for communities and for the world. I came across Dramatic Need in my search to answer some of these questions. Read more> |  Drama workshop |
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 Emma Gleeson, Cork, IrelandVolunteered with Dramatic Need in Viljoenskroon, Free State, August 2009 I first read about Dramatic Need in the unlikely source of Vogue magazine, which featured a small piece about the founder Amber Sainsbury and her work with the charity. Read more> |  Dance workshop, South Africa |  Michelle Marrion, New York, USALiz, my fellow volunteer from London, and I taught drama and photography workshops respectively at Naledi Ya Masa primary school near the border of Botswana and St. Catherine’s primary school in Bapong. All of the students were sweet as suckers, and excited about their visitors. At St. Catherine's the kids spoke better English, were more urbanized and harder to impress than the kids of Sesobe who had grown up on farms. Read more> |
 Tatu in action |  The kids are so hungry to learn! |  Photography experience |
 Dance workshop in our art center |
* If you have reached this page via your mobile and would like further information about what Dramatic Need does and/or volunteering with us, please go to our website on your desktop computer.