Useful Books and Guides
Teach Yourself: SwahiliJoan Russell |
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This book and CD set is recommended by returned volunteers. It can give you a good start on the language before the in-country training week. Feedback from returned volunteers says many wished they had learnt more Swahili. |
Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and OthersEd Asner (Foreword), Bill McMillon, Anne Geissinger and Doug Cutchins |
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Published in Febuary 2006, a paperback providing information on voluntary work around the world. |
Taking a Gap YearSusan Griffith |
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Providing information on jobs for travellers worldwide, this volume includes voluntary work around the world, joining an expedition, learning a foreign language, gaining some new skill or qualification or simply taking the opportunity to finance future studies. |
The Gap Year GuidebookSusannah Hecht |
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The book that describes itself as the "original" gap year guide book. The current edition is the 18th (2010) |
Lonely Planet TanzaniaMary Fitzpatrick |
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Tanzania (Rough Guide Travel Guides) |
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Tanzania offers the traveller a varied geography that ranges from Mount Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti and Lake Tanganyika to the shores of the Indian Ocean. This guide includes practicalinformation on getting about from buses to bicycle and boat rental, while listings sections provide reviews of the accommodation,eating and drinking for all budgets. Also covered in the book is hiking and outdoor information including trekking Kilimanjaro to snorkelling off Pemba's coral reefs. |
Tanzania and Zanzibar Insight Guide |
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This book includes a region by region guide, from bustling Dar es Salaam to the slopes of Kilimanjaro, from the great wildlife parks to the prehistoric sites and spice plantations. A features section contains essays on the history and culture of the people, as well as a species checklist, detailing what to see where. A comprehensive Travel Tips section gives listings of accommodation, restaurants, and other essential practical advice, contact addresses and numbers. It also contains hundreds of top-notch, full-colour photographs, and 18 detailed maps, cross-referenced with the text |
Planning Your Gap Year |
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Hundreds of Opportunities for Employment, Study, Volunteer Work and Independent Travel. |
Tanzania & ZanzibarCadogan Guide edited by Annabel Skinner |
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For more details or to order your copy, click on the book cover. |
The State of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of DespairMartin Meredith |
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Presents a narrative of the last fifty years of African history, analyzing the factors which account for the political chaos, financial troubles, and civil wars which prevail in many African countries today. |
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State of the World's Children 2006, The Excluded and InvisibleUnited Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) |
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This year's report highlights the needs of the millions of children who have not been the beneficiaries of past gains, the ones who are excluded or 'invisible'. As the world presses ahead with the strategies, initiatives and financing needed to realize the vision of the Millennium Declaration, it must not allow these children to be forgotten. |
Heart of DarfurLisa Blaker |
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Lisa arrives in Sudan full of determination to use her skills as a nurse to do something to ease the plight of the hundreds of thousands of people caught up in the civil war raging through Darfur. She is working with Medecins Sans Frontieres, the international organisation that sends health workers to the most desperate places in the world. The six months she spends on the mission will be the toughest of her life but will teach her some fundamental truths about what people are capable of, both good and bad, and about herself. Lisa describes treating children with machete wounds, babies dying of chronic dehydration, girls giving birth at the age of 13 and old women too traumatised to carry on living. Her relationships with her Sudanese colleagues are treasured and described in fascinating detail. The book is exquisitely written, without sentiment but with a powerful and moving determination to show the suffering of the people of Darfur and to bear witness to their remarkable courage in the face of the most appalling situation. This is the book to help us all understand the human story behind the newspaper headlines. |
Pula, Pula, PulaRobyn Cox |
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Robyn Cox and her husband, Alan, worked in Botswana for two years from 2005 to 2007. Supported by Skillshare International, they were both fundraisers, Robyn for a human rights organisation and Alan for a centre treating children with HIV/AIDS. “Pula, Pula, Pula” is the warmly personal and often amusing portrayal of these two years. The name of Botswana’s currency, ‘pula’ also means rain and blessing; three key themes in this book. In sharing their story about working in development, Robyn provides an insight into the terrible impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Botswana, the true story behind the internationally famous case of the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari, and a range of other social issues, from the struggle for gender equality to the conflict between local communities, wildlife and tourism developments. Over the two years she is in the country, Robyn develops a deeper understanding and a love for Botswana, its history, people and vast tracts of wilderness. With her husband, she travels throughout Botswana, revelling in the superb wildlife and surviving challenges from boggy roads in remote areas to a terrifying experience in the middle of a Kalahari night. Cliff Allum, Chief Executive of Skillshare International, says: "Robyn's account of her time as a Skillshare development worker is enlightening and entertaining for anyone interested in volunteering in Africa - whether in person or from an armchair." |
