Our volunteer programme changes lives
Take a glimpse at how it works
Who do we need?
We recruit both South African and international healthcare professionals, including general practitioners and specialists, as well as allied professionals. Volunteers can contribute to any of the following areas:
Service: Involving direct or indirect patient care.
Some volunteers will be hands-on clinicians, others will be “backroomers” such as pathologists and radiologists.
Teaching: Skills transfer or more theoretical instruction.
From bedside one-on-ones to more formal ward rounds, from guidance on antibiotic use to interpretation of ultrasound results, weekly CPD sessions and more, we offer training to the full range of medical and allied professionals at the hospital and in the clinics.
Management support.
This support ranges from clinical guidance (for example, theatre protocols and equipment audits) to clinical criteria for referral. At the managerial level, this includes advice on, for example, queue management and reduced waiting times.
Service: Involving direct or indirect patient care.
Some volunteers will be hands-on clinicians, others will be “backroomers” such as pathologists and radiologists.
Teaching: Skills transfer or more theoretical instruction.
From bedside one-on-ones to more formal ward rounds, from guidance on antibiotic use to interpretation of ultrasound results, weekly CPD sessions and more, we offer training to the full range of medical and allied professionals at the hospital and in the clinics.
Management support.
This support ranges from clinical guidance (for example, theatre protocols and equipment audits) to clinical criteria for referral. At the managerial level, this includes advice on, for example, queue management and reduced waiting times.
Where you'll be working
Tshemba has an MOU with the Mpumalanga Department of Health that allows us to place healthcare professionals in outlying hospitals and clinics within the province. Volunteers are primarily placed at Tintswalo Hospital, a government-run hospital which serves the 300 000 plus residents of Acornhoek, Mpumalanga. Volunteers can also choose to help out at many of the satellite clinics in the area. Volunteers are asked to put in time to support clinical outreach programmes, local school health and education programmes as well as in community facilities.
Specialised services
Our flagship project
Tshemba has partnered with the Mpumalanga Department of Health and Tintswalo Hospital to create a modern, state of the art, eye clinic and cataract operating theatre to screen and remedy common, treatable eye diseases. To date, Tshemba’s volunteering ophthalmologists, accompanied and assisted by volunteering optometrists and eye theatre nurses, have helped hundreds of people living in rural Mpumalanga to see once again.
Download our Eye Clinic information document
The Hlokomela Women’s Clinic opened in July 2017 to provide healthcare specifically for women and young girls in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga area. Women were dying of both breast and cervical cancers and very little could be done about it. The Tshemba Foundation stepped in to build the clinic and today it provides a variety of services including pap smears, cryotherapy, breast ultrasounds, pelvic ultrasounds, abdominal ultrasounds and pregnancy ultrasounds.
The volunteer experience
Hear first hand accounts from our former volunteers.
Watch more volunteer stories here
What your volunteering days could look like
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Our primary goal is servicing less-fortunate communities in dire need of medical attention, but we also aspire to help doctors find their love for medicine again and pass their knowledge on to local staff members who are eager to learn. We ask volunteers to help us do this by:
Teaching and training healthcare providers already onsite
Creating tools and processes that encourage training, mentoring, and shadowing
Motivating local professionals to actively continue upskilling themselves
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In our volunteers’ down time, they’re invited to take a breather at the bushveld refuge that is the Tshemba Volunteer Centre. To take in the sights, sounds and experiences of the magnificent environment that surrounds it. The Tshemba Volunteer Centre is located midway between the world-famous Kruger National Park and the world’s largest green canyon, the Blyde River Canyon, so there’s never a shortage of things to do and sights to see.