Butterfly Space is a non-profit lodge and community project in Nkhata Bay, Northern Malawi.
Butterfly Space has hosted volunteers for over 12 years, and we aim to provide and encourage ethical volunteering and internships to respectfully work alongside and educate our community.
There is an emphasis on exchanging knowledge and experience as projects are self-sustaining where possible and are staffed by local people who work alongside the volunteers.
How is your volunteering program helping the community?
The projects are diverse and exciting with a particular focus on education and sustainability. There are several projects that volunteers can get involved in, some examples include:
- School permaculture clubs for 22 local schools (and counting) with gardens providing nutritious school meals and providing students with the knowledge and encouraging sustainability.
- An inspiring primary school teaching and supporting disadvantaged children and staffed with a fantastic and dedicated team of local teachers
- A community radio station giving local journalists experience and retaining the local language, sharing knowledge and bringing together the community.
We run workshops and you are welcome to hold your own on any of your skills. For example, we recently had a gymnast staying with us who taught the local kids her incredible skills and a masseuse who taught some of the ladies from our Women’s Groups who have since set up a pop-up shop at Butterfly twice a week offering massages to our guests.
Another volunteer loved football so he started up a football club twice a week to involve the local children to work together as a team. We would also like long term volunteers to start new business plans for villages in the surrounding area.
We’re also offering a non-profit lodge offering all of the amenities necessary to host our volunteers and make them as comfortable as possible during their stay, with accommodation charged at the lowest rate possible to cover costs.
Other than this, we do not charge a fee for volunteering with us, so we can provide a really unique and affordable experience for people wanting to volunteer, giving them an opportunity to develop and assist our projects further while experiencing the beautiful location and the warm Malawian culture.
How can people help/volunteer with you?
We currently have fourteen projects on the go and we have plenty more ideas for new projects to start in the near future so we could always do with a hand with all of them.
There are numerous opportunities from Nursery Schools and the Youth Club, to the Media Centre and Internet Centre, Community Radio Station, Permaculture School Clubs, to The Disability Skill Sharing Centre, the Women’s Projects and more.
If you are thinking of volunteering at Butterfly Space, then we would appreciate a strong level of English as most Malawian’s speak the language very well. We can offer lessons in the local language Chi Tonga and the more widely spoken language of Chichewa.
We would also like you to help out on the projects which currently need the most help with. This often changes from week to week or month to month but we are in fact very flexible in terms of where your volunteering interests lie.
For instance, if you feel most passionate about a certain project, then we will do our best to help you work in that area. If you would like to help with more than one project then this will often also work out well as many of our projects are either running every day or on certain days of the week.
We also value your background skills, if you feel you would like to lend an extra hand by helping out with any other skills you hold such as I.T., carpentry, marketing, and so on then please feel free to let us know.
Whether it is making soap, sunflower oil, and so forth, we would like to benefit the community in an idea that will help their livelihood for the future.
We value all types of skills out there as long as you are passionate about contributing to the community, then we would love you to incorporate any of your ideas into helping the community for future development.
What can Volunteers expect from this experience?
Our location is stunning with summer temperatures all year round. You can literally chill out around our peaceful grounds after a good day of volunteering. Depending on which project takes your interest, we will expect you to contribute to around six hours a day of volunteering.
Obviously, after you have finished your day, you are free to do whatever you like, whether you would like an organized boat trip, experience the famous cliff jumping sites very near to Butterfly, learning to Scuba Dive at the local dive school Aqua Africa, hiring a kayak or trying out a traditional dugout canoe, it’s all up to you.
We are also very flexible in terms of if you wanted to take a week or two off to travel then you can just come back to return to the Volunteer Package as long as you have moved out of your room during your break.
We have a projector and sound system for you to use at night in the media room to wind down after a day of volunteering. There’s nothing better than putting all the cushions on the floor and settling into a home cinema with a collection of six hundred movies to work your way through.
Butterfly Space is a ten-minute walk up the hill from the small town of Nkhata Bay. Lonely Planet has described Malawi as The Warm Heart Of Africa because the country is so friendly.
With many other westerners living in the town, the local people are certainly used to interacting with the tourists and are some of the nicest people in the whole country. It is without a doubt a very safe town, in fact, you’ll get a hello off everyone you walk past in the street!
If you have any clothes that need repairing or you would like to get any type of clothing made from the local fabric called chichenge then our Sewing Group will gladly help for a small local fee.
Nkhata Bay is a fishing town that also holds a supermarket along with many market stalls and some lovely local restaurants. Please be reminded that we are in Africa and many of the toiletries you would normally use will be hard to find over here, so please stock up before you arrive!
Taking anti-malaria drugs is a must in Malawi and you can stock up in town if you run out. There is a brand new supermarket called Shoprite that has recently opened in the nearby city of Muzuzu where you will find a lot of items there although pricing will be much higher as most of the stock has been imported.
How to contact Butterfly Space?
Learn more about the volunteer position by contacting at butterflymalawi@outlook.com.
Or visit their website by clicking here.
I hope that you enjoyed reading our post about this wonderful project. If you know of an organization that we should feature (maybe it is your organization), please let us know in the comments below or https://www.truetravellers.org/we-want-to-feature-your-organization/.
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