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Volunteer Work Benin
Benin is a small tropical country with a rich history and diverse cultural heritage bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, and Burkina Faso to the north-west with the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to its south. Benin is another African country with serious issues for its population (est 13,844,000 in 2024) but with no real volunteer work sector at the present time. It would be great to believe that's because it doesn't need one, but that's not the case as Benin is one of the world's poorest countries. With a life expectancy of just 60.09 years (2020), half of the population live on less than 60p a day and just under a third of children are clinically malnourished.
Benin is in 166th place out of 191 countries and territories in 2021 when ranked in terms of life expectancy, literacy, access to knowledge and the living standards of a country.
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As one of the least developed countries in the region, Benin's economy is significantly dependent on agriculture with the country being an exporter exporter of palm oil and cotton but the greatest danger to children in Benin is not lack of food, its the flourishing child trafficking trade in which tens of thousands of children, mostly girls, are taken and sold to neighbouring countries for domestic servitude, working in the fields, selling goods on the street or working in quarries. This trade is facilitated by the fact that 40% of all children in Benin have no birth certificate so they are simply not asked for documents when crossing borders.
Volunteer work in Benin often focuses on health, education and orphans. Health, because there is often one doctor for every one hundred thousand patients and over 10% of all children die before their fifth birthday through health related issues; orphanages because 42,000 children have been orphaned through HIV/AIDS. If you run or know of a volunteer work project in Benin let us know by contacting us here. We look forward to hearing from you!
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