Giving Compass' Take:

• This Evidence Action post features interviews from youth volunteers at Winning Start, an education program in Kenya that promotes child literacy and numeracy.

• How can these stories inspire our own volunteerism? What aspects of Winning Start could be applied to other initiatives?

• Here's why students should volunteer — and how to motivate them to participate.

Here at Evidence Action, we know that volunteerism has the potential to drive positive socio-economic change for communities, particularly if volunteers are at the fore of delivering evidence-based programs. As part of our commitment to cost-effectiveness, we leverage networks of local volunteers to promote safe water practices in rural Africa and to deliver remedial sessions for children struggling with basic literacy and numeracy skills.

With Winning Start, in particular, our focus has been on recruiting a specific type of volunteer: young, well-educated, eager to serve and work with children, and interested in personal or professional development opportunities that can enhance their employability in contexts of high youth unemployment. Winning Start, an education program in our Beta incubator, is designed to improve child literacy and numeracy by using youth volunteers to deliver the rigorously tested and proven “teaching at the right level” (TaRL) pedagogy.

We know from the robust evidence about TaRL that using a volunteer to deliver the pedagogy can have the greatest impact on children in terms of improving their reading and mathematics skills. As we’ve worked with the Government of Kenya’s G-United program to pioneer the Winning Start model, we’ve learned what it takes to attract the right kind of candidate to serve in the program, and our partnership with the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics has helped us identify key motivations that drive volunteers’ commitment and service, one of which is a desire to serve and give back.

This intrinsic bent towards service can sustain volunteers through many months of volunteering, which, in the Kenya-based program, involve living in and adapting to a new social and cultural context.

Read the full article about reflections from Winning Start volunteers by Julie Wang'ombe and Kevin Oyugi at Evidence Action.