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| News Headlines for June 2004 |
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Summary | | Disgruntled Surfer | 30/06/2004 | Info Nepal - Please F**K OFF | | | Disgruntled Surfer | 30/06/2004 | Sorry Info Nepal for being so rude | I must admit, when I wrote my previous message I was feeling stressed and shouldn't have written such a rude message (below). After taking the time to find out about your charity (as I should have done before writing the message) I realise that although you may not be what I am looking for in a volunteering organisation you may well appeal to other volunteers. My sincerest apologies go to you and anyone else I may have offended for my rude and unnecessary outburst. | | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 29/06/2004 | Volunteer in an orphange/childrens home | Volunteers will be placed in an orphanage where they will live with the children, assisting them in their day to day routine. The children are mostly between the ages of four and fifteen, and have a basic understanding of English. The general role of the volunteer will be to act as an older sibling: to care for, look after and encourage the children. Volunteers will teach the children general life skills, including health and sanitation, as well as arts, crafts and music. They may also help the children with their school work.
| | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 29/06/2004 | Computer Training Program | The purpose of the Computer Literacy Program is to teach members of the community basic computer skills. Volunteers will teach either in one of INFO Nepal's Resource Centers or within a local school. Class size varies from three to twenty. Ages range from children to older adults. (In fact, in one class we had the younger brother, age 8, learning next to the older brother, age 21!)
Another element of this program is 'training the trainer.' Whenever possible, volunteers are encouraged to provide training to local teachers to enable them to continue computer lessons when volunteers are not present. | | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 29/06/2004 | Home Stay Program | Programme length – 2 weeks to 1 month
Homestays and cultural exchange programmes can be arranged in most areas of Nepal.
Participants will be placed with a Nepali family in a small rural village for the duration of their stay. This provides the volunteers with an excellent opportunity to learn about all aspects of Nepali culture, lifestyle, language, food and people.
Volunteers should remember that this is a cultural exchange and that an effort to offer some knowledge of their own home culture and customs to the family with whom they stay is appreciated.
During their stay, volunteers will attend 2 hours of language lessons in the morning and in the afternoon. They will also have the opportunity to visit and help out at the local school.
Homestay programmes are best organised from August to December which is the time when most large local festivals take place. This makes for an overall more exciting experience for the volunteer.
Nepali culture is distinctively friendly and open and participants are made to feel as though they are part of the family. | | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 29/06/2004 | Teaching English at Children's Library | I look back on my time here in Nepal as my seven months away from America is coming to a close on it's final days, and can't believe how quickly the time went. My choice to come to Nepal and spend some time volunteering was so much more of an experience than I ever thought it would be. I came here to teach English, and with that came so much more.
| | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 29/06/2004 | Environmental Awareness | After completing one week of Nepali language and cultural training, volunteers will be placed with a Nepali family in one of the program villages. The host family will live no more than one half hour from the school/Environmental Post. Volunteers will teach environmental awareness at the local school and/or Environmental Post for 2 to 6 hours each day, Sunday through Friday.
| | Disgruntled Surfer | 25/06/2004 | Info Nepal - Please F**K OFF | Info Nepal continue to run riot on this news board, selfishly filling up the space with badly written, verbose articles. | | 25/06/2004 | halbrook ltd | | | Volunteer work in Nepal | 23/06/2004 | Volunteer oppurtunities for education, environmental, health and orphanage home | Nepal Reliance Organization (NRO) is the first not-for-profit, non-governmental organization in Nepal run by Nepalese women to see foreign volunteers in Nepal. NRO is duly registered with the government Social Welfare Council.Volunteer oppurtunities for education, environmental, health, cultrual exchange and in orphanage home. | | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 21/06/2004 | Teaching English at Children's Library | I look back on my time here in Nepal as my seven months away from America is coming to a close on it's final days, and can't believe how quickly the time went. My choice to come to Nepal and spend some time volunteering was so much more of an experience than I ever thought it would be. I came here to teach English, and with that came so much more.
| | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 21/06/2004 | Environmental Awareness | After completing one week of Nepali language and cultural training, volunteers will be placed with a Nepali family in one of the program villages. The host family will live no more than one half hour from the school/Environmental Post. Volunteers will teach environmental awareness at the local school and/or Environmental Post for 2 to 6 hours each day, Sunday through Friday. | | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 21/06/2004 | Volunteer in an orphange/childrens home | Volunteers will be placed in an orphanage where they will live with the children, assisting them in their day to day routine. The children are mostly between the ages of four and fifteen, and have a basic understanding of English. The general role of the volunteer will be to act as an older sibling: to care for, look after and encourage the children. Volunteers will teach the children general life skills, including health and sanitation, as well as arts, crafts and music. They may also help the children with their school work.
| | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 21/06/2004 | Health Post & Sanitation Issues | INFO Nepal's health post program provides a wide variety of experiences depending on the time of year, the local post's current programs, the volunteer's previous medical experience, and the volunteer's ability to learn Nepali.
While at your placement, volunteers may be doing very hands-on work such as giving shots and treating wounds; conducting home-visits; developing and delivering information on health issues such as birth control and personal hygiene; providing office support; and providing knowledge transfer to the health post doctors on the latest first aid techniques.
| | INFO Nepal - Volunteer Organization with Global Prospect | 21/06/2004 | Resource Center & English Language Program | When I arrived in Kathmandu, INFO Nepal explained to me their new project. They were to open an English Language Resource Centre for students, in Chitwan, to learn practical English conversational skills. This would enable them to learn how to utilize their English in everyday life and would give them a better chance to get a job and earn a living in their unemployment-ridden country. | | Hands for Help Nepal | 15/06/2004 | Working in a school in Kathmandu. | I am a 20-year-old university student from the UK. I wanted to spend 5 weeks of my summer holiday experiencing a different culture and giving something to country that I later found gave even more back to me.
I arrived in Kathmandu feeling completely exhausted by the flight from London. I had contacted H for H by email before I had left but still felt apprehensive about my time inNepal. Anil met me at the airport and escorted me to a guesthouse in Thamel, the backpackers’ centre in Kathmandu. That evening Anil took me out for supper and filled me in about H for H as an organisation and my schedule for the next 5 weeks. I was soon feeling at ease and excited about what was to come. Before I started my orientation I had a day in Kathmandu sight seeing and wandering around the crazy, chaotic narrow market streets and Durbar Square. There are so many things to stare at and soak up in the city; it is a great first insight into Nepali life. I then moved to the H for H office where I had my own bedroom and bathroom. I spent 5 days here learning some basic Nepalese language, health education, TEFL skills and cultural background to the country. During this period I also had a lot of free time to do so some more exploring around the Kathmandu valley and bargain with the shopkeepers in Thamel for some great souvenirs. Anil, Badri and Rupesh took me out to lots of great places including local restaurants, the cinema to watch a Hindi movie and religious sights.
I moved from the office to Balauwatar, a suburb of Kathmandu. Here I was placed with a local family and spent 4 weeks living in their home and taking part in their daily routine. I was immediately made to feel extremely welcome by Sanu, my Nepalese ‘mummy’ and the other girls staying at her house. There were times when I felt a little lonely or homesick but I think these feelings are natural seeing as the culture and lifestyle in Nepal are so different to ours in the UK. I soon became used to the cold bucket shower, scrubbing my clothes outside and eating Dal Bhat twice a day using my fingers!
I taught English at Ashirvad Boarding School, which was a short walk from my host family. I spent 6 days a week at school, teaching approximately 4-5 lessons a day, although there were many festivals and holidays during my stay! The staff at Ashirvad were able to speak good English and so communication was not a problem. They made me feel extremely welcome and their friendliness was fantastic. I ate ‘Tiffin’ (lunch) at school with the other teachers and got to teach classes from Kindergarten (age 3) to class 10 (age 16). I was impressed by the attitudes of the students towards learning and by their standard of English. I have heard that Government schools have larger class sizes and a lower level of English, but Ashirvad, as a private school, was a rewarding experience. Seeing as I was only at the school for such a short period of time I was not set a textbook to follow, instead I conducted English classes that I had devised myself. This was sometimes quite hard to prepare, but fun to plan and get the students actively involved in every lesson.
Whilst I was in Balauwatar I was invited to students houses for tea and to meet their families, dressed in saris and traditional jewellery and fed every minute of the day! I was lucky enough to be in Kathmandu during 3 major festivals and so joined in with the feasting, visits to the temple and a carnival at Durbar square. The last few days of my volunteering were marked by a gift from Ashirvad school and a party with the staff, a special supper prepared by Sanu and her family and by me cooking something other than Dal Bhat for the locals to try!
During my time In Kathmandu Anil, Badri and Rupesh were always ready to help me with anything I needed. I trust them completely and sharded some great times with them including celebrating Badri’s birthday with some other volunteers and Nepalese friends, boogying at a local nightclub, watching sacrifices at a Hindu temple and whizzing around the Kathmandu valley on the back of Anil’s motorbike!
I left Nepal with far too many photographs, lots of fantastic memories, invitations to return again and most importantly some great new friends. I had an incredible time volunteering for Hands for Help and would not hesitate in recommending them as an organisation to experience Nepal with. If you would like any more information, please feel free to contact me – emsmith28@hotmail.com | | Hands for Help Nepal | 15/06/2004 | Working in Pokhara. | I am so glad that I chose to volunteer with Hands for Help Nepal during the summer of 2003! As a graduate student in public administration with a focus in international non-profit management I was seeking a short-term volunteer experience that would provide me with a real-life understanding of what working in another country entails. Hands for Help (HforH) gave me that and much, much more.
I arrived in Katmandu with my friend and fellow volunteer, Brianne Miers, on June 28, 2003. We were met at the airport by Anil, the Executive Director of HforH. He secured a taxi for us and traveled with us to our hotel in the city. Our first night was spent in Thamel which is one of the primary tourist locations in Katmandu so we got a good look at the local retail and cuisine options right away. Our next day was a “free day” which we spent touring around the capital city of Nepal. It was wonderful and I highly recommend taking advantage of your time in Katmandu to see as much as you can of this very historic city – I particularly recommend Pashupatinath!
The next day, we traveled to the Hands for Help office, also in Katmandu, where we began our training. We were both serving as English teachers so much of our training was in how to conduct English as a second language (ESL) classes for native Nepali speakers. The ESL instructor, Bupendra, was extremely engaging and had many outstanding tools and ideas that I was able to use throughout my service placement. We also had training in Nepali culture, Nepali language, safety and health. The entire time we were in training we were slept right in the HforH headquarters where there is a separate room with facilities for volunteers. It was extremely helpful because we were able to benefit from Badri, a HforH Program Officer, who also lives on site. As a native Nepali he provided us with valuable insight into the area, arranged our training sessions, and basically “hung out” with us. He also taught us how to eat daal bhat, the primary Nepali cuisine, so we would know how to eat properly when we were staying in our Nepali home!
After a week of training we departed for Pokhara, where both of our service placements were. We took a bus (about 8 hours) and were accompanied the entire way by both Anil and Badri. Our placement in Pokhara was with the Pant family. The house where we stayed was a joint family (three generations) and they were all extremely kind and generous to us! They cooked for us, gave us our own room, went sight-seeing with us, discussed cultural issues with us, and most importantly, became our friends. They truly treated us like family and made it impossible to feel homesick.
Pokhara itself is beautiful! Downtown offers access to plenty of shops, internet cyber cafes, and even places to make long distance phone calls. The mountains surrounding the city are gorgeous and there are plenty of great places to visit in the area. On Saturdays, our day off from teaching, Brianne, Thomas (another HforH volunteer) and I occasionally took a short bus ride to nearby “Lakeside.” Lakeside, the more touristy part of Pokhara, offers more shops, beautiful scenery and many “western” style restaurants.
The school where I volunteered was also in Pokhara. The arrangements were made for me by Mr. Pant, my host “father,” and the HforH program staff. I taught at a government school called Gyam Boomi located a short five minute walk from my Nepali house. During the first three weeks of my service, school was technically still on “vacation” so classes were optional for the students. However, I still had between 15 to35 children in each of my four hour-long classes. My students ranged in age from about 6 to17. Because school was not in session, I was able to design my own lesson plans and be pretty creative with the projects and teaching strategies I employed. It was a phenomenal experience! The children are amazing and very eager to speak with a “Native English speaker.”
My school was incredibly supportive of my presence and in fact, the regular English teacher from the school, Bhuwan, assisted me in almost all of my classes. This was a good experience, too, because I was able to work closely with him in a mentoring capacity as he continued to enhance his English skills. It also helped me because he was occasionally able to translate my English into Nepali if the younger children couldn’t understand me.
The school year resumed for the second three weeks of my placement. During this time, I worked mostly with children between the ages of 3 to12. I taught six periods a day, sometimes with another teacher, but often by myself. One of my classes was made up of 53 3 to5 year-old children who had just barely learned the English alphabet! This was also an incredible experience and gave me a huge appreciation for the challenges that Nepali teachers face on a day-to-day basis. It was also a great learning opportunity for me in that it forced me to consider issues of private versus public education, cultural differences in teaching styles, and lack of resources in an entirely different way than I had before. And, importantly, I came to consider many of the teachers I worked with, as well as the students, to be friends.
My final day at Gyam Boomi was a bittersweet day where the entire school participated in a “Program” to thank me for coming to stay. The students all presented me with beautiful flowers and the teachers and staff all honored me by rubbing red “tika” on my face as a way of showing respect. The teachers even spent all day preparing a special meal in celebration of our time together. It is definitely I memory I cherish and a day and experience I will never forget.
Without reservation, I recommend contacting HforH Nepal if you are interested in gaining real-life volunteer experience in another country. From start to finish, my experience was amazing! The HforH staff is absolutely wonderful. Badri and Anil assisted me with logistics, supported me with appropriate training, arranged for an amazing host family, and provided me with one of the best learning and cultural experiences of my life. I am so glad that I partnered with them for my volunteer experience!
If you have any questions, or if I can be of assistance in any way, please feel free to contact me directly at tarahill@gwu.edu and I would be happy to help you in any way that I can. | | Hands for Help Nepal | 15/06/2004 | Working for Health Post. | My boyfriend (Kris) and I decided to volunteer with Hands for Help after several Internet searches. They seemed to be the most flexible, were willing to place us together, and had a health care posting for me and an environmental one for Kris. Anil and Badri met us at the airport and took us to our hotel, which was wonderful as your first glimpse of Kathmandu can be quite unnerving.
We spent a week in Kathmandu, staying at the H for H offices, learning survival Nepali from Badri and sightseeing. Badri organized a taxi to take us to Alapot to begin our posting and came to help us settle in. Our host family was brilliant; they were kind and understanding and welcoming. The children spoke varying degrees of English, so between that and our basic Nepali, we got by (I miss them a lot, now that I’m home). Kris worked with the Triveni Youth Club and also helped out at the Health Post when he wasn’t too busy. I volunteered at Alapot Health Post, about a 20 minute walk from our host family’s house in Gagal Phedi. I have a B.Sc. in Exercise Physiology and served 4 years as a medic in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve, so I was not a doctor or a nurse (which was hard to explain to some patients!).
Jagat (the chief medical worker) and the rest of the staff were wonderful. I think we learned a lot from each other over the 7 weeks I worked in the clinic. I saw patients during the daily ‘office hours’, offering suggestions and asking questions. I also undertook some personal projects. The first of these was increasing the frequency of hand washing among the staff; I basically mentioned it to Jagat and was then very obvious about my own hand washing. I think it helped; by the time I left, there was a lot more soap and water being used (not just for hand washing but also for prepping patients before doing dressings, etc….necessary since most patients work in the fields and are often quite dirty as a result). I also helped Jagat do some research about antibiotic use, since I was concerned about the overuse of antibiotics in the HP, especially considering the very narrow selection that is provided by the government. Kris and Badri organized a new plug for the autoclave, resulting in sterile tools (yay!). My biggest accomplishment was organizing the purchase of a drum burner for the health care waste (including used sharps). It took a few weeks, but we got one! Alapot is apparently the first HP in Nepal to have a proper burner for health care waste.
It was challenging and frustrating at times but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I will go back as soon as I finish the next stage of my schooling. It was definitely an experience; one that I will never forget. I miss my host family dreadfully and find that, much as it could be overwhelming when I was there, I really miss the welcoming culture and community in the village. GO! You won’t regret it!
Namaste,
Nicki Armstrong
PS. Feel free to contact me with questions: n_armstrong@ekit.com | | Hands for Help Nepal | 15/06/2004 | Working with a community in Kathmandu. | My girlfriend (Nicki) and I found out about HforH Nepal from a link on the CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) web site, and after some good reviews from some other larger volunteer organizations, chose to take the plunge. HforH found us a placement together in a local village where Nicki worked in the Health Post and I taught English and Environmental Awareness at the local school and youth club.
Anil and Badri took care of us for the first week as we stumbled through culture shock. Thanks guys. They met us at the airport, set us up with a hotel for our first night, and taught us some Nepali, introduced us to Dahl Baht, as well as a few things about the culture during our first week in Kathmandu at the HforH office (Badri's House). They didn't give us any demonstrations on the proper way to wipe with your left hand, however, that's something we all have to learn on our own.
After the acclimatization week, we went to see our new home with our host family, the Shrestha family. We lived in a traditional adobe (mud brick) Nepali home, with Ma and Bah (Mom and Dad), their five lovely children, a buffalo we named Betty and a chicken. Life in the village with Ma and Bah and the children taking care of us was wonderful and by far the nicest thing I have done. Homes made from natural materials (mud, straw, bamboo, wood), food from the garden, milk from the buffalo (thanks Betty), washing laundry with my girlfriend at the local water tap (showing the men how it's done, and having every woman in the village telling me how it's done), playing games with the children, having tea at every ones house and daily walks to the health post with Nicki (thanks for being there with me, it wouldn't have been as sweet without you).
I worked at the local school and the Triveni Youth club. The children were great students and teaching was fun, and sometimes a bit disorganized (it took me awhile to figure out what classes I was teaching, what I was teaching, and exactly when a school day was). When I wasn't busy I kept myself busy helping Nicki at the health post burning rubbish in the burner she got for them (good job! I can't express how proud I was of you), holding the hands of old guys who needed stitches or removal of gang green, or just cleaning up. Thanks Jagat and Nicki for letting me help out and sharing your skills with me.
I have a degree in Architecture and I'm returning to school to complete a master's degree in Urban Planning (with an emphasis on planning in the third world), living in the village was a real eye opener and I think I learned more than I taught. My students regularly took me on walks to show me around, and teach me about Nepal. Thanks guys.
I would highly recommend volunteering with HforH, in fact I liked it so much that I have already returned to continue visiting, researching and traveling (thanks Badri for being my tour guide, interpreter and friend). I hope to be able to work here some day in the future. Best wishes to every one. Feel free to contact me with questions.
Kris (Krisha Negracotti to my students)
earthboundcruiser@hotmail.com | | 09/06/2004 | | |
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