Rice flour, bracelets and Spider-man...

As ever we have been busy, busy, busy this week! At Asha Foundation we gave making rice flour a go – they are planning to make a special sweet bread which is traditional during Tihar, a festival that will be happening next week. Hilary, one of our volunteers had a real knack for it, but the rest of us were quickly substituted!

Our new volunteer Kate arrived this weekend. She has begun working at Ward 6, one of our childcare placements as well as at the Street Kids centre. She has really enjoyed her first few days and is settling in really well!

 

As it is still the holidays here and the children are not back at school yet, we have been working hard to provide fun activities to keep them entertained! At the Street Kids, the volunteers have taught them how to make bracelets and they love this. They all now have arms full from wrist to elbow! One of our volunteers also brought out with them some fabric paint and so we are also planning this week to take a plain white tshirt for each of the children and they can decorate. Here they are planning their tshirts…

Ramesh, one of the boys at Street Kids, decided to turn his tshirt into a Spider-man outfit and made himself a mask aswell! He looked great and spent the rest of the day ‘being’ Spider-man!

Two of our volunteers are currently working hard at SOS Bahini. Hilary is running conversational English classes with the children as they are not at school – the children love these classes and the fun activities she comes up with! Tania, our other volunteer at SOS Bahini, is here on a Film and Photography placement. She is busy creating a professional promotional video for them as well as taking beautiful photos. Here she is in action photographing Hilary’s lesson…

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Dashain in Pokhara...

Celebrating my first Dashain in Nepal was a wonderful experience. It is such a special time of year here and it feels a privilege to be a part of it.

Myself and the volunteers decided to have our own Dashain celebrations and chose the day to go to Sarangkot to watch the sunrise. We got our taxi up there at 4.30am; we were tired and grumpy but it was well worth the effort! The view was spectacular and watching the sunrise together as a group had a lovely, magical feeling about it. The only thing that would have improved the whole experience for me would have been a hot mug of tea and a bacon sandwich, but you can’t have everything I guess!

The schools are still closed here and so the volunteers are working hard at our childcare placements. They have been doing lots of fun activities with the children from sports to bingo! At Dashain it is traditional for swings to be constructed all over Nepal; these swings are constructed by the local community and traditionally represent community spirit working together to create fun! We had great fun with the children (and just for ourselves reliving our childhood!) playing on the swing!

The children from Dashain had been visited by a volunteer who had worked with them some years ago and had kept in touch and she had bought all the children a Dashain gift of a new outfit for each of them. Freya, who is here on a Film and photography placement, brought out their model side and they spent lots of time posing for the camera having lots of fun!

Sadly, today we had to say goodbye to Freya! She has been a wonderful volunteer and we cannot wait to see the rest of the photos and videos that she has gathered.

We have a new volunteer, Tania, who arrived this week. She has been getting to know the local area and exploring. Pokhara truly is a beautiful place to visit or live in. There is so much to see and do and just walking down the street you are greeted by so many sights and sounds that are mesmerising! 

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Kites, festivals and celebrations...

The Dashain holidays have officially begun here! Everyone is in great spirits especially the children from Street Kids and Asha Foundation whom we have been spending plenty of time with.

Firstly this week we had to say goodbye to Ged, he has been an wonderful volunteer and contributed much over his time here. We spent his last day at Street Kids playing with sports and board games with the children. As you can see the children were very sad to say goodbye to him!

Over the weekend, our new volunteer Roshni arrived. We were lucky that when we went out for dinner on Saturday night, we stumbled across a big street party! It turns out that Saturday was World Tourism Day. We were treated to traditional dancing in the streets, local music, speeches and the Nepali national anthem. It was a brilliant welcome for Roshni and a really nice experience for the volunteers as well as myself!

This week the volunteers have been busy at the placements. On Monday the volunteers used their AMAZING arts and crafts skills and made kites. Kites are a big part of Dashain and so the children loved the opportunity to make their own. 

The winners of the best kite was… Bidan and Ramesh! They were so proud of themselves and it was lovely to see them all working so well together.

At Asha Foundation as well we have been having lots of fun. The children made Dashain posters! On behalf of all here in Nepal, HAPPY DASHAIN!

As the holidays continue, we are all having fun planning more exciting activities to do with the children!

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Getting ready for Dashain...

Firstly, it is STILL raining! Monsoon does not seem to want to finish this year. We are having bakingly hot days and rainy nights at the moment - fortunately we are all still in good spirits!

We have had two new arrivals, Ged and Freya. Ged has been working hard at Shree Krishna teaching as well as at StreetKids and Asha Foundation. He has much experience with sports and has been putting his skill sets to use organising many different games and activities at our various placements.

Freya arrived on Saturday and is settling in well. She is here on a Film and Photography placement and as part of this, one of the projects we have asked her to do is make a short film with the Street Kids children about the importance of hand-washing as we have been teaching them about this. As it is about to be Dashain and they are about to break up from school for a whole month, we thought that this would give them a great focus, so when we go up to Street Kids this afternoon we will begin to plan how to do this and get the boys to write a script and think of bits they can act out – very excited!

We have also been making other plans for Dashain and thinking of lots of arts and crafts activities we can do with children. Hilary, one of our current volunteers, has already been in full swing teaching the children sewing and on Friday they made hairbands and bracelets! They absolutely loved the chance to do something different and to come away with something at the end was very exciting for them.

Finally, as you may know, Street Kids have recently moved house. The new place is bigger and better equipped for their lifestyles and has a huge garden area for them to play in. However, currently the garden is littered with rubbish and rubble so needs clearing as well as the metal roof put up and the table being put under it; this will mean that the children have somewhere to do their homework and then have a good run around and burn off some of their limitless energy! I am pleased to say that money has been approved by PoD Charity to sort out this outdoor area for the boys, Asmita and Amaa and so work will begin on that in the next few weeks. Here are some before photos... After ones will be following!

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Donations...

First of all I need to begin this blog post with a HUGE thank you; the work that we are able to do here and the positive impact PoD is able to have is down to the hard work and generosity of our volunteers. As some of you know, when volunteers leave to go home, they often leave any clothes they don’t want anymore. Along with this, the HerefordExpedition Group (HEG) who were here in August were overwhelmingly generous in leaving behind clothes, shoes and medical supplies; this week I have been able to hand out these donations to some of our placements.

Firstly, some clothes and trainers were donated to Street Kids. The boys received some t-shirts and shorts, which they were very happy about. Asmita particularly was very excited about some of the things she received; she got a dress, some trainers, a dressing gown and this cap! It means so much to these children to receive these donations, as they very rarely get anything for themselves. The boys were also very excited to see earmuffs – something they had never seen before!

HEG had also left some basic medical supplies; we were able to split these to donate to benefit more of our placements. Half was donated to Street Kids; they received plasters, antiseptic wash, bandages and other useful everyday items. Ama was very grateful for these donations – when you are caring for 10 small boys cuts and scrapes are a regular occurrence! Here we have Hilary showing the children how to use a thermometer.

I was also able to donate some medical supplies to SOS Bahini. Gita and Raymond were so thankful for these donations and they will be shared out between the families that the girls live in so they have access to basic first aid when needed.

 

Some clothes were also donated to AshaFoundation. They were really excited about the clothes and spent time trying them on and choosing the ones each of them wanted!

These donations are more than just clothes to these children; they show that people are thinking of them and that there are kind people in the world. Thank you to everyone who made these donations possible!

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma ongemma@podvolunteer.org