Quarterly Donations

It was a lovely weekend as Sarah and I got a chance to visit all our placements to hand over the quarterly donations and also to tell everyone that Sarah was back from the UK. It was great seeing everybody at the schools and orphanages as they are very welcoming, they never stop offering us tea when we visit them.

First up, we went to Asha Foundation, since we were a little early we sat out in the sun watching the bees fly away to get some nectar for the honey. They've now got two hives and looks like there are hundreds of bees in there. We then handed over the money and had a chat how things were going on with everyone; at Asha, the PoD Charity provides money for meat for the children twice a week. The chairman discussed how this is benefitting the children and improving their diet hugely. We then headed off to Prabhat School.

Prabhat School is blessed with the greatest view of the lake, you get to see the paragliders landing beside the lake, people boating, it is literally breathtaking. Though it is a bit of a walk, all your hard work pays off once you see the lake from top of the hill. We went in to the staff room to see the Principal, who is just amazing and offered us tea. The school seemed very busy with trainee teachers running their short sessions in different classrooms. Despite all the rush, the principle took out time for us and we gave out the donation. At Prabhat, the PoD Charity provides hot lunches for all the children.

After Prabhat, we went to the Street Kids and Aama was absolutely delighted to see Sarah back again. We sat down and had quite a long chat with her. She always entertains us with lovely talks and she told us how all the kids were doing. With all the kids at school it was very quite going in there. At Street Kids, the PoD Charity pays the rent of the house they live in as well as giving donations towards food for the children.

When we were done with Street Kids, we went to Annapurna School, met all the three lovely ladies. Anita was out in the sun with her little ones who were just given out their lunch. Bina and Tika were still having their lessons and were fifteen minutes away from the lunch break. At Annapurna, the PoD Charity provides the children each a hot lunch so that they can have a main meal in the day.

Also, we have added Ward-6, the children’s rehabilitation centre, to the quarterly donations to supplement their food. The accountant came over to say thank you for us being considerate and helping the school out as it is completely funded by the locals. The principal was also thrilled to have the donation for the food, as she understood the need of it and how beneficial it would be for all the kids that are with them. 

It was pretty long day for both us but all the smiles and warm welcome paid off. 

If you are interested in volunteering in Nepal, email Ellie on ellie@podvolunteer.org

Sarah is back in Nepal

Hi it’s Sarah here! I am back in Pokhara after a lovely time in the UK, visiting my family and the Pod UK team.

It is great to be back in Nepal and visiting the placements. It is lovely to see the children again; they all seem to be about a foot taller!

Currently, the schools are closed so our volunteers have gone on a week long trek – very jealous! I will be meeting them when they return at the weekend.

There are many exciting things in the coming months, starting with our charity donations from the Pod Charity that we will be beginning next week.

I am so happy to be back and working alongside Janice, and we can’t wait to meet all the coming volunteers; maybe one of them will be you…

If you are interested in volunteering in Nepal, email Ellie on ellie@podvolunteer.org

Glitter, Twister and new shoes...

A blog from Sarah

Janice has now finished her training and is settling in well – we are loving having her as part of the PoD Nepal team!

Otherwise all is carrying on as normal here in Nepal. The days are getting colder and we are needing more and more layers. Our volunteers are not letting this put them off though! They have been so busy working hard.

As many of you may know, we have long had a great partnership with a wonderful local organisation called SOS Bahini. We have long been working side by side with them, and our volunteers have been contributing to the great work they do. We are now pleased to say that we are extending this working partnership further with the introduction of the Saturday placement for our volunteers. On Saturday’s SOS Bahini have all the children and families they support in the community come over and they have a family day; it is a lovely day and a great opportunity for everyone to come together. Recently, the staff there have been concerned that there is not enough stimulation and fun activities for the girls to do on these days, so they asked us to help! We are excited to be able to now offer our volunteers the opportunity to go up on a Saturday and run some fun and games sessions with the girls. We trialed this on Saturday with our wonderful volunteers Jade and Yasmine; it went brilliantly! We had a group story time, loom band making as well as games of twister; Jade even did some glitter tattoos for the girls! Everyone had a wonderful time and we are so pleased that our two organisations can continue to work together so positively for the local community. We look forward to taking more and more of our volunteers up to SOS Bahini and seeing the positive impacts they can have.

Previously, on this blog I have talked about the PoD Charity funding the outside space to be sorted at Street Kids; I am pleased to say work has finished! 

The children are loving having somewhere to sit, work and play in! There is even the beginnings of a veggie patch!

This week, the PoD Charity also bought the Street Kids new shoes. We had a lot of fun (!) finding shoes to fit all 10 of them! But we got there in the end, and as you can see they are very happy with their new ones!

Otherwise, the volunteers have been busy socialising and having lots of fun. Jade, one of our volunteers, has a lovely voice and has been up singing with Janice, who sings with a band locally; their voices together are something to be heard!

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

Welcome to the team Janice!

It is exciting times here for PoD Nepal… We have a new exployee! Janice, whom many of you will know as she is Bindu’s daughter, is taking over the PoD Placement Manager role. Janice has long been involved with PoD and fully understands our role and purpose out here. She has been able to spend time with our volunteers over the years whilst they have been staying at her mum’s guest house, and she has also long been involved in the actual volunteering herself. She is familiar with all the placements and has a great relationship with them already. Here she is with Tika, a teacher from Annapurna Primary School. We are very excited for this next chapter of PoD Nepal to begin!

Welcome to the team Janice!

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

Quarterly Charity Donations!

Once again we have reached our 3 month quarterly charity donation time – time goes so fast! I have been busy this week visiting our placements and handing out the donations.

At Annapurna PrimarySchool, the PoD Charity donates money to provide all the children with a filling, nutritious lunch. It was great to see that this is working well and Tika, a teacher at the school, told me that for many of the children this will be the main meal they eat in the day and so it is so important for them. I also visited Prabhat Primary School where we are able to donate to provide lunches as well.
At Asha Foundation Children’s Home, the PoD Charity provides them with a monetary contribution to enable them to have meat twice a week. At Asha they are able to grow much of their own food due to a small allotment that they have, however this donation allows the children to have some much needed nutrients and variation in their diet.

Finally, I was able to hand over the PoD Charity donations to the Street Children’s Centre. Here we give money towards their food supplies for the months. They buy rice, meat and veg and Aama, the woman who looks after the children, makes some wonderful dal bhat, (the traditional Nepali dish). The boys were telling me that Aama has also been making pasta, noodles and a variety of other dishes too; their favourite is still dal bhat though!

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago, we were able to secure an extra PoD Charity budget to clear the outside space at the Street Children’s Centre. They have recently moved homes to a much bigger and more practical home. There is a great outside space for the children to run around in as well as sit out and under the shade and do their homework, however currently it is full of scrap metal and rubble; this needs clearing and an area of the garden needs to be covered by a shelter with their outside table put back up. This will make such a difference to the children and Aama’s quality of life as they won’t be cramped on the floor in the kitchen doing their work or eating anymore, they will have a proper space. This is what the space looked like a few days ago when I made the donation…

                                                              Before....

                                                               Progress so far...

I visited 2 days later and this was the progress that had already been made… The boys are so excited!

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