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

Holidays, exams and donations...

I can’t believe it is already mid-September – time is going so fast! I have been here nearly two months and am getting into the swing of Nepali and PoD life.

It has been a quiet time here in Nepal recently. Last week we had to say goodbye to our lovely volunteers. Anna, Rebecca, Katie, Katie and Martin were wonderful volunteers and contributed so much during their time here. We miss them already!

Hilary, our new volunteer, has arrived though and is settling in very well to the placements and getting used to Pokhara life! Her first day yesterday was a good taster for life here as we arrived at Annapurna Primary School to find that there was a holiday, (decided upon that morning)! Life here is unpredictable and these unplanned holidays happen frequently. The day did not go to waste however as we went to Hilary’s other placement with the Street Kids! I was able to donate some clothes and basic medical supplies which had been contributed by HEG and some of our previous volunteers – there is still more to donate to our other placements and so a blog post will follow shortly!

All the schools have exams going on currently and so the children are all working hard. These exams are taken very seriously for the older children and so we are busy helping the children with their revision.

Last week, I visited Asha Foundation. They have a beehive and in the last week, two of the children had been stung by a bee. Angel was fine however little Asim had been stung on the face; he was experiencing an allergic reaction and his face was quite swollen. I contacted the PoD Charity and we were on standby to take him for medical treatment, however the swelling went down and he is back to his usual cheeky self now! We have informed Hari, the Chairman, that as it was an allergic reaction, if he is stung again the affect is likely to be worse so he is aware of this and keeping a close eye on Asim! Fortunately this didn’t stop the boys having lots of fun with the skipping ropes we took – they became a Lion’s tail, a microphone, a snake, a cowboy’s lasso, a hat, a wig and a jumping hurdle as well as an ordinary skipping rope! Their imagination and excitement is lovely to see and be a part of.

We are looking forward to a busy season here in Nepal. Dashain and Tihar, important Nepali festivals, are coming up and so the schools will closed for a few weeks. This is a lovely time of year in Nepal, with plenty of street dancing and parties; I am personally very excited to experience my first Dashain and Tihar, having heard so much about how wonderful they are. There will be lots to do, and our volunteers will be busy at Street Kids and our other childcare placements so it feels like, currently, we are in the calm before the storm!

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

A blog from Debbie

Blog post written by Debbie Farrington who volunteered with PoD Nepal for 3 weeks over the summer. She worked at Shree Krishna Secondary School and Asha Foundation. Here's what she had to say about her time with PoD...

Hi, Sarah asked me to write a blog from the point of view of a volunteer. I was only in Nepal for 3 weeks but it was an amazing experience. My placement school was Shree Krishna which is a city school of about 430 pupils from 3-18! My day started with maths for class 5, (about 16 kids aged around 8-11) very keen and addicted to stickers! Despite the language barrier they were keen to do any sum I showed them and I got them doing group work and working in teams of 4 to help each other as well. They were confused at first, as are used to just working from the textbook, but their competitive spirit converted them when the winners got more stickers!

Working with a number of different classes and a number of different teachers allowed me to see a lot of the school and I was amazed how they got by with so little. I’m so used to powerpoint and worksheets, videos and calculators, that it was a massive change to stand in a room with only a whiteboard. Teaching English was harder than maths, because the textbooks they used had quite a few mistakes, and they often repeated everything without really understanding what they were saying. The students and teachers were happy to try other things but the language barrier to explain things did prove tricky, especially with the young students. All the teachers were very friendly and keen to improve their own English by chatting and really made me feel part of the staff.

Outside of the placement I had lots of time to chill and explore in Pokhara in the evenings, weekends and random national holiday days! I went swimming, boating, kayaking and paddle boarding on the lake by hiring them from local shops. One Friday afternoon I went paragliding, which was awesome, and I got to see how big the city was and glimpse the surrounding mountains. I also went on a sightseeing tour in a taxi with another volunteer and visited Devi Falls, bat caves, a local museum and the peace pagoda overlooking the lake.

As there was a 4 day public holiday while I was there 6 of us decided to go for a 4 day trek around the Annapurna mountains area. Despite the weather (full on monsoons and clouds) the trek was excellent. We had a great tour guide who kept our spirits up (we needed it with 3800 steps up in one day!) and it felt like a real achievement to complete quite a challenging trek. 

I went on this volunteer holiday by myself but I was never lonely! As everyone was there for the same reasons we all got on well and gelled as an ever changing group, as volunteers came and left. We went out for evening meals together and always had stuff to talk about from our placements and activities from the day. Sarah and Chrissy (and Buttons) made us feel very welcome and reassured knowing that there was someone who knew the area who could help if there were any problems.

It's time for me to say goodbye...

At a leaving ceremony at a rural village 

So it's time for me to say goodbye (at least for now!). I've been working with PoD Nepal for the past two years, and have had many volunteers come and go. I've worked with some incredible schools, orphanages, refuges and development centers in the local area supporting over 500 children in the area. Next week I am heading to the UK for the first time in over a year to see my family and friends, before returning to Kathmandu to work for my rafting and trekking businesses for the season. I will then go the to States over Christmas to visit my mum and sister and then after that....who knows!! Any suggestions?!

All the boys from the Street Kids Center

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone I have met whilst working for PoD, the local staff at our placements, the beautiful children and the volunteers. I've made some true friends in many of you and I'm always impressed by the work you all do, often in difficult situations and with limited resources. I have never met children who are so hardy, but also so happy and loving. Many of the children we work with come from incredibly difficult backgrounds of poverty, violence and sexual abuse, but when you spend time with them and really get to know them, you see their strength and that they really are no different to any other children in any other country in the world (believe me, all they want to do is play with your iPhone and play football...sound familiar!?). The children define their own personalities, not the problems they have faced and I am so proud of all of them and privileged to have met them and they will start in my heart forever.

With Bindu celebrating Teej Festival 

I couldn't go through this post without saying the biggest thank you to Bindu, Janice and Julia (who own the guest house where we host the volunteers). You have welcomed me as part of your family and I couldn't imagine a nicer family to work with. We've supported each other when things haven't gone to plan (mostly in my first month here!!) and laughed together most days, I'll miss having you guys as part of my daily life, but you won't get rid of me that easy.

It's been a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun. I hope Sarah enjoys the job as much as I have and that volunteers continue to come out to Nepal to help develop these worthwhile projects. Since being here I've seen huge improvements, not only in the children's English, but also the standards of the schools and things do seem to be moving in the right direction. For example since I got here Asha are now nearly totally self sustainable, Annapurna Primary School are working hard from teacher training we provided, the Street Kids have nearly perfect English and SOS Bahini have just recently moved into their new eco village and are steadily growing their organisation. These are obviously just some small examples when I could go on and on but you get the idea.

Me and my stepfather at Everest Base Camp 2014

The PoD Charity has done some incredible work since I have been here. Thanks to the generous donors we have now committed to our placements for the next two years to provide for them which is a great achievement. I'm planning another trek next year, similar to my trip up to Everest Base Camp (which raised over £1000 for the charity) this year to continue to help the charity. My sister (who is only 9) raised $100 for the charity last year by selling loom bands at her Christmas church service, this year she has already told me she wants to double her money which is fantastic, the more we can raise the more things we can do.

Thank you PoD, you have given me a great home for the past two years. I am very sad to leave, but also looking forward to the next adventure whatever that may be and you never know, I might be back next year!

Little Sagar from the Street Kids Center, just one of the
 few kids who stole my heart!

As I will no longer be managing the facebook page, if past volunteers would like to contact me, you can email Sarah who will pass the information on. You can see some photos here of my highlights of working for PoD. 

If you would like to volunteer in Nepal with PoD, which I can highly recommend then please contact Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org.

Dhanybhat and Namaste! (Thank you & Goodbye)