Meet our Volunteers
Zoe volunteered in South India for three weeks.
Organize a fundraising event
Be ambitious and organize a fundraising event to contribute to your project. Here there are some ideas:
* Organize a sponsored run, swim or bike ride.
* Hold a charity dinner or bake sale.
* Organize a flea market. Collect second hand goods to sell.
* Hold a raffle with donated prizes. Ask local businesses to donate.
* Organize a Benefit Concert.
* Arrange a Pub Quiz.
The possibilities are endless! Be creative! We are affiliated with a number of charities worldwide. If you need official support for your fundraising efforts, let us know when and where you'd like to organize an event and we will try to arrange support for you. For more volunteer information, contact us.
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Shillong Primary School (North East India)
Introduction
Do you want to really make a difference to the lives of the poor? Come on an adventure to the tribal villages of West Bengal and help teach English, math, computer studies, science or any other skills you have.
The skills that you can offer will help the desperately poor tribal and lower caste children at Shilling, a primary school with a small attached orphanage.
Join our children’s daily meditation sessions and develop your full potential while helping our children to develop theirs.
Environment
Non Mynsong is a particularly poor area of Shillong, in the state of Meghalaya, Northeastern India. It is a melting pot of cultures: Bengalis, Nepalis, Biharis and Khasi (indigenous tribal group).
Most families live in rented wooden huts with one family per room on this crowded hillside. For most families, it is a daily struggle to survive.
We have only a small school. In the future we want to develop our education programmes and increase the size of our orphanage and create a hostel to give more destitute and impoverished rural children from outlying areas the chance to study.
Activities you can get involved with
Would you like to help teach our school children? Would you like to help care for the youngest orphans, who express their creativity through naughtiness the minute no one is looking? We also need help with fundraising to build a better orphanage for our children?
If you would like to come and share your skills with us for a week, a month or 6 months, we will welcome you into our small family, teach you about our culture and give you a rich experience of the Indian way of life. If you wish, we will teach you meditation too!
Management
Didi Ananda Kalyanbrata is very kind and easygoing. She shows her warmth and hospitality by showering you with loads of delicious food. Her English is a bit weak, so she is hoping a volunteer will help her to improve.
Volunteer Coordinator
Malati is originally from England, but has been helping poor schools in India for over 25 years. She has learned about the culture, the languages and about the people. Twenty years ago she started a programme to help provide infrastructure to struggling village schools and has since arranged funds for many schools to help them to become self-sufficient.
Accommodation
The volunteers stay in a classroom that has been converted into a simple bedroom with a large bed. In winter it gets really cold even with a heater. So bring warm clothes and a good sleeping bag.
Cost
First month: Rs. 20000 (approx. Euro 310)
Subsequent months: Rs. 6000 (approx. Euro 90)
Who do we need?
We prefer female volunteers or couples; You must present a good, moral character and respect the local culture.
Your job as a volunteer
- to teach English, maths, computer, science, history, geography or any other academic
- or non-academic skills you have to the children
- to train the teachers to plan and teach creative lessons
- to help with after school homework
- to play games with or organize activities for the children during recreation time,
- teach them about your life and share theirs
- to help us find ways to fundraise a better building for our school
What to expect
In India rote learning is the norm and hundreds of bored pupils stream out of our schools every day burdened with books and with hours of homework ahead of them (an effort to compensate for the teaching defects in class time).
We would like a volunteer who can help teach the teachers how to make lessons more interesting using playway methods. If you are a kindergarten or lower primary teacher with a creative mind and the capacity to work wonders on a shoestring budget, we will welcome you with open arms.
We would like to teach spoken English to the children and teachers to improve the standard. In India the children only learn to read and write English but never learn to talk it! We want to remedy this.
To learn more about our volunteer programme
Email: info at poor.org.in
Other Projects accepting volunteers: Uma Nivas, Jaipur
Volunteers
Click on the images to learn more about our volunteers
