We work hard to ensure that all volunteers are carefully matched to the needs of the projects where they carry out their placements. But it is not until we get feedback from the volunteer and from the project that we really know whether or not the placement has been a success. Volunteer Kate went to Treak Community Centre in Siem Reap in June and we were delighted to read her positive comments about her volunteering experience in the report she…
We often include articles in our newsletter written by volunteers describing a visit their experiences in schools abroad. This time we are taking the opposite point of view! Lisong is the founder and manager of Mary’s Little Lambs, a nursery and prep school in The Gambia. Joanne is a volunteer whose skills and experience have been matched to Mary’s Little Lambs, where she will be carrying out her volunteer placement in October. But this article does not describe Joanne’s visit…
Saint Lucia – what a stunning place to volunteer! And there are several rewarding projects we support there, requiring a range of different skills, which enables us us to match volunteers to projects where they are really needed. I was last in Saint Lucia in 2013, right at the start of our volunteer programme there, so a return visit was long overdue. I was delighted to go back and spend time with our local partner, Nova. Together we visited all…
Gill and Mandy have recently returned from their placements in Cambodia. This is what they told us. We were known as Teacher Mandy and Teacher Gill (although we are both nurses) and we led teaching Yoga to most classes in the library. We did this to a story – We are going on a bear hunt and Yoga actions complemented this story and encouraged active learning of English. Both children and staff enjoyed the experience as did we and we…
On February 24th the Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited two of the Education For All boarding houses in Morocco. This was a day of great excitement for the girls, the house mothers and everyone else associated with Education For All. Dressed in traditional Berber clothes some of the girls sang to welcome Harry and Meghan, they were offered delicious Moroccan cakes and pastries, and one girl was chosen to paint a henna tattoo on Meghan’s hand, a traditional practice…
by Dianne – Volunteer Programme Advisor We are always learning . . . all sorts of people provide us with useful insights about volunteering in other countries and other cultures and about the issues we discuss in our campaigns. In the last couple of years I have got to know Father Cornelis Hooijmaijers a Catholic priest, originally from the Netherlands but who worked for 56 years of his ministry in the Solomon Islands – since his retirement Cor has come…
A few weeks ago I went to Morocco to visit the project we support there, the Education For All boarding houses for girls, the project recently visited by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as described in an earlier article in this newsletter. I had not been there since 2011 and wow! – what amazing progress has been made in the intervening 8 years! I thought I had kept up to date with developments there through reading their newsletter, but…
It’s the end of the school year in southern Africa. At the Emmanuel Advice Care Centre in Port Elizabeth and at the Neighbourhood Care Points in Swaziland many children are finishing their time at pre-school and are excitedly looking forward to starting school in January. One of the high points of their last few weeks at pre-school has been their graduation ceremony. We have just heard from our partners in Swaziland that 113 children have graduated and will be entering…
Yvonne has recently returned from her second volunteering placement at Gede. Here are some of the things she told us. On my first morning Ken (our local partner) took me to the school to meet the head and look around the new buildings – the school has expanded a lot since I was last there in 2014. Most of the staff were still there from my previous visit – it was lovely to see them again and they seemed pleased…
One of our core values at people and places is to make sure that the work our volunteers do is of real use to the communities where we work and forms part of an initiative that can and will be continued after the volunteer goes home. We are determined to avoid the kind of volunteering where someone goes into a community with an idea we think is good but which is in fact irrelevant to the way things work in…