Our South Africa partner, Kate from Good Work Foundation, was recently in the UK, speaking at a conference and catching up with family and friends. This was too good an opportunity to miss – a chance to meet up with one of our local partners without having to get on a plane! So we chose a point not too difficult for any of us to reach by train or road and Sallie and I met Kate for a late breakfast….
written by Sallie When I first met Adama 20 years ago ITTOG (The Institute of Travel and Tourism of The Gambia), a college to train Gambians to enable them to access well paid jobs in the tourist industry, was his dream – to give Gambian youth the skills they needed to compete for jobs mostly held by non Gambians in the all important tourism industry -responsible tourism. ITTOG started simply using course content shared with them by Nottingham University. Then…
Thank you to all our wonderful volunteers – those who have travelled and those who have worked from home as e-volunteers to support our volunteer programme since we have been able to travel post-Covid. Here are some great pictures of some of our volunteers at work during the last year. To learn more about all these projects follow these links to our project pages for in-country placements and for e-volunteer placements or email dianne@travel-peopleandplaces.co.uk
The holiday season is over so you are unlikely to be meeting family and friends. It’s too early in the year to get out in the garden. It may well be cold and rainy so not the day to go into town. Why not attend our next online social? An opportunity to meet us, our partners and project staff from the different countries where we work, and previous, current and prospective volunteers. We promise you a friendly welcome. SATURDAY FEBRUARY…
In October Sallie and I travelled to Siem Reap to visit our partners at ConCERT Cambodia and Treak Community Centre. We have done so much work with them online in the last three years, but this was our first in-country visit since the pandemic and it was wonderful to be back! Treak Community Centre had to close on a number of occasions during the pandemic and they are only just back to full-time opening. So it was fantastic to see…
Anyone wanting evidence of the importance of this programme had only to attend our online social a few weeks ago. Since 2020 volunteers have been working online with house-mothers and girls at the Education for All boarding houses to build their confidence and fluency in spoken English. Latifa, the house-mother due to participate in the social, had to drop out on the morning of the event and Khadija, house-mother of Dar Asni 3, stepped in at a moment’s notice. To…
Joanne ‘As a previous volunteer for People and Places both in situ in The Gambia and e-volunteering, I was only too happy to continue my involvement by working closely with Dianne and Lisong on a new training program to be delivered to Nursery School Teachers, promoting the Gambian Early Childhood and Development curriculum. In 2020 myself, Dianne and Lisong held regular zoom meetings to develop the training program I have just delivered. Unfortunately the Covid pandemic did not allow for…
Since the pandemic there is a real need to focus on supporting people’s mental health as well as their physical well-being. Our partners in Cambodia, at Treak Community Centre, are well aware of this. They have introduced a personal, social and health programme for their students and Dara (the head teacher) is now working with one of our volunteers, Paul, on a programme to promote staff well-being. Read what Dara says in a recent Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/dara.moeun.1/posts/5039253099521160 Are you a…
Volunteer Eva has just completed a three month placement at the Education for All boarding houses in Morocco. The aim of her placement was to teach mindfulness and meditation to the girls and house-mothers, in particular focusing on relaxation techniques with the older girls to help them manage their stress levels in the build-up to their Baccalaureate exams. Eva says – ‘My work was about teaching Mindfulness and Meditation skills to girls and housemothers in Asni 1, Asni 2 and…
The places we support need volunteers with all kinds of skills – definitely not just professional skills – your hobbies and interests are just as valuable too! Here are just a couple of volunteer skills we are looking for at the moment Our partners in Morocco have recently opened a 6th boarding house for girls, which means they have a new house-mother, Naima. Naima speaks some English (quite well considering it’s her 4th language!) but she is not as fluent…