WOW!

Due to the generosity of an anonymous donor we are able to offer financial assistance to education professionals who want to volunteer at Chitardai School in India. 

For details on how to apply take a look at the project description on our site  or carry on reading all about it here.

  New bursary initiative for education volunteers in Rajasthan

For 5 years, people and places has been recruiting education professionals to work with schools in Africa and Asia. These self-funding volunteers work with local teachers, not instead of them – the goal is to transfer skills and best practise to hard-pressed local educators – to leave the knowledge behind.

Education professionals certainly have the skills to share – though not necessarily the income to spare. But help is now available from a generous and anonymous benefactor – enabling education professionals with limited funds to volunteer at a rural Rajasthani school.

“We were approached by a donor wanting to facilitate our work with schools,” says Sallie Grayson, programme director at people and places, “and their generous gift means we will now be able to offer bursaries for appropriate volunteers who would be unable to fund such a trip in any other way! The bursaries of £1000 per person will be allocated by a panel of previous volunteers and our co-founder, Harold Goodwin, who is Professor of Responsible Tourism Management at Leeds Metropolitan University. We have decided that the volunteer programme at Chitardai in India should benefit from this generous donation. Volunteers will still need to raise 60% of their placement costs, as the bursaries won’t cover all costs, but they will certainly help!”

Chitardai primary school provides education for 160 children between the ages of 6 and 14 from communities identified by the Indian government as being below the poverty line. The school offers equal education opportunities to girls and boys from all castes and socio-economic groups.

The principal, Mr Devinder Singh, and his team of 4 teachers want to increase their own knowledge of best practise teaching techniques in order to improve and enhance the children’s learning experience. The school motto is “Learn by Play” – an inspired and visionary concept for a small rural school working within the local education system.

Resources are both limited and unpredictable – there are simple desks and benches in 3 of the classrooms, but many children still have to sit on the floor. There are text books, but very few teaching aids and craft materials. However, Mr Singh and his team have created a stimulating environment for the children – an educational play area has been built from mud, and the classroom walls have been painted as blackboards so that children can write and draw.

“We should not underestimate how important this volunteer programme is in the eyes of the school and the community of Chitardai and the surrounding area.  This project has the potential to make a huge difference to this school so it is really important that people and places find further volunteers to take the project forward.”  a previous volunteer to Chitardai

 

For more details about the Chitardai education project see 

http://www.travel-peopleandplaces.co.uk/ProjectView.aspx?id=205