news from projects and volunteers
I have just returned from three weeks in The Gambia…to catch up on the adult education and business projects we support and to learn more about the new women’s empowerment programme we are working with – No Woman Left Behind. I’m not going to write about how tough it’s been in the past couple of years in The Gambia – that’s true for most of us and certainly everywhere we work. Nor am I going to write much about the…
March 18th – it was two years to the day since I was last at Gatwick Airport. On this day in 2020 I returned from a volunteer trip to Morocco, cut short as the borders closed and the pandemic took hold, lucky to get a rescue flight home, and Gatwick was dark and deserted. Now travel is starting to open up again and I was back at Gatwick, with Sallie this time, boarding a flight to The Gambia for our…
We are blessed to work with some amazing women – role models and leaders – in Morocco, South Africa ,Cambodia and The Gambia. International Women’s Day was last week – but we don’t apologise for being late! – because every day is women’s day here at people and places In this post we have chosen to focus on a programme we work with in The Gambia – but wherever you choose to volunteer with us – be assured the projects…
The pandemic has hit our project partners pretty hard – but despite all the challenges there is much to celebrate. Here are just a few examples Morocco Student becomes teacher. Khadija has just started working as a teacher!”It is an amazing experience and am glad that I have this chance, because being educated was always a dream for me that came true but teaching it was just impossible even in the dream. I grew up seeing the teachers as the…
If a volunteer had said this to us two years ago we would not have had the slightest idea what they were talking about. Even a year ago e-volunteering was not a fully formed concept. At that stage we had just started working with a few dedicated previous volunteers on placements to support our partners in The Gambia and Morocco – although in both those countries schools and businesses were still closed so we could only work with staff. We…
We can start to plan to travel again – our volunteer programmes in The Gambia, Morocco, Cambodia, South Africa, Peru and Madagascar will begin to welcome volunteers in situ from late January. (We will be ale to provide dates for specific countries when you contact us) Many organisations recruiting volunteers for overseas have already been accepting “bookings” for some time. We believe we have a responsibility to be cautious. So we haven’t simply waited for international borders to open but…
We have an urgent need for skills that will support this programme that aims to give vulnerable women practical and business skills. But when we say business skills we are not talking about the ability to run a multinational – we are not just talking professional qualifications – we are looking for volunteers who can help prepare young vulnerable women for work – either in employment or running their own micro enterprise. Young women who will be so much less…
Mary’s Little Lambs is a nursery and lower basic school in The Gambia. The Principal, Lisong Bah, also works at national level in The Gambia to run training courses and provide training materials for parents and teachers of pre-school-age children. people and places volunteers have worked with Lisong for many years – this is how our volunteers have supported Lisong and MLL in the last few months. To see how you could help on this project take a look here…
The people and places volunteer programme grew out of a series of chats. At the start of the pandemic a handful of previous volunteers to the programme we work with in Morocco approached Dianne to ask if we could help them contact the house mothers they had worked with – just to say hello…just to have a chat….. A year later we have a structured programme working with House Mothers and the young female students they support….this programme is not…
Do you have experience in the varied world of travel and tourism? Such a – hospitality, event management, tour planning, tour guide training – or even creative arts. Perhaps you have no experience in tourism but have book keeping,costing or marketing skills or IT and presentation skills – or, maybe, health and safety experience ? We need your help. Working from home could you link up with local people online, share your business and/or training skills to help people build…