a date for your diary – volunteer meeting Saturday 18th May

a date for your diary – volunteer meeting Saturday 18th May

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Our spring social meeting will be in the West Midlands, Birmingham area. We’ll confirm full details of time and location early next year, but meanwhile, please save the date ! Claire’s video interview (below) emphasises how valuable our social meetings can be for potential volunteers – meeting and talking with each other as well as previous volunteers and the ‘people and places’ team – all in a relaxed and friendly environment. Let us know if you hope to / plan…

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local partners talk about our volunteers

local partners talk about our volunteers

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We love hearing from local partners about our volunteers and their work … below are some recent updates from Treak in Cambodia and Hazyview in South Africa. First of all, here’s a brief synopsis of the varied skills and experience they brought to their projects and placements: Chris, Paul & Lynne worked in Treak and Katherine in Hazyview. Chris has worked for years in engineering and other practical projects, in the UK and overseas, as well as having coaching &…

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ready for school – local volunteers and our volunteers make a difference

ready for school – local volunteers and our volunteers make a difference

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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…

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Gede Special School, Kenya – such a lovely place to volunteer!

Gede Special School, Kenya – such a lovely place to volunteer!

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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…

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13th October in Reading – volunteer social confirmed – will you be there ?

13th October in Reading – volunteer social confirmed – will you be there ?

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Our volunteers’ get-together next month is confirmed – we know where we’re going to be and which of our previous and future volunteers are going to be there … though we would certainly be delighted if more of you would like to come along: the more, the merrier! So, if you’d like to join us and other volunteers on the afternoon of 13th October in central Reading, please email kate@travel-peopleandplaces.co.uk as soon as possible so that we can add you to our…

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volunteering – the right people in the right places

volunteering – the right people in the right places

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I (Kate) just LOVE my job and I thought you’d like to read these snippets from 2 recent volunteers about how ‘people and places’ works closely with volunteers, right from the beginning – doing our utmost to put the right people in the right places: SOPHIE ‘I was very impressed (and grateful!) that when my original allocated project proposed a job role that didn’t quite align with my experience, People & Places organised for me to change to Treak. This…

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seventeen girls in Morocco – first in their families to go to university

seventeen girls in Morocco – first in their families to go to university

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Very few girls from the rural communities of the High Atlas Mountains get the opportunity of continuing their education beyond primary school. Secondary schools, mostly several kilometres away in larger towns, are not accessible to them because: Their parents can’t afford to pay for lodgings or transport near secondary schools Their parents don’t have the confidence in existing facilities to entrust their daughters to be away from home. One of the programmes we work with is Education for All in…

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working to make our support for volunteer projects worthwhile and sustainable

working to make our support for volunteer projects worthwhile and sustainable

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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…

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stories from the field – by volunteers

stories from the field – by volunteers

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Elsewhere in this newsletter, you’ll be able to read Dianne’s full report from her own recent volunteer placement in Port Elizabeth.   At people and places, we firmly believe that sharing volunteers’ reports, before and after placements, is vital in helping everyone to appreciate their own role in a project’s development and sustainability. Here are some extracts from 2 more volunteers who also worked in South Africa this year, though on a different project from Dianne – in Kruger. Husband &…

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