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…
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…
Two volunteers with very different backgrounds – one a young engineer, the other a retired GP. One had already travelled to Cambodia to volunteer at Treak Community Centre (TCC), the other had a placement planned there which had to be cancelled because of the pandemic. Both determined to use their skills to work as e-volunteers to help teachers from TCC develop their skills and knowledge and help them with their own online teaching. Andy’s e-volunteer placement involved activities based around…
by Sallie Grayson Programme Director So many memories from my recent trip to Cambodia – here are a few highlights Dusk just outside Battanbang. A quiet murmuring, growing louder and louder as a couple of dark specks appeared from the mouth of the cave. There was a prolonged gasp from those of us that were experiencing this incredible spectacle for the first time, and then a mass, slowly mounting in size. The bats were flying in a perfect curved formation………
In our last newsletter Lisong (from the Gambia) told us about her visit to a British nursery school run by Joanne. This is the second episode of that story – Joanne tells us about her time volunteering at Lisong’s nursery school in the Gambia. A great example of a real two-way partnership….. ‘I was fortunate enough to meet Lisong (Owner of Mary’s Little Lambs) in August whilst she was visiting the UK and this really helped me in my preparation….
We work with the most inspiring partners who are real drivers for change – and we love it when their work is recognised. Our partners in South Africa, Good Work Foundation have been shortlisted for the “Education Oscars” Good Work Foundation focuses on digital learning opportunities for young adults and scholars living in rural communities. Learn more about the volunteer programme here
This is an article I wrote recently for our blog. As an ex-teacher, I of course hope lots of people will volunteer to improve the educational opportunities for children around the world. However it is important that this is done responsibly and thoughtfully to make sure these volunteers don’t do more harm than good. The article is designed to give some guidelines – it was included in discussions by the panel looking at alternatives to orphanage volunteering at the 2019…
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…