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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 &…
We, at people and places, sincerely believe in the power of well-matched and well-prepared volunteers – we believe the overwhelming majority of people want to do good … but we also see the damage being done in communities where poorly thought out, managed and monitored programmes are being run. We believe volunteers and the communities they seek to serve are often exploited – and they deserve BETTER. We started people and places because we believe that it is possible to…
Emmanuel Advice Care Centre in one of the Port Elizabeth townships is a project people and places volunteers have been supporting for many years now. I (Dianne) was last there in October 2017 in my role as programme advisor, but that did not give me enough time to do any meaningful volunteering work myself, so I returned this spring for four weeks as a volunteer. Here is my report. Placement outline This placement was slightly different to a normal volunteer…
We at people and places have been asked to advise on many volunteer guides in the past – here is one we can wholeheartedly recommend. You can buy The Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad direct from the publishers here. ‘The Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad offers a powerful and transformative new approach to international volunteering. The “learning service” model helps volunteers embrace the learning side of their adventures—and discover how cultivating openness, humility, and a willingness to reflect can enhance…
“trade not aid” we hear this all the time from so many development experts but what does it mean? For us at people and places it’s pretty straight forward – we have worked hard to ensure that our business support programmes give the communities we work with the skills they want and need to earn money – and we all know in our own lives that thats what we need to do – it’s all about the money. No we…