While I am enjoying a couple of weeks of winter sun in Tenerife, HELP volunteers are trekking to remote schools in western Nepal to start their assignments. They too will be enjoying the sun, but it will be colder than Tenerife at night!…
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I will remember always my first sight of the village of Lower Echhey, walking a kilometre or so down from Shivalaya Mandir at dusk, along the side of the “jeepable” road which was gushing water, led by my host Tikaram Poudyal, principle of JN Memorial Public English Medium School. I looked around as we walked, feeling a surge of joy at the prospect of staying in this stunningly beautiful rural village of smallholdings in the foothills of the Himalayas for 2 whole months.…
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Simon Wydall, the first HELP volunteer to undertake a medical assignment, worked at a clinic in a small village on the Annapurna circuit trail earlier this year (2013). Here is an edited version of what he had to say about his experiences:
I was a final year medical student having just finished finals, and was completing my elective in Chitre. I found the whole experience extremely enjoyable and rewarding and would recommend it to others wanting to do a slightly different elective away from hospital medicine.…
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We will have six volunteers in schools in Ladakh, Uttarkhand, West Bengal and Nepal during May. One of them will be our first medical volunteer. He will be working with a Nepalese nurse at a village clinic in the western region of Nepal.…
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I taught for 2 months at Shree Lali Gurans Primary School, mostly English, but also pre-primary maths. The teachers varied in their response to me. Some seemed to tolerate the non-Nepali speaker, others took the opportunity to improve their English and learn anything they could from me.
There was a sizeable gap between the level of English in the students’ textbooks and reality. How they have been passing the exams each year, I’ll never know, but I guess out here the exams are all conducted in-house, and there are no checks on how much help the teachers might give during the exams!
Thank you Jim, for having given me the most beautiful and unique opportunity in the world. I feel so priveliged to have spent some time with the young monks in Spituk monastery, Ladakh. The experience was so incredible, so fascinating, quite literally life changing. I savoured every minute and took this world so different to what I know and am accustomed to in with all my senses and wished it would never be over.
The set up was such a happy and caring one.…
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My name is Lila, I am a 23 years old French volunteer, and I have been working in Tikse Lamdon school for almost 3 months. I started working here in early September 2012 and am staying until early December.
I really enjoyed my time in Tikse, where I found the sweetest children I have ever met, even when they are teenagers… The school welcomes students from LKG to Class 8 (5 years old to around 14 years old). As for the village itself, Tikse is a most beautiful place, surrounded by snowy mountains and a magnificent Buddhist monastery, which some people call “the second Potala of the world”.
In addition to the contribution they make to their schools, most of our volunteers have a really rewarding personal experience. This is what Lewis Strong has said about his time in Nepal this year:
“My time in Nepal was a real personal journey; I met some fantastic people and saw some amazing sights – what more can you ask for really? It was a challenging, but ultimately rewarding teaching experience that has given me more belief in myself and what I can achieve.…
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The sound of the loud TV that only plays Bollywood productions suddenly went quiet. The busy Lodge Owner laughed, looked for the dim LED-lamp, and admitted that such power outs were extremely common. The solar battery that illuminates the most important corner of the room had forgotten its responsibility, and so now it was time for bed when the sun went down in wait of nature’s amazing performance when it would break again over the breathtaking Himalayas the next morning.
Chitre, the town in which I lived, was not so easy to define.…
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Bob and Ann Summers, both HELP volunteers, who taught at the Lamdon Model Senior school in Leh in 2009, sent 400 books to the school this year. This is always a bit risky, since parcels frequently get lost in the post, but they duly arrived, and Barbara Porter took pictures to show how they are being devoured!…
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