Volunteer

Female volunteers who love working with children are most welcome. You will be accommodated in our Children Centre. Accommodation is simple but spacious and delicious homemade food is provided from the volunteer contributions.

The main volunteer opportunities involve working directly with the children at the school, children in the community and the girls in the home. When you arrive the Director (didi Gayatri) will guide you to find out more about the best way you can fulfill your role as volunteer and what particular duties you will have. Didi manages the school and the Children Home all by herself.Most of the school children speak English.

A typical day at the school begins with the children parading up for assemble. After which they do gardening (the elder children helps the younger ones), then they go to their respectives classroom to sing songs, do few minutes of meditation and yoga exercises, listen to a story with moral or social value and then classes begins. The children learn to write and read by the use of Phonics, which is a very psychological way of learning. The daily time table also includes the other core subjects of Language Arts (library, drama, expository writing, poetry, rhymes, grammar, reading and writing); Maths (Number Work, Word Problem, logical reasoning); Social and Moral Education; Creative Arts; Memory Skill; Indoor Games; Environmental Studies (including gardening) and Songs and Spirituality (meditation and yoga postures). On Fridays we have sports and local dance. Sometimes we see educative movies.

You will probably learn the songs that the children know already and you can incorporate some new songs or rhymes or poems (in any language) that you know. The children are all grouped together and all of the age groups and development levels are basically taught the same thing. There is opportunity for volunteers to separate the children into smaller groups and focus on teaching certain skills to certain age and developmental levels.

Volunteers have free time after school closes. It is a good opportunity to prepare for the following day’s lessons. We have many interesting books with suggestions of activities to do with the children. When introducing any new activity, the teacher should be also learning, so s/he can also do it. You can also to interact with the girls in the home and help them out with their school assignments and English or tell stories to them. Dinner is served at about 7 pm.

Volunteers have the weekend days free to go around as they like. If you come on holidays you can give the neighborhood vacation classes.