The Project
Volunteer in Orphanages in Nepal

Children’s Homes/Day Care Centres - Every year hundreds of young children are abandoned in Nepal’s towns and cities, left to fend for themselves penniless, hungry and alone. Some are found sleeping rough, whilst others are ‘sprung’ from wretched work conditions. If left on the streets these children don't receive an education and other crucial, basic requirements; they are without somewhere to belong and without grown-ups they can trust and rely on; deprived of love and hope. Much of the focus GVI brings to the children's home and Day Care Centres is emphasis on extra education but the need is also to help create a caring and positive environment. Besides teaching, good children’s homes and care centres are structured to develop competence and life-skills in the children and a strong sense of fellowship and social responsibility. While helping to create the aura and indeed reality of a happy home and safe refuge, GVI volunteers participate in health education, games, drawing, painting, music and sporting activities.

Please note that it will be very much up to the project staff,together with input from the volunteer, to decide on the most appropriate placement, depending on your previous skills and experiences, as well as your interests. Below is a description of each of the project locations.

Pokhara

GVI’s two wonderfully happy and positive children’s homes a community-based project for HIV/AIDS affected children, plus a day care centre in Pokhara need our continued support:

The Lakeside Childcare Centre accommodates approximately 35 children and over the past 18 months or so, with the assistance of GVI(N) volunteers and funding, it has undergone a major overhaul and refurbishment. The Centre now has kitchen/dining facilities, educational materials, and the resident carers have benefited from workshop exchanges with the teachers at the Jyoti Kendra Day Care Centre in Bandipur. Many of the children in this facility belong to a one-parent family with next-to-no resources. The intellectual stimulation the children receive whilst at the Centre affords them an excellent start when they finally enter the Government school system. In the meantime, each child is guaranteed a hearty meal each day.

The Starchildren Kaski organisation aims to provide basic rights to children infected/affected by HIV/AIDS, by providing them with a home, education, healthcare and individual care/counselling. The target group is children in the 0-10 year age group from all over Nepal. The children are cared for in ‘family units’ in an effort to afford them protection from discrimination, and unhealthy, unfriendly and abusive treatment. Volunteer will assist carers during pre- and post-school hours and will use their afternoons to plan after-school English and other lessons for the children. Volunteers should be focussed on improving the children’s self-esteem as stigma and discrimination, from which they often suffer, can often have devastating effects.

The Big Children’s Home has 32 children (a few more boys than girls). They seem to have insatiable appetites for life in general and knowledge and hectic activities in particular. A volunteer’s role here is to be supportive with school homework, their enthusiasm for speaking English, recreational activities and more. If you think this doesn’t sound that busy, think again; duties also include escorting the children to/from school and chores around the home. Thus the volunteer’s involvement is pretty total, as are the rewards. There is plenty of guidance from staff like Tulbir and Bijay.

What we call The Small Children’s Home’s aims and structure are much the same. Ganga and Thak have 20 Children (both girls and boys) and a truly homely house and ambiance. Enthusiasm seems boundless and the volunteer is drawn into every facet of family life.

We have been involved with these Homes for many years now, and really thanks to the input from GVI(N) volunteers and the support ethos engendered, materially these Homes are no longer wretchedly poor or destitute. Yet they continue to need the consistency of friendship, support, and a culture of care...these are vital and are always there for them.

Volunteers also have a life away from the homes, for accommodation is nearby where GVI(N)'s comfortable facilities, good meals and a friendly team environment. Pokhara itself has its famous lake-side setting and is the ‘Gateway to the Annapurnas’, where those that have chosen to will trek. Pokhara also has the mixed appeal of being a tourist centre; GVI takes a dim view of volunteers who pursue tourist activities over their duties

Chitwan

Chitwan is the lowland sub-tropical jungle region of Nepal that has the entire Nepal Himalayas distant on the northern skyline. Close to the National Park, famed for its one-horned Asian rhino and Bengal tiger, is the village of Chitrasari. Here, volunteers supply very hands-on support to children who until very recently have had a very raw deal, but who now are a family putting back the essentials of being and feeling secure. Perhaps of all the GVI Nepal volunteering placements, this is where true practical compassion is first amongst necessary attributes. Volunteer involvement is similar as in Pokhara and can extend into assisting in the local schools, including the Shining Star School which is attended by our nine children..

The children live a very simple life, without sufficient space for a volunteer, instead volunteers are accommodated a cycle-ride away at lodgings provided by a Park visitors’ facility. Although there is no provision for close involvement with the workings of the National Park, association with rangers and guides can bring you into closer contact than is available to the ordinary visitor. N.B: volunteering here can be subject to excessive heat in May and June and to monsoon conditions in July and August.

Trisuli Village, Dhading District

This is a unique project, which combines several goals including the creation of a sports facility/recreation ground and the activities associated with it. It is in the process of generating huge interest and inspiration and creating a good platform for training teams and building team-work. This new facility is adjacent to the local school of 550 pupils. In conjunction with this is the construction of a building for both sporting and community use.

This sporting facility is part of what we call ‘The Trisuli Centre’, which also now has the Trisuli Young Leaders’ Club; with an exceptionally dynamic membership of approximately 30 young males and 30 young females. The purpose is responsible citizenship and the keys are team-work and awareness, and helping to produce the evidence that a young individual can make a difference for the better. The Club provides opportunities for learning English and computer skills, and matters can be shaped to suit a volunteer’s ability to impart his or her knowledge and aptitudes.

On the opposite bank of the Trisuli River is a small Muslim school/day care centre, desperately in need of support. Nestled amongst the majority Hindu population, this community is very much the ‘poor relative’ of the area. GVI(N) volunteers are helping tremendously in bringing much needed energy, care and support to this fledgling enterprise and the help given shouldn’t be underestimated.

Although accommodation and lifestyle at The Trisuli Centre is simplicity itself, there are however very acceptable toilet facilities and hot, solar-powered showers.

The Village is on the banks of the Trisuli River, at the point of a major crossing point provided by a 200m trail bridge, which gives it the colour and dynamics of a small but significant entrepôt at the road-head. It also includes that river’s most active white-water rafting centre. It is a small bazaar that GVI(N) flagged for a slow systematic restoration and ‘face-lift’ in the interest of community self-respect. The village is becoming well-known as the location of 'The Big Fig’ – probably Nepal’s biggest Banyan tree, with vast spreading boughs and a Jurassic forest of aerial roots. GVI have been involved in helping to preserve this, while helping to foster an important concern for Nepal’s neglected heritage.

Newakot

Newakot Bazaar is a small but very imposing historic fortress town north of the Kathmandu Valley, en route to the Langtang Himal. Here is the newest of GVI’s Nepal projects, which has a general brief to help better the community and the young people in particular....not least to detract them from the lure of big city life. GVI(N) Newakot is getting involved in organic farming and carbon offset enterprises, as well as in extramural English teaching and as of 2009 introduction to the world of computers. There is a small community of deaf children who board at and attend the local school. These children are in need of all types of practical help as well as some fun distractions. Living where they learn, it’s important that they receive some supervised outings in order to brighten-up their routine and sharpen their desire to learn skills which will help them cope in their often difficult circumstances.