It was a day of celebration at the Career Building International Academy last week as the community came together in honour of the Hindu Goddess of Education, Saraswati. Nick, one of our teaching volunteers from England writes about the event that saw another 50 pupils enrol at the Volunteer Society Nepal funded school…

We had known about the up coming celebration for some time and had been looking forward to it. All the Hindu festivals are a treat for any visiting volunteer to Nepal with bright colours, smiling faces and always some delicious local food! The 20th January was the celebration of the Goddess Saraswati. She is recognised as the Hindu goddess of spiritual enlightenment; encompassing learning, wisdom and fine arts. It is customary to begin a child’s education on this day and the CBIA organised a special worship of Saraswati.

The most significant aspect of this day is that Hindu children are taught reading and writing their first word – as it is considered an auspicious day to begin a child’s education. Goddess Saraswati being pure and white and representing learning, no animal sacrifices are made to her. Everyone has a vegetarian meal on this day. While the preparations on the new basketball court were underway, at the back of the playground the VSN language trainer Beesal was hard at work making Prashad in a huge cauldron over a wood fire. This was a mix of ground wheat and rice meal, sugar and dried fruits topped off with apples and tangerines. It was delicious and fed all the assembled after they received a blessing from the Brahmin. Standing with the families of the children you have been teaching witnessing the ancient rituals was an incredible experience. The school seems to be going from strength to strength with new classrooms, a new basketball court and an expanding library all donated by the funds of VSN volunteers.

We only have one week left at the school after 3 months volunteering here and it’s going to be strange to say goodbye to the children. It makes you want to come back and see how everyone in the community is getting on. All I can say is that I can fully recommend coming to volunteer as a teacher here. There is something new everyday and the kids surprise you with what they want to learn about. The pride they have in their country and their ambition is humbling and to be able to help as a volunteer even in a small is a great way to spend your time as a volunteer.

To find out more about volunteering as a teacher with Vounteer Society Nepal you can explore the Placement Pages:

• Volunteering in Schools
• Teacher Training and Subject Specific Teaching
  
• Teaching in Monasteries

At Volunteer Society Nepal we always try to ensure we get the most from our volunteers. We believe everyone has unique skills they can bring to help when they volunteer in Nepal. Few people bring as unique a skill as one of our most recent volunteers from France, Irene. As a trained sign language teacher she has come to volunteer in a deaf school in the ancient city of Bhaktapur.

Having been here for only a week she has already settled into life with her new host family and her new posting. We went to see how she was getting on and found her in front of a classroom of 7 highly focused deaf children signing back and forth to one another. The challenges of this for Irene are significant. She has had to learn to speak Nepali, sign Nepali and also help to teach the children to communicate correctly in English sign language. However, she seemed to be excelling in her new volunteering position. The children also seemed very grateful and were eager to engage with their new teacher.

The opportunity for the deaf children to see someone who has the same hearing difficulties as them, but is able to travel the world, be highly independent and respected is an inspiration. All too often, people with disability issues are not given any opportunity to learn in Nepal. Having a volunteer in Nepal like Irene is of huge importance as it gives these youngsters an idea of what they can achieve and brings them a huge step closer to them achieving their dreams.

Find out more about volunteering at Deaf and Disabled schools throughout Nepal

We have always felt that the best recommendation we can give to you about VSN is from the people who have already been here and experienced it for themselves. This is why we have launched our community pages.

On these pages you can find email addresses to contact people from all around the world who have worked on a variety of our projects. And if you have a Facebook account you can also join our Facebook group – ‘Volunteer Society Nepal: Official Facebook Group’. This is an easy way for people to upload photos, share stories and post questions they may have about VSN.

We hope you enjoy having a look round and it gives you an ever better feel of what VSN is like for our volunteers.

If you would like to know more about these opportunities then please feel free to contact the organisation directly or some of our past fund raising volunteers, Jason Carney, Holly Gee or Nick Tuppen through the Community Page.

If you are interested please get in touch!