EVERYTHING REVEALED ABOUT OUR VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCE IN KATHMANDU, NEPAL
Smiley eyes in the school courtyard - Kathmandu, Nepal
So where next after two months in beautiful Canada? Nepal had been sitting for a long time in our travel destinations around the world and this was high time we paid a visit and we have never been more right to explore this amazing slice of land where modern life meets a fantastic well-preserved culture and where people's smiles meet you around the corner.
Want to know more about Kathmandu? Check our blog post HERE
Dance performance during a Nepali festival in our school in Kathmandu, Nepal
FINDING THE PROJECT
After Canada it didn’t take long to find our next volunteering program – we just googled “volunteering in Nepal” and there we got the VIN website, Volunteers Initiative Nepal.
This time we spent sometimes researching previous volunteers’ feedback and the website in all its parts and we exchanged quite lots of emails with VIN. After our not too satisfying experience in Canada we wanted to make sure we could finally make an impact in Nepal through a meaningful volunteering program.
Not sure how to make it happen? Have a look at our article on how to make it happen!
Curious stares of the youngest students in a local Kathmandu school - Nepal
A GREAT START
VIN offers many different projects of varying duration and cost so we choose to teach English (me) and Sports (Fabio) in a local school in Kathmandu. The communication with VIN has been excellent from the start – we got lots of information on our host family, placement and teaching approach together with previous volunteers’ feedbacks who have done the same experience in the past.
On our arrival at the airport (thought our flight was three hours late), the smile of Akkal, the handyman of VIN, was there in the crowd to welcome us and take us to VIN hostel where their office is also based.
Why, When, How, Where to travel in Nepal - Learn more from our Country Guide HERE
Before being placed in our home stay, VIN organised a 3 day induction program, introducing us to the Nepali culture, language, festivals and to our specific projects.
Bhupi, the director of VIN himself, met us personally, explaining us about the history of VIN and showing us a detailed spreadsheet with all financial data on VIN – we really appreciated his transparency and passion. He wanted us to know where our money went – a fair part always goes to the homestay while the rest is distributed throughout the organisation and also used to cover some expenses for volunteers such as taxi rides from/to the homestay.
Prepare yourself for a true cultural immersion in Nepal - Read our cultural tips HERE
Nepali teachers and us in a local school in Kathmandu, Nepal
TEACHING AND LEARNING
We seriously loved our placement in a local school in Kathmandu – we got a great connection with the children and got the impression that we left having taught them as much as we could in the very short time we spent with them.
Are you ready for Nepal? Check out all our health & safety trip HERE
After our experience we had an exit interview again with the association founder in person, Bhupi, and you can really tell he puts all his time and efforts into his organization – he took detailed notes of all our feedbacks, ready to make any changes necessary to improve the next volunteers’ experience.
READ MORE ABOUT OUR OTHER VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCES IN:
Teaching geography in Kathmandu, Nepal
HAPPY ENDING!
We had a wonderful relationship with all other volunteers who started their project with us and they also loved their experience.
Probably one of the improvements which everyone agreed upon, was to have more detailed information about the English level of our students and about their national education curriculum so to adjust our lessons accordingly before our placement.
We would highly recommend VIN to everyone who would like to volunteer in Nepal –
it is 100% local and they know what they are doing.
Heading to Nepal soon? Don't miss hiking on the Himalayas along the Annapurna Circuit
Fabio and his gang of students in Kathmandu, Nepal
We always keep our door open for new projects and ideas – we’ve been already volunteering and travelling in Nepal, Philippines, Malaysia, Tanzania and Uganda and are currently travelling in South America - stay tuned for more!
As our motto says: we travel, we learn, we grow.
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