Volunteering at VSN

One of the community services that VSN runs is a women's center. It is housed in a second floor room and large balcony of the family sized (six children) orphanage, Bright Futures. For no charge, a small group of women come together for a few hours every weekday morning to gain sewing and English language skills. A Nepalese woman is hired to instruct the sewing lessons while they rely on volunteers to teach English.

There is a sign in the VSN office showing two young blond women wearing traditional dress, called a kurtha. The women at the centre will make these to size for a very reasonable R500 (6$). Raven and I searched for fabric in Salleri, and eventually we both found some appealing and affordable cotton-poly blend. The Kurta fabric comes in pre-cut coordinated colours, with embroidery at the ankle, neck and bottom of the tunic, as well as a matching scarf or veil. I was hunting for red, as that denotes married status, but the red top fabric was always matched with green bottoms, and I did not want to look like Christmas! I settled for a bright fuchsia and blue set, while Raven chose a more pastel tone purple and green. When we returned to Pepsi Cola, the women of the centre took our measurements and our preferences (longer short sleeves with slimmer pants). They had these sewn to perfection in a week. Ever resourceful, the seamstresses use newspaper for the pattern material. The scissors they use are like your (great?) grandmother's- huge iron behemoths and the sewing machines work without electricity because they are the ancient black trundle kind that can be operated either with the foot pedal or the side hand wheel. We got to try them- it took me a few attempts before I was able to make a straight seam in scrap fabric.

I volunteered a few days with these grateful women, teaching them English when the other volunteers had not yet returned from their Christmas and New Years holidays in Pokhara. It was a lovely experience, as these women are supportive of each other and eager to learn. In retrospect, I wish I could have spent more time with them, as I don't feel I've had the most meaningful experience at the school in Pepsi Cola. During our time here the students have been either on holidays, in exams, or the teachers have been doing review with them. I was hoping to have my own class like in Salleri, but in CBIA (Career Building International Academy) there are enough staff, so I was a teacher's 'shadow' for review days, then I helped invigilate exams. Luckily the mural painting brought some creativity to the days.

Change is happening within the infrastructure of VSN. Tej (Director) has hired a capable staff member to better facilitate the volunteers' experiences, so he can focus on the growth of his organization. One of Tej's strong points is adapting to change at an organizational level. I don't think I was the first volunteer to tell him that volunteers come here (with our western mindset) to be useful, helpful and productive, which can be challenging because we aren't told in advance when the holidays are, or we float around CBIA following teachers. Because CBIA is his 'baby', he has responded to the volunteers' plea by changing the school day slightly. After winter break there will be a block in each class' day that is scheduled PE/Art/Library. There will a paid teacher's assistant supervising in the case of no volunteers, and now the volunteers can have their own block in the day to teach or facilitate any appropriate activity. I think this is a great plan, because the principal doesn't have to use his time to coordinate the volunteers any more, and the teachers don't have to put up with 'shadows' that may make them feel like they are being criticized.

Jan 11.

This week has been a super fun one for me. Exams are over and school is out for winter break, but the teachers are present and classes still show up in their uniforms to practice extra-curricular dance and singing in preparation for parents night. It is also Winter Camp for the grade 5-7's. These classes rotate through 45 minute activity blocks daily for the week. Heath is facilitating yoga, two Chinese volunteers are teaching Chinese music and language, while I am running Adventure Based Learning activities and games. Raven joins me for the grade 7 group, then returns home to do school work until we join her for lunch.

The ABL experience with Nepalese kids has been interesting. The most open spot that I could find to play games in was a dusty vacant field across from the main entrance. There is rusty bared wire along one side, the playing surface is uneven with random rocks and bricks and is littered with plastic garbage. There is the remains of a burn pile by the road. At the start I did a walk through to pick up broken glass and ankle turners. The kids must only know the sight of plastic garbage everywhere, because a few questioned me when they saw me picking up the broken balloon bits after our balloon activity. “Is Canada a clean country?” I replied that we make garbage too, but we leave it all in one huge place. Our lifestyles are so different. Sharing the field daily was a small group of men beating cotton, then quilting it into fabric creating heavy blankets for sale. Sorry about the dust we raised while cavorting about!

The games that were strictly 'FUNN' went really well, but the ABL initiatives were more challenging for these kids, as they have been instructed to remember only what they need by rote, to earn the highest placement in their classes and exams. This way of learning doesn't bode well for activities that promote thinking 'outside the box', teamwork and 'everyone wins'. Another issue that made it challenging for the students were boy-girl collaboration. By this age they are instructed not to be physically close to someone of the opposite sex, and some of the activities involved being in close proximity- in this case the boys simply would not work with the girls. (And vice versa) It worked better for them when I split the group by gender, the girls excelled at working cooperatively (a characteristic similar to western girls of this age) and without the girls, the boys deemed it a competition and could also work well together. Some of the games aren't as fun with lower numbers, but as a facilitator, you learn to roll with whatever the group presents and make the best of it.

Most of the activities went really well- the kids had a great time, and most of them received the teamwork message I was sending out. In our rotation, Heath had the group after their games session. He wasn't super impressed to challenge them to do deep breathing and yoga after they had been chasing each other around the field. Sorry Heath!

The last day I attempted a game that involved a tarp and a toy. The kids were to hold on to the edge of the tarp and working together roll the toy from one corner to the other without touching it with their hands, or dropping it. The only toy I could find at the last minute was a baby doll from the patio of VSN that was unfortunately missing a hand. The kids mastered the activity incredibly quickly, then the game took on a life of it's own- it became Bounce the Baby as the kids threw it up and down like on a trampoline or parachute. Invariable one or two of the smaller kids would jump on the tarp to get tossed around as well!