Reporter: Rina K.C.
Time duration: 20 days
Objective: To help the teachers at the community school
Organizer: Gaurishankar High School and NYS, YI
Organizing committee: Dr. Karna B. Thapa, Dhruba Lamsal, Sunayna Nepal, Mona Aditya, Melissa McCabe and Rina K.C.
Total number of participants: 6
Names of Volunteers: Madhavi Bhandari, Melissa McCabe, Rina K.C., Ganesh Gautam, Raghu Aditya, Tarun Manandhar
DESCRIPTION
Tuhure Pasal at Rupakot-7 Tanahu, the destination for 6 inexperienced and ambitious youth volunteers who headed with Karna Bahadur Thapa the authorized person for the volunteering project of 14 days in the community school of the locale on 10th June 2008. We the team of six volunteers; Melissa McCabe, Raghu Aditya, Ganesh Gautam, Tarun Manandhar, Madhavi Bhandari and Rina K.C with full enthusiasm and happiness boarded in the bus and had the enjoyable bus ride for 8 hours. As the destination is not that farther from our hometown
We were paid for our accommodation and food throughout the stay by the community school. Due to some internal problems, the program was extended from 14 days to 20 days. The provision they provided for us was better than that we had expected it to be. However, their humbleness was the thing that actually we are affected by as they were generous enough with their words and deeds and so always appreciated all our activities with the open heart. They had always the positivity towards us and our acts and so were we performing in accordance to meet out their expectations. The group had lacked the guiding factor though had appeared with loads of creativity to help the teachers and the community. Besides helping the community school and teachers, we wanted to conduct youth seminar, first aid program, and visit some schools of the area to understand the difference in quality of education among whish some of them could be accomplished and some could not. We even hiked round some places that were for our personal refreshment but it too proved worthwhile in understanding the community and its habitant much more than we did just by residing in the locality. This volunteering provided us with ample opportunity of serving not just others but ourselves too. We build our confidence level, interpersonal skills, spirit of team functioning, conflict managing, self-accountability and lots more. Personally, I am indebt to those who approached with this grand opportunity of exploring me and making my one of the dreams come true.
We each day used to conduct English-speaking class for an hour and so. Followings are the record of the activities that happened and we had done through out our stay in Tanahu.
Day 1(10th June 2008, Tuesday)
Arrived at the destination Tuhure Pasal at 3:30 pm
Observed the classes
Had small orientation class with the teachers at Gauri Shankar Vidya Sadan
Day 2(11th June 2008, Wednesday)
Hiked around the village
Played a small name games with teachers to make them familiarize with us
Conducted the reading to understand their level of English
Give and took comments along with their expectation from us
Day 3(12th June 2008, Thursday)
Played game
To know their level of responding and speaking conducted discussion on the topic ‘Is Punishment Necessary in school’(teachers spoke really well)
Split teachers into groups of 3 in each team to be handled by 2-2 volunteers
Asked to get two new words to enrich their Vocabulary
Day 4(13th June 2008, Friday)
Participated in the parents meeting conducted by community school
Gave small speech appreciating their unity and community works
4 teachers resigned with no specified reasons(internal politics)
Played game to relief their tension, stress and prepare them for the English class
Provided crosswords to expand and acknowledge their level of vocabulary
Allow them to read paragraph and explain what they had comprehend
Day 5(14th June 2008, Saturday)
Observed the cultural dance performed in the name of deceased ones
Conducted Youth seminar
Played games with youth in youth seminar
Gave speech by Rina on Agriculture its importance, problems and solution
Performed small skit on migration
Youth seminar ended abruptly due to unexpected rainfall
Took part in socializing dance program called Rodhi
Day 6(15th June 2008, Sunday)
Engaged the vacant classes after teachers resigning
Continued the course further where the old teachers had left
Did not have English class due to raining and over flooding of the streams because of which teachers were busy fetching the students home and helping them cross the stream
Day 7(16th June 2008, Monday)
Continued with teaching the students from class Nursery to class 6
Conducted the class with teachers after school
Introduced English song to help teacher’s improve their pronunciation
Helped to teach diphthongs and phonetics
Day 8(17th June 2008, Tuesday)
Continued with teaching the students from class Nursery to class 6
Conducted the class with teachers after school
Introduced another English song
Continued the lessons of Phonetics
Did some comprehension task
Planned to have Youth seminar next day
Went to Rodhi
Day 9(18th June 2008, Wednesday)
Visited government school
Took first period by 2-2 volunteers in classes 8,9 and 10
Had small gathering and talk with the teachers at government school
Informed principal of government school about the Youth seminar and requested to sent some students
Started the Youth seminar at 2 p.m. with game
Had small discussion session to explore themselves and make them flexible with us as the youths seemed really inward and shy
Dispute aroused due to one of the youth who actually ruined our whole program
Concluded the seminar without completion of the targeted programs
Continued the lesson of phonetics
Sang English song and introduced another one
Did some comprehension tasks
Melissa’s health condition deteriorated
Day 10(19th June 2008, Thursday)
Continued with teaching the students
2 volunteers only conducted the English class with teachers
Melissa’s condition was weaker than the day before
Day 11(20th June 2008, Friday)
Had half holiday in the school no classes with teachers
Brought bamboo from woods, fix them and tied rope making support for little kids to cross the stream that turns bigger in monsoon days
Day 12(21st June 2008, Saturday)
Decided to take Melissa back to
Get prepared to fetch Melissa back to
Reached
Day 13 (22nd June 2008, Sunday)
Boarded bus at 7 am from Kalanki to get back to Tanahu
Reached Tanahu at 2 pm
Handed the things collected from volunteers’ family
Day 14(23rd June 2008, Monday)
Continued teaching the students and the teachers
Dealt with the phonetic symbol and songs in English class with teachers
Day 15(24th June 2008, Tuesday)
Took the classes with students
Took class with teachers
Gave some composition tasks like creating story on own and report writing
Our team went to visit last years community school’s picnic spot
Day 16(26th June 2008, Wednesday)
Took classes as usual with the students
Hiked to the valley called Bayapani 3 hours walk distance from our place
Enjoyed outdoor sleep on the terrace
Day 17(27th June 2008, Thursday)
Rice plantation
Last English class with the teachers
Gave ideas about some grammar rules and some techniques of reading, writing and listening
Playing with mud and enjoying rice plantation
Day 18(28th June 2008, Friday)
Had the grand farewell from community school family
School had the monsoon holidays for a week
Plan for our returning
Day 19(29th June 2008, Saturday)
Hike to places of Lamjung district
Returned home stumbling at dark at around 9:30 pm
Day 20(30th June 2008, Sunday)
Last day of the stay
Talked with local people and gave thank-you cards to person we were grateful to
Madhavi had fever
Day 21(31st June 2008, Monday)
Packed our back
Left Tanahu at 8:30 am in the morning
Had the enjoying bus ride and reached
Departed from the group with heavy heart
It is needless to mention that Tanahu is the ambitious project for NYS since it was the first volunteering campaign out of the valley and the challenges were not confined to NYS core team only but to the inexperience and young volunteers who have been appointed for the task. The challenges of assimilating the Canadian volunteer in the remote environment of our country along with the internal politics and unexpected resigning of the teachers on the first week of our arrival to the place had added some trouble to our project. Nevertheless, the team spirit, the sense of responsibility, the cooperation of the teachers of Gauri Shankar Vidya Sadan provided with enough confidence to cope up with the situations and handle them accordingly. Tanahu as the grand opportunity to enact for the community has not only been the volunteerism for others’ sake but it has been the exploration of the volunteers’ inner self. It had been the profuse attempt of recognizing the inner desire and worth giving values to them. Personally, the volunteerism activities we did in Tanahu have been the good utilization of time as well as the best benefactor to help me know myself better and know the importance of lots of things around me that I used to take it as for granted. Tanahu is the basket full of sweet fruits to me, the tastes are stuck to my tongue, and I know it is going to have longer impact on me. Thanks to those, who supported and helped to make this project accomplished and my greatest gratitude towards NYS and Karna B. Thapa who designed this volunteering program.
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