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ICS journey of Team Lamjung

We were the final 5 placements, 5 teams and total of 21 volunteers(both Nepali and UK) sifted and selected through different assessment steps of VSO. We were Team Lamjung assigned to volunteer in Lamjung district where the key development themes that VSO projects focus on is Quality and Inclusive Education. We had our In-Community orientation at Besisahar where we were basically trained to adapt to the lifestyle of the community, the targeted areas we had to work for the community, what the community expected from us and we got to reflect upon what the previous volunteers had done and how their work made impact in the community. We were also trained to carryout our paperwork for all the finances,day to day activities and big events. Our teams were divided into 5 placements(Garambesi, Dhamilikuwa, Tinpiple, Alkatar and Shailitar) and we volunteers were responsible for planning, organizing and executing all the events to be worked out in the community with the guidance and help from our Team Leaders, Project coordinator and local partner NGO Sarvodaya Sewashram. As Sarvodaya is a NGO based in Lamjung, we had a clear guidance on what to works to carry out in the community which both fulfills the VSO development theme and tackle the real time problem of the community. We brainstormed for all the possible works we could do and had carefully mapped out every single day of the next three months and were all buckled up and determined to go and work in our respective placements.

After we reached our placement our first few days went by introducing ourselves to the school and the community members. I was in Team Shailitar and our placement was the most rural among the 5 placements, so we had really dispersed community and it was quite challenging for us to communicate and involve all the community members in our events. This is also one the reasons we were more engaged in the school rather the community. We started taking regular EPC(English Proficiency Classes ) from junior to senior students to help them improve their English. We organized after school clubs like dance, art, singing, sports for the students to help them engage in extra-curricular activities. We also organized competitions & tournaments where the winner’s work was showcased in the Reading Fair.

VSO also focuses on health & sanitation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) and we mainly focused our programs on simple basic hygiene such as six steps of hand wash, steps of brushing teeth, importance of proper hygiene etc. For the disaster risk reduction we did workshops on how to stay safe before, during and after a disaster, preventive measures and basic first aid.

We also had collective workshops carried out throughout all placements such as yoga workshop, sexual and reproductive health workshop where women suffering from uterine prolapse were treated, handwriting workshop for students and teachers, ICT (Computer training) for teachers, DIY Sanitary Pad making workshop.

Our teams worked for the maintenance of the school as well. All of the schools we worked in were government schools and most of them were not in the best condition for the children. We painted different classrooms, cleaned and maintained toilets, organized libraries and created gardens to make the school environment more child friendly for the students.

We organized different awareness programs for various social issues such as child marriage, domestic abuse, mental health, gender equality and waste management. We prepared for these issues because they were still existing in the community and we wanted to highlight these issues and make people aware about them, show them the effects of the issues and what we can do to tackle them. We also had prepared dramas & workshops to raise the awareness for child marriage and gender equality.

At the end of our journey, we all had completed our planned works and were quite satisfied with our works. We all had given our best and we had discovered how even small steps of help in community can make a longer and sustainable impact. This program also made us understand that you don’t always have to do big things to make a difference in anyone’s life or the society itself, sometimes the small things also can lead to the initiation for change This is what working in VSO is all about,  working together both volunteers and community people towards a sustainable goal.

To watch more of what we did in the community and the whole ICS journey, here is the link to our Team video

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Reminiscing Lamjung Moments

It feels like it was just yesterday that I packed a trekking bag bigger than myself(almost literally) and saying goodbye to my family to go on a journey that turned out to be one of the most amazing journey of my life. I honestly had prepared myself to face the worst case scenario, well VSO specifically trains you in this as you can prepare yourself mentally beforehand but instead I got so much more than I had imagined.

Initially I had my doubts about this volunteering program especially during pre-placement training. I am a socially awkward person and it takes time for me to bond with people and there I was heading towards an entirely different place with 23 strangers whom I barely knew for three whole months. The first few days were really hard as I was somewhere unfamiliar with people I didn’t know, I had nowhere to find the familiarity I needed for my comfort. But as the training days went by it started getting easier, and I no longer felt like I was somewhere I didn’t belong. The biggest challenge for me was to adapt into the new community we were placed in. The idea of me having to communicate with the community people on a daily basis to build relations was absolutely dreadful simply because I don’t usually talk much and like to keep to myself, but along the way it wasn’t as bad and I slowly learned to effectively converse with the people of the community.

Luckily for me, I had the most amazing human as my counterpart (Salomey) to get me through all of the troubles and doubts. I don’t think I could have anyone more perfect than her as my counterpart. We both enjoyed our time spending it alone even if we were together in the same room, we both had an understanding that we didn’t have to fill up the silence with meaningless conversation just for the sake of it. We could talk for hours straight about anything and everything and then go back to doing our own business not talking at all without feeling awkward. We both had passion for art and rediscovered our love for it while planning activities for the school. I still remember the night we had this crazy idea to make hundreds for origami paper cranes to cover our whole ceiling of Art Exhibit for the reading fair, we both were excited like little kids and ended up watching a movie cause we couldn’t sleep due to the excitement. We watched countless movies together and shared so many stories because we both liked staying up late.She endured my crazy cleaning spree of our room every week( the only day we don’t go to school and have free time) and helped me do it even though she didn’t want to do anything more than just sleep. She is the best and I really miss spending time with her.

Living in Shailitar was like switching back to basics, everything was simple and plain. I started to realize all the simple things I took for granted and how even the smallest of things which you never realized were important started feeling important. I never knew that a soft comfy mattress would feel heavenly after sleeping in the hard bed after a long time or even getting to see yourself in a full size mirror and the list goes on. Though I missed the comfort of my home I was starting to enjoy my time in those small simple things, like the tiny & cozy room of ours our little sanctuary where we would watch movies every night, watching breath taking views of Shailitar,chatting up and enjoying our tea and biscuits while sitting in the balcony of our host home, coming back home to Edna and baby Edna(they are the buffalo our host mother had), watching stars at night ,seeing the kids all excited in the morning when we went to school, having discussions about work and then talking about nonsense stuffs and laughing like crazy with the team, those heavenly eggs and noodles and black tea of didi’s shop down the school(the only shop of our community) after a long and tiring day,walking for hours to team meetings because walking was much easier than getting a bus on the really really bumpy road, getting excited to see all the team members, getting fresh hot donuts on the way back home from team meeting and the sunsets which I never got bored of cause it was so beautiful every single day. I could still  go on the list of things but that would just make this post long and boring.

I could also feel myself grow as a person through out this journey, there are things that I could have done better and some things that I could have handled better than I did but I know I can’t change that now and all I can do is learn from my mistakes. I believe I am a little bit more patient person than I was before and I definitely have a changed perspective on life. It’s really crazy that I ever had second thoughts about joining the program because if I had I would have missed out in the most awesome 3 months of my life. If I ever have the chance I would happily go back to being a volunteer in VSO in a heart beat.