What Volunteer Program Fees are like in Nepal

The fee varies wildly and this should worry any potential applicants. Basically, there are 2 types of organizations offering volunteer travel in Nepal – one based in Nepal and the other based abroad. The fees of local organizations are much cheaper compared to the international ones.

You may ask yourself, 'how can they offer me all they've promised (e.g. accommodation, meals, volunteer program) if they have such low program fees?

They can. The local organizations hire local people. Their running cost is low, and you’ll be surprised when you come to Nepal just how cheap things really are in Nepal. They can still make good profit by offering low program fees.

Program fee USD100 per week is a good fee to pay. But...

Ask them what do you get by paying that much. You should get accommodation with a good host family, 3 local meals and a volunteer project for that fee.

Ask them how is the program fee distributed - e.g. between host family, volunteer project and the organizer.

Ask them to show proof of this.

If the organizer is taking most of the program money, then rest assured your host family will start complaining to you. Complains like - how less they are getting paid for hosting you, how they can't serve you food that will make you happy, etc.

If this happens, talk directly to your organizer. Do not try to satisfy your host family. You can't and it is not your responsibility.

Your host family must get at least USD50 for hosting you, and the orphanage (or the project) about USD40.

The organizer profits form your registration fee. So even if they do not get share of program fee they will still make a good profit for organizing your volunteer fee.

Staying Healthy While Volunteering in Nepal

It is very important to stay healthy while volunteering. It is no fun to lay low when you should be out and about helping the needy. Read some of the points below carefully:

1.       Eating with hands, instead of forks and spoons, is very common in Nepal. Your host family might expect you to eat with hand and some families might not even have forks or proper spoons. It would delight your host family if you eat with hand. But you must wash your hands properly. Use soap and make sure your finger nails are clean.

2.       Diarrhea is a common problem in Nepal and foreign visitors will easily encounter this menace if you're not careful. Do not eat salad and lettuces. Even well washed leaves have tiny bugs. Ask your host family to wash it with potassium permanganate.

3.       Food from vendors selling opening - a big NO NO. They are not only be hot and spicy, they will give you good stomach ache.

4.       Drinking water - always boil water, or buy mineral water and make sure the seal of the bottle isn't tampered with.

5.       Go to good restaurants and enjoy. In Kathmandu and Pokhara, you will find many different restaurants serving all kinds of food. Your host family will serve your dal, bhat twice a day (lunch, dinner) so you should go out and eat other food.

6.       Try Nepalese beer - they're good. Some of them are of foreign brands. Do not drink alcohol - not suggested - even if the bottles are of international brands like Jack Daniels. Lately, people have died from drinking from these brands as the alcohol is mixed with local spirits and sold on the market.

7.       No bananas - the traders use extremely harmful medicines to make bananas ripe.

8.       If you're trekking high up in the mountains after 3 thousand meters you will start experiencing Altitude Sickness. Drink plenty of fluids, ascend slowly, or better rest. If nothing helps, descend as fast as you can. Don't drink alcohol at these places as it will dehydrate you and make your sickness worst.

9.       And lastly, if you travel to Chitwan take your Malaria pills. Use a good mosquito repellent and buy a mosquito net in Kathmandu (cost you about USD7).

Volunteering in Nepal is fun. It is a very friendly country and people will really appreciate your presence. But you must stay health also to have more fun and better experience. 

What Orphanages in Nepal Are Like – Part II

I’ll begin by telling you what the children that stay in the orphanage are like.

Not all the children in the orphanage are orphans. They’re only 30% orphans in most orphanages. Almost 70% of the children have either one or both parents living. The reason the children are there is because their parents are not able to raise them. The orphanage provides the children with good food, education and provides them decent clothes to wear. These are things their parents won’t be able to provide.

In rural villages of Nepal, where people are still illiterate, many have large families and they have many children (up to 7-8). Family planning still hasn’t caught on with them. Because of this, the children grow up malnourished and they toil in the field for long hours instead of attending schools as they’re parents are unable to afford them education. When one of the parents get injured permanently and is not able to earn anything, the situation gets even more worst. The children can die of hunger also.

Usually, a head person of the village or relatives sends the children away to orphanages in this situation. The orphanage however needs a recommendation letter from the Village Development Committee before admitting the child to their orphanage. Without the letter, the orphanage has no right to raise the child.

The Food at Orphanage

Nepalese love dal, bhat (rice and lentil soup). They eat the meal twice a day. This is often out of necessity as dal and bhat is cheaper to eat than other food. Along with dal, bhat, they will have some vegetable curry and pickle. This is what the children at the orphanage will enjoy twice everyday. When volunteers will stay in the orphanage, you’ll enjoy the same kind of diet.

In the afternoon, the children will enjoy tea with biscuits, maybe noodles or beaten rice (called cwura) with curry. In the morning, they’ll just drink tea, with maybe an egg. It’s not a very protein packed diet, but it’s something that’ll keep them going.

The Children and their studies

The children at the orphanage must all be enrolled in a school and must be attending it regularly. The orphanage must find funds for children’s education. Often, many schools provide scholarships to the children of the orphanage. Many give them discount on tuition fee.

Besides the tuition fees, the orphanages also has to provide for the school uniform, books, copies and pencils.
The volunteers can help the children a great deal by providing them private tuition when they come back to the orphanage in the evening from schools. Speak to them in English not using difficult words, teach them nursery rhymes, play games with them and help them finish their homework. The children often become confident as result of all these activities and many strive to work hard at their studies.

Without good command over English and a college degree, the children will never find good jobs in Nepal. You should help them dream of a good future by giving them hope and turning them into confident children.

The staff of the orphanage

Besides the director who runs the orphanage, you’ll find several other staffs (part time and full time) working in the orphanage. This depends on the size and the budget of the orphanage. But the orphanage hires at least one or two staff.

Ayah

Or the caretaker. I’ve often found a middle-aged women working as a caretaker in orphanages. She stays in the same building and helps the children remain clean and tidy. The caretaker is often overworked as children demand attention all the time and the orphanages cannot afford to hire another caretaker. This is where volunteers will contribute, in easing the burden on ayah and taking even better care of children.

Teacher

Usually you’ll find a local teacher (either hired or a volunteer) that comes in the evening to teach children English and other subjects. The teacher is overwhelmed most of the time as there is only so much that one teacher can do to improve the children. Volunteers will help the teacher teach the children. This is as important as taking care of the children.

Cook

You’ll usually find a cook who will prepare all the meal. As I’ve written already, Nepalese people mostly enjoy dal and bhat, so it’s dal, bhat twice a day, with maybe tea in the morning and tea with some snacks in the evening. It’s not easy however to make meal for large number of people. If you want, volunteers can learn the cooking, even experiment and take over some of cooking jobs. It’s not easy though to learn to cook Nepalese food, especially the curry.

Your Stay

In many orphanages, you’ll stay inside the orphanage. You’ll have a room for yourself, which you might share with other volunteer/s. In some cases, you will live outside, usually with a host family and eat most of your food there, instead of in the orphanage. Make sure if you’re staying in a host family that it is not far from the orphanage as you’ll have to get up early to come to your orphanage.

The summary

So this is a brief summary of orphanage and how it is like in Nepal. A foreigner volunteer can contribute a lot during her stay if you buckle down and really bridge the gap between you and the culture of the orphanage. You must not be fussy while working and you must take things in your stride. There will be times when you won’t understand the whole rationale behind some of the things happening in the orphanage but you’ll have to understand this is Nepal, not back home.

For instance, in Nepal it’s normal to beat children up when their naughty. You’ll might think such a thing is inexcusable. It’s simply not allowed back home. But in Nepal, everyone will turn a deaf ear when you complain. The children are used to the beating - the staffs beat them to bring some discipline in them, and even Social Welfare Council approves of milder form of beating.

When you volunteer, you’ll face many issues like that.

Good luck!

And oh, if you’ve got any questions regarding this, leave a comment.

My next post will be about the kind of volunteers that come to Nepal.

What Orphanages in Nepal Are Like - Part I

Working in Orphanages is a very popular volunteer program in Nepal. You’ll find plenty of orphanages in most major cities of Nepal but most are located inside the Kathmandu Valley. The Valley is where the wealth of Nepal is concentrated, it’s also the place where many poor people arrive to get rich and but end up living in dreadful conditions in the hope of one day becoming rich.

For wanna be volunteers in orphanage, I have a word of warning – it can be a tough place to work but it’ll also be the most rewarding and personally very satisfying.

It’s not the children or the staff that’ll make working in the orphanage tough, it’s the working conditions itself. Most orphanages in Nepal don’t have their own building and rent the property. They often choose dingy buildings with cramped rooms and with lack of playing area. The rent is cheaper in these buildings. Orphanages in Nepal are resource poor and they try to save as much as possible on rent. While working in the orphanage, if you live and work in the same building, it’ll be pretty difficult. But there’ll always be children to cheer you on and staffs of the orphanage to pull you through it.

Opening Orphanages in Nepal

Opening an orphanage isn’t an easy job. If you want to do it, you’ll have to write the constitution and clarify such points like objective, write name (both in Nepali and English), provide a stamp, and include names of committee members. At least 7 members are required for the committee. You’ll have to disclose the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and members.

The orphanage will be registered as a social organization at the district office. Before the district office gives a go ahead to open the orphanage, they’ll send the names of committee members to police, who will search for records of the members and see if any of them have any criminal records. When the police do not find anything, they’ll advice the district office of this. Only after this the district office will give a go ahead to open the orphanage.

You’re then free to rent the room or buy a property and establish an orphanage.

After you move in your orphanage into a rented property, you’ll need to register with Child Welfare Organization. It’s the duty of the Child Welfare Organization to make sure the orphanages are following the rules set out by the government. They’ll visit orphanages and conduct surveys to see if the orphanage fulfills criteria set to them.

According to Child Welfare Organization, an orphanage must have:

· play ground for the children to play
· The building must be in an open area
· Room must be large, spacious and well ventilated
· Depending upon the size of the bed, not more than two children can sleep in the same bed
· The children must have individual blankets

There are many more criteria like this which an orphanage must fulfill. If they fail to do so, they can be closed down. If any volunteers working in an orphanage encounters poor living conditions, they can take up this issue with Child Welfare Organization if the orphanage fails to improve the situation.

Ask your placement organizer to follow up the matter if you don’t want to be personally involved. It’s their responsibility to make sure the orphanages they are sending their volunteers to are following all the rules.

Family Run Orphanages

You’ll find many orphanages in Nepal run by a family, who stay inside the orphanage and raise their own kids along with other children. These families mostly have migrated to urban centers like Kathmandu from remote villages and it’s easier for them to run the orphanage and sustain the orphanage and their family like that.

This is not a bad setup. But many families running these orphanages something eat different meal and treat different meals to other children. I’ve discovered several cases where these families live in a luxury inside the orphanage, while the orphaned children live in very poor condition. There is nothing wrong to have a more luxurious bed for yourself than for the children but if you’re eating better food, watching TV, your children are wearing better clothes, while the children of the orphanage are deprived of such things, this is wrong.

Often, it’s these kinds of families who frequently complain to foreign volunteers who are working in the orphanage that they lack of fund to improve children’s working condition. They’re directly hinting to the volunteers for money. There is compulsion on volunteers to contribute, as the orphanage receives money from placement organizers who place volunteers in these orphanages.

If you feel like giving, provide the orphanage with material goods, e.g. blankets, mattresses, beds, instead of money. In Nepal, the orphanages are not supposed to take any money from volunteers. They’re supposed to pay any money to the volunteers also. Your placement organizer will donate the money for hosting to a volunteer in an orphanage as a contribution. It’s not a fee.

I’ll write more in my next article about the orphanage. If you have any questions on any of them, please feel free to leave a remark and I’ll answer them.

What’s the season (July) like to volunteer?

It’s the time when Nepal (and maybe the other countries) sees the greatest number of volunteers. It’s summer time in the West, time for holiday, but also time to go out on a volunteer abroad adventure. So what’s the season like in Nepal when many flock to experience Nepal intimately, help the underprivileged and the downtrodden?

You’re in for a surprise. If you want to see mountains, the natural beauty of Nepal, this is the worst season. But if you’re here to volunteer and immerse yourself with your local people, it’s the perfect time.

It’s the season of rain in Nepal, time when mudslide and landslide is common. When roads are washed away, houses are destroyed, but it’s also that time when people don’t venture out often and stay within their village, where rice planting season sees migrant workers come home to be with their family and till the land. It’s the time when you see villages see activities and people unite, albeit only for a month or so. Actually, there isn’t a better time to learn about Nepal than now.

The rains almost failed this time around. Anxious farmers were having restless time, but the monsoon is rain has finally arrived. You have to remember that more 70% of people are subsistent farmers and most of them depend on rain to farm. The monsoon also means at least light drizzle will accompany you most of the time and roads are waterlogged and muddy.

So when you land in Nepal, don’t expect to be on an expedition to visit Mount Everest, as your flights will get cancelled because of thick cloud cover and rain. The trekking trails will be full of blood thirty leeches and extremely slippery. And the majestic mountains will shy away from monsoon visitors under the cover of cloud.

You should stay tucked inside your Home Family and enjoy all the trappings of Nepali life.

It’s also a wedding season in Nepal. Don’t miss out on the chance to visit colourful and boisterious Nepali wedding if you’re invited.

Visiting an Orphanage - Observing its activities

Hi,

I visited an orphanage on Friday (been already 2 days). The orphanage had shifted to a new place and I wanted to look at its new infrastructure and see how volunteers had been working there.

The orphanage, called Sahara International, (sahara means support in Nepali), has rented a first floor of a 3 storey building in Narayanthan, on the outskirts of Kathmandu. The 20 children of the orphanage have have bunk beds to sleep on and there is kitchen, toilet and a playground. It's not a bad place.

There were 4 volunteers there. An American couple and 2 girls from Ireland. They were feeding the children with biscuits and peanut butter when I arrived. I spoke to the volunteers and how they'd been doing in the orphanage. The American couple said because of langauge barrier (most children don't understand English), they needed to use lot of sign langauge. They'd also spend their 3 weeks raising funds through the website and painting the floors.

The American couple told me what they'd manage to do with the money they'd collected from fundraising. They'd brought gas stove, proper cooking utensils, constructed a place for the children to wash and shower and improved the toilet. It was quite impressive. They'd spent majority of the time outside the orphanage though, visiting cyber cafes to construct a website and raise funds.

I'm happy that they were able to accomplish so much during their time. They said they'll continue to raise funds to the orphanage. But they actually hadn't spend time caring, teaching and looking after the children. That's part of the job also when you volunteer.

I know orphanages in Nepal can have dirty carpets, dirty floors and rowdy children, but volunteers should be prepared for that. You gain so much be getting used to all the condition and really buckling down to volunteer.

Try to raise funds by all means but provide children with love and care also.

The American couple hadn't taken any Nepali langauge class. They said they were short on time and wanted to spend what time there was volunteering. But it's actually a good idea to learn little bit of Nepali language first, then start the work.

Why Volunteer in Nepal

Nepal offers everything a volunteer would want. The people are warm and friendly, the landscape stunningly beautiful, and the country extremely poor where many well organized grassroots community projects are operating to improve the situation.

Although politically Nepal is still in an unstable state, with strikes and demonstrations occurring frequently, foreigners have never been harmed in Nepal. Even during a decade of civil war, not a single tourist was hurt. You might experience delays, but you’ll definitely be able to volunteer unhindered and travel around Nepal to experience the delights of the country.

Deprivation

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. There is very little industry. Most people are subsistence farmers. Tourism is the big industry and thousands depend on it.

Most Nepalese also travel abroad to work, mainly to Middle Eastern countries and India, and they send remittance back home. The country also survives on the largesse of Western governments. Most of the projects in Nepal (governmental or private) are supported by donations coming from governments abroad. The orphanages, grassroots projects, conversation projects, and most other projects depend on donations.

The People of Nepal


a typical Nepali village home

The people of Nepal are of two ethnic race; broadly speaking - Aryans and Tibeto-Burmans. The Aryan are mostly well off, except for the Dalits (formerly known as untouchables), while Tibeto-Burman groups have languished behind in education and jobs. The trend is slowly changing though.

Most Nepalese are also known as very affable and welcoming people. Most of the speak Nepali and understand English also (many of them). Hinduism and Buddhism are the two main religions of Nepal. Christian communities are also springing up as Evangelical activities are on the rise in Nepal.You’ll find Muslims also, especially in the south of country bordering India.

The landscape

Nepal's landscape is amazingly diverse. From the highest mountain in the world, you can reach almost up to sea level in just 100 kilometers. Numerous ethnic groups have thrived in this diverse topography.

In the north of Nepal, the majestic Himalayas form a natural boundary against Tibet. The middle part of the country contains mid hills (from 1000 meters to up 5000 meters), while the south region bordering India is flat, hot and humid.

Volunteer Projects


poverty stricken children of Nepal

Orphanage: Working in an orphanage is a popular volunteer activity in Nepal. You’ll find plenty of orphanages in all corners of Nepal. The orphanages aren’t well supported by the state and rely on donation to keep on going. The children aren’t all orphans in there. Many children come from extremely poor families, whose parents aren’t able to support them. It is not a bad setup to have the orphanages raising children from desperate poor families as they get food and education in the orphanage. A foreign volunteer can help the children by helping them improve their English or other subjects, playing with them, counseling them and making sure they receive plenty of care and love.

Teaching: Teaching in Schools, namely English, is another popular volunteer project. The government-run schools in Nepal have poor infrastructure and poorly trained staffs. A native English speaker can do a lot during their volunteering period.

Also, many schools, especially in rural areas, run well when a native English speaking volunteer join their staff list. The student enrollment increases and suddenly there is a buzz about in the place. Choose a school where you can do a lot. The private schools in Kathmandu are well funded and well organized. Volunteering in them won’t give you the kind of experience you’re looking for.

Teaching Buddhist Monks: a recent but very popular volunteer project. A number of volunteer organizations operate the program in Nepal. The site is usually Tibetan Monasteries of Nepal, where monks are extremely grateful to be taught English. You’ll stay in the Monastery (mostly) and eat Tibetan or Nepali food. You can also learn about Tibetan culture and Buddhism during the project.

Conservation: The forest covers of Nepal are dwindling at an alarming rate. The main reason for this is the reliance on firewood. There are many conservation programs currently running in Nepal. When you volunteer, make sure your project is not only supported by the local community but also owned by the local community. Unless this is the case, all your hard work will go to nothing as without ownership, participation and support from the locals, conservation efforts are destined for failure.

Health Project: For medical students or health professionals. Choose a hospital that caters mostly to the poor. You can really do a lot to help them. You can even organize health camps and treat people for free. Generally, for the poor of Nepal, medical treatment is expensive and unaffordable.

Internship: Many students come to Nepal to Intern. It’s an exciting place to intern. Journalism, social work, anthropology, research, Nepal has plenty of scope in all them.

You can also find other volunteer programs like women empowerment, and language and cultural immersion program.

Seeing Nepal


Mount Everest, highest mountain in the world

Trek to Mount Everest, or follow the trails that led to the Annapurna Base Camp. When it comes to trekking, there is no other better destination than Nepal. Many volunteers combine volunteer work with trekking. You’ll usually do volunteer work in the towns of mid hills, like Kathmandu and Pokhara, or in Terai, like in Chitwan. Trekking is the only way you’ll be up close and personal with the mighty Himalayas.

You can take a break from your volunteer work and trek, or finish the volunteer program and round up your stay with a trek.

In addition to trekking, you can also safari in the jungles of Chitwan and try and spot the elusive Bengal Tigers and rhinos.

There are other adventures sports you can try also, like white water rafting, paragliding, bungee jumping and canoeing.