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.