Goa Volunteer Program

• Introduction
• Duration
• Location
• Volunteer activities
• Price per person
• Dates 2008/09 & Booking
• Orientation plan

Download the program information (PDF)

Introduction:

The Goa volunteer program is one of the latest additions to the increasingly growing network of volunteer work opportunities offered by IDEX in India. After establishing the project sites in Himalayas and the desert state of Rajasthan, a new program on Goa’s sun kissed beaches was a natural geographic extension.

Being offered with a new structure for ensuring a variety of volunteer work, travel and recreation possibilities, the Goa program is guaranteed to suit large number of people that would like to make a contribution to socially deprived areas while enjoying the famous beaches of this famous destination.

Despite the apparent benefits of large-scale tourism, Goa remains a stark reminder of many social issues like poor education infrastructure, HIV/AIDS that still face the Indian society in general. The small-scale social intervention by IDEX started in the year 2006 has been well received by the various institutions during the starting year and in 2007. Hence in 2008, Idex in Goa is going to expand its outreach to other institutions that have been actively seeking cooperation with our program setup.

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Duration:

Keeping in mind the high demand of longer duration stays in the Goa program, a standard of 4 and 8 week programs would be offered in Goa. 1,2,3 or 4 weeks can extend these durations.

The starting 7 days of the program would include relaxing, adventure activities (including trekking) and an Ashram stay, allowing a total of 3 effective weeks of volunteer work.

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Location:

The state of Goa is India’s most well-known beach destination. This former Portuguese colony with its many fabulous beaches offers a distinct cultural experience with is on music, food and climate. The IDEX home base in Goa is situated on the Colva beach in southern Goa. The 30 km long beach is known for its palm trees and silvery sand and is one of the best yet less explored regions.

Colva is the oldest, largest and the most spectacular of south Goa beaches. It lies about 6 Kms to the west of Margao. The beach consists of about 25kms of the finest powder white sand and is lined along its shore by coconut palms extending to Bogmalo in the north and Cabo de Rama in the south along south Goa's coastline. In the colonial days it used to be the retreat for Margao's high society, who would come to Colva for their "Mundanca" or change of air. Today the area that is reminiscent of this age is the beautiful houses or villas that dot the village.

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Volunteer activities:

In year 2008, the activities in the Idex Goa program would be distributed as per the duration of stay of the volunteers. This is because of some types of work requiring a more sustained volunteer presence than the others.

Broadly speaking the work division would look as follows:

Activities possible for participants staying shorter than 8 weeks:

a. Day care centre work with children

b. Special education camps and bridge courses to children of immigrant and slum dwelling families

c. Computer education to the children for a variety of population segments which may include orphanages, groups of local women and adolescent girls.

Please note that exact segment of the population to be targeted at various times of the year would be communicated to you periodically as we finalise our plan for social involvement in the various project areas.

Activities for the 8 week participants only:

Note: 8 week participants can also take up all the activities that are mentioned above for the "4 weekers"

a. Teaching in schools

b. Working in the ASRO HIV home

c. Working in the school for mentally challenged.

Note 1: Due to very low interest amongst volunteers in the past, we have discontinued the option of working in the old age home in Margao. The option is however available if a volunteer shows keen interest upon visiting the project. The option is subject to availability on the basis of post-arrival discussions between the volunteer and our program Manager.

Note 2: In case of inadequate number of 8 week participants, shorter duration participants can also be engaged in these work areas, as per their interest.

Description of certain project activities:

Teaching:

Volunteers’ teaching local students has been one of the most successful interventions of Idex and the most popular activity amongst volunteers. Volunteers participate in educational enhancement for students of local communities specifically in the areas of English, Math and enhancing creativity. In order to promote participation of more and more volunteers in this activity, we provide detailed workbooks and guidelines for teaching. This is done to ensure that those participants that have no formal education or practical experience in teaching can also carry out this activity comfortably with the help of aid provided by us.

The volunteer activities in the field include:

1. Regularly teaching children English and Mathematics in the schools.

2. Teaching children of migrant communities and child labours.

3. Conducting bridge courses for school drop-outs or slower learning children

4. Creating a playful environment and enhance the creativity of the children through painting, playing games, singing etc.

5. Working with local teachers in creating low cost teaching material and to train them in making education more fun for the children.

6. Ensuring regular health check ups of the children in each school through cooperating with the local doctors and hospital staff.

7. Creating basic hygiene awareness amongst children on a regular basis

Child Care related:

In addition to our attention to schools, early childhood care and education is an area of critical need in rural areas.

It is important to inform the participants that a childcare centre is a facility that established over a certain population for ensuring healthy growth and stimulation of children in rural areas. At such centre health monitoring, improvement of motor skills, nutritional supplements, vaccination etc. are provided for children from poor or uneducated families.

Drawing upon our experience we have also taken up the responsibility of maintenance and care of local childcare centres. Also called “Anganwari“, these centres carry out holistic childcare in the area. In line with the expected activities of such institutions, the volunteer activities include:

1. Ensuring maximum attendance by the children of the area to these centres through awareness building in the community.

2. Personal attention and care to the children coming to the centre everyday.

3. Assistance to the local worker for record maintenance for each child based on health, vaccination, growth and nutritional condition.

4. Making and feeding the children a specially prepared nutritious meal everyday with the help of a local worker.

5. Continuous survey of all pregnant women and newborn babies in the area for regular health check ups and vaccination.

6. Creating a colourful and enjoyable environment for the children with games, stories and other creative activities (all material support and training for such activities would be provided by IDEX)

7. Developing the motor skills of the little children by making them use their body parts in various games etc

ASRO-Shelter for HIV/AIDS affected patients

ASRO is a Community Care and Support Centre (CCSC), for People living with HIV/AIDS. As transitional Shelter for AIDS patients, ASRO acts as a bridge between health care institutions and patients’ families to create awareness in the community.

Volunteer intervention (limited placements, for longer term volunteers only) is required and very welcomed at the institution to help in care for the patients who have often been left out of the social circle due to their condition. The volunteer activities would include:

1. Everyday care for the patients and assisting nurses in the centre

2. Helping the resident children with homework and providing them general care.

3. Maintenance of the facilities for the patients.

4. To improve and look and feel of the centre through decorations etc.

5. To take up small-scale awareness building bout HIV/AIDS through community visits.

School for Mentally challenged children, Madgaon:

Since April 2006, a new activity has been added to the Goa project, which involves work of the volunteers in the special school for mentally challenged children. Volunteers’ intervention is required for general help, care and special attention to each of the approximately 40-odd students enrolled in the school.

IDEX plans to support the school with material support and full time engagement of volunteers during the Goa program in 2008. The volunteer activity in this institution would include:

- Teaching children based on instruction and advice of local teachers

- Helping the students in completing study assignments.

- Organising education and fun activities for the children

- Visiting students’ homes for sensitization of the family towards their children with special needs.

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Price per person:

EUR 1.164,- per person for the 4 week program.

EUR 1.805,- per person for 8 week program

(Please note that service tax of 4.94% is included in the above prices. Prices may slightly change due to the service tax component, which would be announced in March 2008.)

Price includes:

1. Pickup at the Bombay airport and one night on arrival and before departure on double occupancy basis.

2. All transfers by dedicated or public transport required by the program including:

a. For orientation program

b. All excursions/special activities included in the program.

c. Local transport at project locations.

d. ALL airport and train station transfers on arrival and departure.

3. Overnight train journeys at the start and the end of the program in air-conditioned class.

4. Orientation and special lectures at the Idex Goa camp for 2 days including a “Bollywood” film show and talks on various subjects of relevance to volunteers.

5. A 2-day course at an “Ashram” for learning yoga and meditation.

Note 1: It is also possible for participants to enrol in spiritual lectures and natural relaxation practices from the ancient Indian culture, if they so choose. This is subject to availability and is optional on the program.

Note 2: All participants will stay at the hotel during the yoga and meditation course in the Ashram. No option of staying at the Ashram is possible.

6. A 2-day adventure program including trekking through an unexplored area, climbing hills and rocks. This adventure program would also include one or more night’s stay in an Indian village.

Note 1: The adventure program will not be a continuous trek but would include a mix of hiking, visiting villages en route and practicing of adventure techniques like rappelling, valley crossing etc.

Note 2: It is advisable for participants to bring their own sleeping bags for the Goa program, as has been expressed as a necessity by some of our volunteers, expressing their suspicion about hygiene. Idex would however, provide clean sleeping bags to participants as a part of the adventure trek.

7. Accommodation at the IDEX accommodation facility in Goa with minimum 2 and maximum 4 participants per room.

8. Transport during the working days for local use throughout the program.

9. All meals during the working days, orientation days (Please refer to the sample schedule for an exact meal plan)

10. Dedicated on-site assistance of an English-speaking translator cum helper for the first four weeks of the program (including the days of orientation program).

Note: In case of availability of a local English-speaking person at the project site (like teacher or doctor), the same may be engaged instead of an in-house translator from IDEX.

11. All material required for various activities during the volunteer work like colour pens, paper, sports equipment etc.

12. Assistance in setting up local support for the volunteers’ activities in coordination with the local NGOs

13. Extensive pre-departure information, port-arrival printed material, regular training and support by IDEX for preparing the volunteers for their experience.

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Program Extensions:
Enhancing flexibility in the program offer, in 2008, participants can extend the Goa program for 1,2,3 or 4 weeks. During the extension they continue to work at their work locations and would have the possibility to enjoy proximity to the beautiful beaches of Goa and take up independent travel excursions during the weekend.

The extension price includes:

1. Overnight train journeys at the end of the extension from Goa to Mumbai in air-conditioned class. (The participant is likely to do this overnight journey alone, unless accompanied by another participant returning on the same day)

2. Specially arranged transfer upon completion of program to train station and assistance at the train.

3. Airport transfers on departure, if required by participant.

4. Continued accommodation at the IDEX accommodation facility in Goa with minimum 2 and maximum 4 participants per room for the duration of the extension.

5. Assistance and transfer from Mumbai train station to hotel for last night’s stay.

6. Dedicated transport during the working days for local use during the extension.

7. All meals during the volunteers’ presence at the Idex camp.

8. On-site assistance by English speaking translator on need basis.

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Grown Up Program Extensions:
The “Grown up” program of Goa is being offered as a supplement on request of some of our partners who have participants wishing to volunteer in Goa, but do not wish to share rooms with 3 other participants which is standard for the Goa program.

For this reason, we are introducing a limited number of seats on the program for which there will be twin occupancy possible at the Idex Goa camp. Please note the following important aspects of this offer :

1. The program followed by the “Goa 30+ “ offer will be exactly the same as the one used in the standard Goa program. Please refer to the offer document for the year 2008 for further details .

2. Twin sharing accommodation will be offered only during stay at the following places :

a. In Mumbai hotel, on arrival and departure

b. In Lonavla hotel on Day 2, Day 4 and Day 5 .

c. In Goa, at a separate accommodation .

3. Please note that there will be no twin sharing possibilities during the Camping/Village stay of the adventure program.

4. Please note that if certain grown up participants do not find them physically fit or interested in doing the adventure and rekking program then they can stay for an extra night at the Lonavla hotel , while the rest of the group is going on trekking. To make this facility possible, we will need prior information from our partners about the preferences of the participant. In case of staying in Lonavla for an extra night, we like to inform and ecommend the following :

a. There may not be an Idex representative present in the town during the days as the Idex representatives will accompany the group doing the adventure program. There need to be any concern of safety and security by the participant as we use trusted and often tried hotel for accommodation for our participants.

b. Due to Lonavla being a small place we recommend that the participants relax with reading a book or some other from of recreation, during this extra stay. The usual program of yoga and meditation schedule will start from Day 5 of the program.

5. The various journeys being offered ( trains for intercity transfers, local transport etc.) will be the same for youth participants and the 30+ participants.

6. Please note that while en suite facilities would be attempted for all 30+ program participants, it cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, kindly ensure that your participants are informed accurately about this. In past, of a relatively few “grown up” participants that we have had on such arrangement, have not had any problems with the lack of en suite bath and toilet facilities.

Enhancing flexibility in the program offer, in 2008, participants can extend the Goa program for 1,2,3 or 4 weeks. During the extension they continue to work at their work locations and would have the possibility to enjoy proximity to the beautiful beaches of Goa and take up independent travel excursions during the weekend.

The extension price includes:

1. Accommodation in Twin sharing at hotel in Mumbai and Lonavla.

2. Accommodation in Goa on twin occupancy basis. The accommodation used will be a unit separate from the main camp.

3. Every day transport (one way each time) from the accommodation to the camp and back. All the other standard transfers , from the main camp to the projects and back will be provided as per the usual program.

4. All the other facilities and program details would remain unchanged.

Please note the following important details about booking flights for the arrival/departure dates and times of volunteers:

1. The program starts on every 4th Monday (with some exceptions) where volunteers are expected to use flights that arrive between 10 AM on Monday to 10 AM on Tuesday (Day 2).

2. In case that a participant has to arrive outside these times, extra airport transfer and hotel nights may need to be booked, requiring additional charges.

3. At the end of the program (4 week or 8 week), volunteers arrive back in Mumbai for their flight our latest by 3 pm on a Sunday (Day 28 or Day 56).

4. It is therefore advisable that the return flight be booked for the volunteers between 7 pm of Sunday or sometime on Monday. Accommodation for the night between Sunday (Day 28 or 56) and Monday (Day 29 or 57) is included in the program price.

5. We strongly recommend that arrival flights after 10 AM on Day 2 (Tuesday) and departure flights before midnight on Sunday (Day 28 or Day 56) not be used as these can cause significant disturbances to the program schedule and are likely to cause additional expenses.

6. Volunteer will be provided drop to the airport until 10 AM on the day after the last night of the program. Volunteers wishing to arrange a transfer after this time will have to make arrangements on their own.

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Dates & Booking:

Important Note:
Please ensure that the participants joining the program in arrival dates in the months of June, July, August and until mid-September are made well aware that there is possibility of monsoon rains during the adventure trek and Ashram stays.

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Day to day plan (4 week, indicative plan only, some details may change):

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