Himalaya Volunteer Program

• Introduction
• Duration
• Locations
• Volunteer activities
• Price per person
• Dates & Booking
• Orientation plan

Download the program information (PDF)

Introduction:

The Youth volunteer program of IDEX has been operational since year 2002. Started in the the beautiful Himalayan region during the summer period for interested participants.

With the diverse experience, we have made significant improvements in our programs and have hence successfully organized placements, travels and learning opportunities for many volunteers since the start of the programs.

The model of our youth program would have the participants work with the local community for improving the quality of education and care in day-care centres, special institutions and regular schools. IDEX, on its part, would offer support in the areas of placements, monitoring and logistical support. The well-tested approach of many years works well for offering a combination of diverse experiences of working and learning that come with being in a multi-cultural environment.

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Duration:

The youth volunteers program in the year 2008 is available for participation with 4 and 8 week options. In 2008, weekly extensions will be possible for our participants.

The program starts on fixed dates, which are joined by participants from many countries. The starting dates of the 4 week and 8 week options are the same and the schedule includes the first one-week as orientation in Jaipur, the “ Pink City ”, IDEX’s home base and a very popular destination for national and international visitors.

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Location:

Youth volunteer program is presently being offered at north of India . The Himalayan location is available for participants from March to December, around the regionally important town of Palampur in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The IDEX “Himalaya Base “ is located 30 kms from Dharamsala, the capital of the exiled Tibetan government and centre of Tibetan Buddhist culture, adding another cultural dimension to the numerous opportunities that the program offers.

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Volunteer activities:

The activities done by volunteers in our projects primarily relate to three broad areas of education, care and empowerment in various institutions that we have identified as appropriate for volunteer and IDEX’s intervention. We constantly seek expansion of the positive influence of the programs by including new activities that can engage volunteers in gainfully, for the local population.

While the needs of each region differ due to varied, cultures, climate and social conditions there are some common activities that we offer in both the locations. Details of these activities include:

Education related:

Volunteers’ teaching in rural areas 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:

Child Care related:

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

Drawing upon our experience we have taken up the responsibility of maintenance and care of local childcare centres. Also called “Aanganwari“, 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

School for Mentally challenged children, Thakardwara:

Since June 2005, IDEX Volunteers have been working at this special for the Mentally challenged. As a result of our intervention, the number of students have grown and attendance of children has become much more regular.

Severely understaffed, the two teachers in the school are often struggling to give adequate attention to each of the approximately 20-odd students enrolled in the school.

Similar to the engagement in 2007, IDEX plans to support the school with material support and full time engagement of volunteers during the Himalaya program in 2008. The volunteer activity in this institution would include:

• Assisting teachers in completing assignments for the students.
• Organising education and fun activities for the children
• Visiting students’ homes for sensitization of the family towards their children with special needs.
  

The Saliyana Orphanage :

The activity will now be offered as a regular offer for afternoon period in the Youth Program at Himachal in 2008. The orphanage is home to 29 children in various age groups. Ten (10) volunteer’s can spend about 2 hours each day from 1530 to 1730 hrs during the school days and more activities can be organized during school holidays when the children have their mornings free. In brief the various activities that the volunteers can do during 2 hours in the afternoons are :

• Helping children with homework
• Conversational and written English teaching
• Computer training
• Helping slower learning children

Afternoon activities:

During our work with volunteers during the last few months we have come to realize that a significant number of volunteer often seek more working hours than have been offered by our projects so far. For this reason, our programs would offer a number of optional afternoon activities that would help the volunteers have a wider impact during their stay.

1. Additional tutoring for slow learning children: With the help of regularly updated records of school children, interested volunteers can take up special classes for children that need more tutoring at their homes. This activity can have the additional benefit of building more confidence in the community about volunteers’ work and awareness about the need for regular schooling.

2. Maintenance of institutional facilities: During some afternoons, the volunteers can take up maintenance, renovation and decoration of their various work places like schools, day-care centres etc. Such work will not be available on a continuous basis and hence may be seen as an extra activity that the volunteers would carry out.

Women’s empowerment:

Idex organizes a variety of educational and confidence building activities for the benefit of adolescent girls and women of the local community. These activities are geared towards expanding the horizon of this often-neglected section of the community with the purpose of giving them a sense of self-worth and empowerment.

Volunteers contribute significantly in the areas of:

1. Computer training: In the fact developing world the knowledge of computer can give the students a employability advantage and make it easier for them to access modern means to information and expression. Volunteers can make use of the well-tested and developed modules of imparting basic computer skills to enthusiastic local girls and women.

2. English classes: In an increasingly anilingual world, knowledge of English can make a huge difference to the confidence, employability and social status of an individual. With English not being the first language in the rural areas, people from a vast majority of Indian population miss out on quality opportunities of gaining confidence in the sue of language. Volunteers, with their involvement in teaching English to local women can help the project achieve a multitude of objectives like empowerment and increasing employability.

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Price per person:

EUR 1.031,- per person for the 4 week program.

EUR 1.523,- 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 April 2008.)

Prices includes

1. Pickup at the New Delhi airport and one night in Delhi hotel.

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

• For orientation program in Jaipur
• Local sightseeing wherever applicable
• All excursions included in the program.
• Local transport at project locations.
• Overnight journeys at the start and the end of the program.

3. Home-stay with local English speaking families in Jaipur during orientation.

(In 2008, the home stay would be provided for a total of 4 nights, instead of 3 nights being done in 2007. During the last day, the volunteers will have additional possibility of having time to explore the city of Jaipur or to take an optional visit to the city of Agra for visiting the Taj Mahal.)

4. Sightseeing of Amber fort in Jaipur with Elephant ride.

(Please note that we would make al efforts to provide the elephant ride, which, however, can not be guaranteed in case of unforeseen circumstances like VIP visits, government restrictions etc. Alternative transfers to the Amber fort would be provided with jeeps, in such cases)

5. Accommodation at the IDEX accommodation facility on sites the basis of minimum triple occupancy.

6. Dedicated transport during the working days for transportation between projects and accommodation.

7. All meals during the working days, orientation days

(Please refer to the detailed meal plan mentioned along with the itinerary in the later sections of this offer document.)

8. Two (2) one-week workshop for the group on yoga and Indian cooking, during the stay at the IDEX Base.

9. 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). 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.

10. The following, fully–supported excursions would be provided as a part of the program.

• A one-night, two day excursion to Amritsar, the holy city of Sikh religion, where the volunteers can visit a host of historical and religious sights. The famous Golden temple in Amritsar is the holiest shrine of Sikhism. Participants can also visit the “Wagah border closing ceremony” between India and Pakistan .
• Trekking trip in the Himalayas for a total of 2 nights and 2 days( including travel time to destination ) with overnight camping inclusive of all meals and necessary gear.

11. All material required for various activities during the volunteer work like colour pens papers, 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.

Additional services for more comfort and relaxation facilities:

a. Amenities like refrigerator, DVD player, television etc.

b. Video and books library; Board Games.

c. Information and assistance for independent excursions during the weekends.

* Youth Volunteer program 4 week option:

The 4 week youth volunteer work option has been a considerable success after its introduction in 2006. The offer would continue to be available at Rajasthan location. Price for 4 week program offers only one workshop (yoga) and one travel excursion (as per location, as listed below) in the 4 week duration as mentioned below. Besides these all the other services remain the same for the 4 week program participants. The workshop and excursions included are:

Price includes all the services as mention under the week offer, with the exception of the following:

1. One (1) Workshop for the group on yoga, during the stay at the IDEX Base.

2. The following, fully–supported excursion would be provided as a part of the program, depending on the location chosen.

Please note that only one excursion can be provided in the 4 week youth program.

a. Trekking trip in the Himalayas for a total of 2 nights and 2 days( including travel time to destination )

Program Extension:

(Please note that a recently added service tax of 4.9% is included in the above prices. Prices may slightly change due to the service tax component, which would be announced in March 2008.)

Volunteers can further extend their stay in multiples of 1-week blocks at the same location. These extensions can also be used for switching the program locations (between Rajasthan and Himachal,) if a participant wishes to do a month of volunteer work, different from the starting location chosen. A changed location however would call for an additional fee of EUR 170,- (inclusive of taxes) per person to cover expenses related to specially organized transfers. Interested participants may need to travel unescorted in overnight train journeys. Idex would make arrangements for all transfer and pickups and overnight journeys would be booked in safe and comfortable air-conditioned sleeper class compartments.

* Optional Taj Mahal Trip

(At the end of the program, please add one more day in booking the flight schedule, for both Himachal and Rajasthan program): EUR 117,- per person.

Services included:

• Accommodation on triple sharing basis in Agra .
• Transportation to and from Agra
• Guided tour and entrance to Taj Mahal with English speaking guide.
• Breakfast and dinner during the trip.
• All luxury, state and transport taxes.
• Accompanying escort with the participants         

Please note that due to change in the schedule of the first week of the program, all participants will now be able to take the optional Agra extension irrespective of the duration of their stay and extension weeks taken.

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Dates & Booking:

Please note the following dates and details for the program for the year 2009.

1. These include the dates for Rajasthan program.

2. The participants are expected to arrive between 10 AM on the dates mentioned until 10 AM on the next day. If the participants’ flights arrive outside these times, then extra accommodation and transport is required to be arranged, hence requiring extra charges.

3. 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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The IDEX Orientation plan

Himalaya Volunteer 8 week Itinerary

Himalaya Volunteer 4 week Itinerary

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