One of our Student Leaders, Lucy Allcock, from Edge Hill University is spending just over six weeks in India supporting her team of volunteers, she has put together an excellent check list for future volunteers going to India, check it out below! So the volunteers are just beginning their 3rd week of teaching and are […]
Tag Archives | india
Why are Student Leaders Important Overseas?
What is a Student Leader? Our Student Leader programme helps support our summer volunteers and enable them to have extra support whilst overseas, the programme was developed in 2012 and we are now in our second year. Student Leaders’ role starts in the UK in the Autumn/Winter before a summer project, and they recruit a […]
Travel Advice: Books to Read About India
Doing some reading before you go overseas helps to give you a real sense of what the culture like in your destination country will be like, this is especially true for India where there is a plethora of books out there to help you get a real idea of what Indian culture is like. We […]
VESL Overseas Visit 2013
It’s that time of year again when we make our way overseas to visit our projects in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, visiting our Country Managers and our volunteers who are overseas at their projects. Where has the last year gone?! Lauren, our Programme Manager, will be heading out to Thailand on June 17th to […]
Student Leader Interview: Lucy Allcock
Our next Student Leader post comes from Lucy Allcock who volunteered in India in 2012 and is returning with a team of six volunteers this summer, check out her advice below! I’m Lucy Allcock, just finished my second year at Edgehill University studying Drama and Creative Writing. Last summer, I went to Kerala, Southern India […]
VESL Interview: Programme Manager
As we have asked our Student Leaders to do interviews and provide advice for our volunteers we also thought that we should give you some of our advice as past volunteers ourselves. So this interview comes from myself and I hope you find it useful!! I originally volunteered with VESL in September 2011 for three […]
Wild Fund used to promote hygiene in schools in India
Ingrid Masters volunteered in Kerala from January to March 2013, while she was there she used funding from the VESL Wild Fund and a personal donation to help improve sanitation and hygiene at the school she was volunteering in. Sanitation and hygiene is a really important issue for students in India as they use their right hand […]
Travel Tip: Learning basic Malayalam
Heading to Kerala and a bit worried about not being able to speak the language? Ever heard of Malayalam? Don’t worry we are here to help! Knowing some Hindi is not going to get you very far in remote fishing villages in Kerala, so knowing a bit of Malayalam can be very helpful! Malayalam is one […]
Volunteer Diary: Saying Goodbye & English Day
Olivia Higginson has written her final blog for us as she has just finished her placement in Kerala, India. VESL would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all Olivia’s hard work and for writing blogs for us! My placement has finished and I have tearfully waved goodbye to all my new […]
A review of 2012
2012 has been an exciting year for VESL, we celebrated our 10th Birthday, we sent our largest number of volunteers overseas ever, we have continued to see demand for our projects overseas grow and employed our first full time member of staff. So we feel that it is about time that we updated you in a […]
Festivals in Kerala
When you think of India a lot of people thing of the bright, vibrant, loud festivals that occur across the country throughout the year. Each state has different festivals so here we have bought you some of the famous Keralan festivals so you can see what is on when you’re out there! (more…)
A day in the life: India Project
Olivia Higginson is currently in India on a three month project and has written an excellent article below about what she does on a day to day basis… Morning 7:00am Wake up. The family are normally all up. Ama (host mother) has often been up since 5am preparing vegetables and cooking for the day. My two […]
Volunteer Diary: Adjusting to life in the village
Olivia Higginson is writing a great blog about her time volunteering in Kerala, India for 3 months, below are some excerpts from her blog describing her first couple of days and adjusting to life in an Indian fishing community… So have spent 2 nights with my new family. Where to start? (more…)
How to stay in touch…
A huge thank you to all our summer 2012 volunteers, we have had amazing feedback from the in country managers and hosts! We really hope that you will continue to support VESL and stay in touch with our news and events. There are numerous ways you can do this once you have returned from overseas, […]
