I’ve stayed with lots of people whilst volunteering in India and in Sri Lanka and I’ve always found it difficult to buy gifts for people. What exactly is an appropriate gift?
Tag Archives | volunteering
VESL Volunteers Profiled in Adult Gap Year Guide
Two of VESL’s past volunteers in India and Sri Lanka have been profiled in Susan Giffith’s new book, ‘Gap Year’s for Grown Ups’
Using Art to help teach English
Here is a story of some primary students at a school India from a volunteer who had success using art projects in the classroom. “The students were quite disruptive and could be a handful at times. The school was in a poor fishing community in Kerala and many of the students came from very difficult […]
Video : Good Morning Teacher
VESL Volunteer (Rachel Cooper) records her class singing ‘Good Morning Teacher’ at her project in Sri Lanka, 2009.
What’s included in my volunteer contribution?
Details of what is and isn’t included within your volunteer contribution / project cost…
Why can’t I volunteer in India for more than 5 months?
As things currently stand, the Indian authorities ‘issue‘ a visa to start on the ‘date of issue‘ rather than the ‘date of entry‘; in other words, your visa runs from the date it gets stamped into your passport. This means that you’ll need to leave the application until as late as is comfortably possible. In […]
Why does volunteering overseas cost money?
All of our volunteers are required to contribute towards the cost of setting up, supporting and running their project. A charity not asking for contributions towards the cost of running its programme isn’t likely to support you overseas! VESL is a registered charity and not run for profit. Everyone within VESL has experience as an […]
When do I have to start paying for my project?
We send out project offers in the week following your interview and ask you confirm your place within two weeks. We ask volunteers to pay an initial deposit of £250 towards their project cost when confirming. If anyone needs time to fundraise this deposit we can arrange to extend that deposit date so we can be […]
Can I volunteer with my friend?
Re. Partnering Volunteers We completely understand why you might feel apprehensive about heading overseas on your own and this is why we try to partner all of our summer short term volunteers. We also try to arrange things so that it’s small groups of volunteers starting on the same date and a number of you […]
I’ve only got a 4-5 weeks available
Q. “My friend and I have graduation mid-end July and we start a PGCE course in September, so we’re not very flexible. Are we able to fit a project into that time?” A. We get a lot of volunteers in exactly the same situation and this shouldn’t be a problem at all. You might also […]
How do you work out project start dates?
For short-term (4 – 6 week) projects we try to organise a number of different start dates throughout the summer as people have all sorts of commitments we need to work around. These dates fall throughout June/July/August/September. We ask for your preferred date and project length at selection and we try our best to match […]
Volunteer Safety Overseas
Q. How do you ensure my safety overseas? A. This is an important consideration for many volunteers. Heading out to work in an unknown environment, far from from friends and family, can be an incredibly daunting prospect for those without experience of traveling overseas. Volunteer safety is of paramount importance to us here at VESL. Each new […]
Volunteer Feedback – Jo Taylor, Volunteer Sri Lanka 2007
“All of the teachers have been enthusiastic and supportive… They understand the benefits the students can receive from a native English speaker and are eager to make the most of this opportunity.” – Jo Taylor, Sri Lanka Volunteer 2007
