Volunteering with Namaste Sailung!

Through your volunteer mission with Namaste Sailung, you will offer children and families your time, your skills, the opportunity to get to know you and discover your culture. Conversely, your stay will be a wonderful opportunity to share and understand the still traditional living conditions in rural areas outside the tourist areas.
Your mission is part of an organized framework to give you the best chance of success.

Your accommodation is organized during your stay:
• Guest rooms are available to volunteers wishing to have an authentic experience on the farms.
• Meals are taken together with the family
• The conditions are rustic, far from your usual comfort setting in France
• You will pay a contribution of 1200 Rupees per day (= €8.4) directly to the host family covering accommodation and meals

The Namaste Sailung team, present in Nepal, will help you reach your mission location from Kathmandu and will facilitate your integration and guidfe you or introduce you to your host family and give you all the practical informations.
Our Whatsapp group “Amis de Namaste Sailung” brings together some of the former volunteers. They are available to answer all your questions and to share their experience with you.

Your missions in Nepal
2 types of missions are offered to volunteers to date:

1. School-based intervention:
• Academic support / animation assistance
• Traditional education (English, maths, natural sciences)
• Introduction to new extracurricular activities (dance, music, singing, theater, visual arts, computers, sports, games, etc.)

1. Intervention in an agricultural environment:
• Farm work / agricultural work
• Knowledge transfer (medical expertise, agronomy, beekeeping, etc.)
• Raising awareness and promoting practices promoting sustainable and resilient agriculture (permaculture, agroecology, agroforestry, water management, etc.)

These descriptions are given as an example. Depending on your experience, other initiatives are of course possible and will be deployed in consultation with local teams.
The people you will meet (school or farm) generally have very little equipment. Your participation in the purchase of small school supplies, educational games or items necessary for the activity you are going to carry out (painting for example) is a concrete help that is very appreciated because it is useful. There is also no need to make your purchases in France because everything is available in Kathmandu at modest prices.

Skills required to ensure the success of your mission in Nepal

• Fluency in English: none of your interlocutors is fluent in French. Unless you speak nepali, english will remain the language of communication during your mission. English being very little used on the farms (but much more by teachers), an advanced elementary level (A2) is sufficient.
• Autonomy and maturity: the framework of your intervention will be very flexible and not very formalized. It's up to you to identify the place in which you will be most useful, the role in which your added value will be most relevant given your experience and your know-how. The precise definition of your mission will be done in collaboration with your contacts in the field according to the needs and your expectations. In certain cases, you will have to be “forceful of suggestions”. You will have to be careful, in coordination with your managers in the field, not to compete with functions already covered by the Nepalese teams. For example, if you want to teach English or maths lessons: How can you ensure that you are not taking the place of a teacher already assigned to this role? How to fit into the planning already in place? Are there any catch-up needs for certain students in difficulty? etc.
• Ethics: respect for others and their culture and traditions, a good understanding of the social economic context of Nepal, the spirit of collaboration oriented towards sharing, a certain humility are essential for good integration and gaining trust of your interlocutors.
• Commitment: your mission involves devoting the time necessary to find a stabilized mode of operation, to know your contacts and to create relationships of trust. which will allow you to be effective and add value to your intervention. 1 month (or more) is the ideal period for school assignments. Shorter durations are possible for agricultural activities.
• Experience: For missions taking place at school, experience teaching children, practical knowledge of teaching methods and intervention in a school environment is obviously a plus.

==> the Namaste Sailung team is at your disposal to detail the needs expressed by the "field" and to help you find the mission that best suits your aspirations. Even if you do not meet all the desired conditions, we are of course open to any motivated person wishing to be useful.

How to go further ?
Volunteering is simply organized, do you have a date? Length of stay? Leave a message in the “Contact Us” section or on our Facebook page and we will help you with your plan; We'll tell you where to go, who to contact and how to get there, and answer your questions. As our team is made up of people with full-time jobs, families, etc., we thank you for being understanding regarding the response time, which we will try to make as short as possible.