The main focus of Volunteer Venture Nepal’s work is to raise educational awareness and enhance the lives of villagers through improving education development within the community. A key aspect of this is through working towards setting up a Learning Center from the volunteer and cultural program fees. The Learning Center will provide villagers with the opportunity to learn computer skills, dress making and other income generating activities whilst acting as an information resource center. Over the last 2 years Volunteer Venture Nepal has been successfully working towards its goal of education enhancement within the village. Volunteer Venture Nepal will continue working as a catalyst of social and economic change in a number of surrounding villages in the Pokhara area. Volunteer Venture Nepal is a non-profit organization dedicated to community development and hoping to inspire volunteers and those on cultural exchange programs to help in working towards this goal. Volunteer Venture Nepal is offering a once in a lifetime experience in Nepal through a safe and friendly environment. Teaching English in Nepal Teaching English as a volunteer will give you the opportunity to teach students who are eager to learn and improve their abilities in English. The students will also benefit from cultural exchange and different teaching techniques. You will be placed in either a public (government) or private school, depending on the area you wish to work. Your main role will be to teach English, however you may have the opportunity to assist in other school activities such as sports and extra curricular projects. Generally as a volunteer you will be teaching for 2 to 3 hours per day, 6 days a week, to students aged between 6 and 13 years old. There will be a permanent English teacher at the school to assist you with teaching methods, offer advice on dealing with communication barriers and provide you with suitable curriculum for the classroom. As a volunteer English teacher you do not need to be native in English but you do need to have good knowledge of the language. If you are volunteering during school holidays or exam periods Alliance Nepal will find alternative activities for you to participate in such as working in an orphanage. Teaching English to Buddhist Monks There are more than 130 000 Tibetans living in exile in India, Nepal and Bhutan; 20% of which reside in Nepal. Tibetans continue to face many problems whilst in exile; education being one of them. A number of primary education schools known as ‘Tibetan Children’s Villages’ have been established by the Tibetan community in Nepal. These schools support religious Tibetan practices and provide education in Buddhist philosophies alongside other activities such as English and computer skills. As a volunteer you will be teaching English to young Buddhist Monks and working towards enhancing their education. Alongside English you can organize games, painting and other creative activities. During this placement you will also get the fantastic opportunity to witness and participate in traditional Buddhist rituals. Work For Orphanage Every year hundreds of children become destitute in Nepal’s crowded cities after leaving their villages in search of work or from a loss or change in family situations. These children are deprived of education and a number of them end up working as child laborers in factories, restaurants or hotels, with others turning to drugs whilst living on the streets. It is thanks to a number of orphanages that some of these children begin to get the love, attention, care and education they need. As a volunteer in an orphanage you will be there to continue providing this by assisting the children in learning English and other subjects such as math and science and helping the children with their homework. You can also organize tours, games, painting, singing and dancing and other activities to enhance the enjoyment and development of the children living in the orphanages. Volunteering in an orphanage will be an experience that you will never forget and one that will open your eyes to just some of the problems facing children in Nepal. Volunteer Work in Bio-Dynamic Farm Modern industrialized society has over harvested the gifts and resources of the earth without prudently providing for conditions of renewal. We are currently experiencing conditions of great imbalance. Rudolf Steiner introduced Biodynamic Agriculture already in the early twentieth century to heal and enliven the being of the Earth herself. Biodynamic practices are a key to restoring and balancing Her system of functions. Human beings must reestablish a conscious relationship to the earth so life can continue to unfold in harmony with the wisdom in nature. The biodynamic method applies special preparations which enhance the life forces and bring vibrancy to life processes of the earth, the soil and the plants. Applying these special preparations in harmony with the rhythms of the greater cosmos is the art of bio-dynamics. Cycles of the moon as well as the other planets play an important role in the practices of biodynamic agriculture. Biodynamic practices improve the vitality or life force, as well as the taste of food. For this reason biodynamic methods are increasingly utilized for growing wine grapes throughout the world. Biodynamic practices are also solidly based on time-tested farming practices. There is no magic to biodynamic agriculture that enables us to skip any steps in proper soil, water, and land conservation management. Good farming practices begin with providing the soil with what it needs to thrive and thereby create the right conditions for food crops with high nutritional value. First we serve the soil, then, the soil, which we can understand to be a kind of “living will to yield life,‿ will serve us by providing us with food that nourishes not only our physical bodies, by also stimulates the forces of life within us that penetrate the physical body and creates life, health and harmony. Healing and Balance are key principles that stand behind our work in the field and garden. Farm in Pokhara Nepal