Travel to Teach: Volunteer in Nepal

Nepal is a fascinating, beautiful, rewarding and sometimes challenging place to volunteer. Although the countries political future appears brighter than it has for a long time Nepal still faces massive problems in many other areas. Large parts of the country are devastatingly poor and there are huge opportunities for worthwhile volunteer work.

Ranging from the hot flat planes of the Terrai in the South, to The Himilayas rising to the north Nepal is an incredibly diverse country and we have volunteer programs in four locations; Kathmandu, Chitwan (the Terai region), Pokhara (the Annapurna region), and Langtang (the Himalayan region). Volunteers can work in a variety of different fields including orphanages and social work, informal and formal English teaching and education, and health and sanitation. Volunteering in Nepal is not for the faint of heart but it will undoubtedly be an unforgettable and amazing experience for everyone involved.

Volunteers arriving in Nepal are given between 2 days and two weeks of training, language lessons and initiation in Nepali life. A typical introduction will take around one week and involve 2 days sightseeing and training whilst staying in a guest house in Kathmandu, 2 days at the Kathmandu Happy Home and a further 2 to 3 days in one of our training villages. The length of the introduction depends on the length of the volunteers stay.

Volunteer Programs in Nepal

English Teaching

The majority of our teaching programs are based in community libraries and resource centers. The libraries are largely based in rural villages. These have been setup and run over the past 5 years with the help of volunteers, with the aim of giving Nepali students opportunities and access to resources that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Nepali students are very hardworking and keen to learn, however Nepali schools, particularly in rural areas are often lacking in the most basic teaching resources and teacher training is limited.

Volunteer work in the libraries is based around English Teaching although volunteers often find themselves teaching other basic life skills such as personnel hygiene. As well as teaching in the resource centers our volunteers also work in local schools. We have teaching placements in and around all 4 of our locations: Kathmandu, Pokhara, Langtang and Chitwan. Teaching volunteers usually home stay with local Nepali families.

Volunteers require no previous teaching experience and we will provide you with basic TEFL instruction during your training period. We do however recommend that you brush up on your English grammar rules before you come and any English Language/TEFL textbooks would be useful as these are hard to find in Nepal. There are also a lot of useful teaching resources online.

Orphanages and Children's Home

Our volunteers work in a large number of orphanages and children's homes around Nepal. These are setup to provide children with a safe home environment and assure that the children receive a good education. Nepal has few large businesses, most being small and family orientated. This makes finding employment difficult for people that do not have family businesses to work for, meaning that a good basic education is essential if the children are to have a future once old enough to leave the home. Most of the children come from poor landless rural areas and some of them have been placed in the homes by parents who are unable to look after them.

As well as caring for the children on a day to day basis we work to improve standards throughout the homes, providing them with new equipment and teaching the administrators improved management and hygiene skills. Volunteers also help the children with their homework, teach English and personnel hygiene (brushing their teeth, personal care, etc) and arrange trips and special events for the children. We have orphanage programs in and around all 4 of our locations: Kathmandu, Pokhara, Langtang and Chitwan. Volunteers working in orphanages either stay in their own room within the orphanage or home stay with a local family.

Medical Work

We offer two different types of medical placement in Nepal. Experienced medical volunteers can travel with local doctors to villages where there is no permanent medical care. Many rural areas are a long way from the nearest hospital or health center - distances that most people can only afford to travel for serious problems. Traveling doctors perform a vital service, but are also extremely busy. Working with the traveling doctors is a very hands on experience and volunteers will be diagnosing and treating patients. As a result these placements are suitable for qualified doctors or more experienced medical students.

Volunteers can also assist doctors work in hospitals or rural health posts. Depending on the volunteers experience this can be a less hands on role than working with a traveling doctor so is also suitable for less experienced medical students. Both types of medical placement are particularly well suited to groups of medical volunteers and are available in Pokhara, Langtang and Chitwan.

Volunteer Program Locations