There a saying that there always comes a turning point in one’s life where everything changes for good or worst. But for me it turned out to be good upon my decision to join hands with Raleigh to volunteer for livelihood in rural community with a UK counterpart. It is one of my most cherished memory from pre-departure training to end phase review where I lots of and learnt a loads of new like energizer, climate change, livelihood, rural life and Sustainable development goals.
We were sent to a community called Koudi in Phujel VDC of Gorkha district 6 to 7 hours of journey from Katmandu a fairly remote Gurung community with around forty households with less than hundred fifty people living there .The village had one primary school, community hall and a small shop. I went there in a team of fifteen members including three capable team leaders two from UK and one Nepali. Apart from that there was five Nepali volunteer and eight UK volunteers. Armed with basic information on village, livelihood, thematic areas were going to work on, and CASEVC (emergency procedure to of evacuation in case of emergency) we all had same thing on mind to bring about some form of change to betterment in the community.!
When we first arrive we greeted with flower garland and abhir, we then introduced our self and went to our respective host home we were all situated within walking distance between each other. The host family greeted us warmly with tea they consisted of grandfather, grandmother, daughter and grandchild and their home was made of clay which had low celling with two bed and a light. The kitchen and toilet was situated in front of the house. There was goat shed beside the house and buffalo shed just behind the house so it was lively.
First few days we spent on community integration where we had a meeting with the whole villagers tell them why we were there and also find out their views and needs of the community. We played football and icebreaker with the villagers especially with the youth to break the awkwardness between us and them. The community people also share their game called “shakey shakey” where we holds our hands making a circle and singing while someone in the middle dances and spins covering eyes to choose another person which we played until midnight in the beginning. Then we did a meeting with youth group, agriculture group and womens group about what are their dreams and what they wanted to learn for our information gathering.
It was also then I realized that the comfort I have been in the city were pitched roads, internet, and shower was a norms and did not even give a second though about these things, I was beginning to miss them a bit but I soon forget about them as amazing scenic beauty of mountains and foliage which we loved sightseeing in our free time made up for it. I also used to sing and play guitar feeling the fresh cool breeze air and mountain view.
The things we did while we were there were was we conducted planning with the whole team everyday to plan our day and week along with day reviews to see what we had achieve but later we did it smaller groups for efficiency multitasking. We also had regular meeting with the SSICDC officer who also helped us in understanding planning tool provided to us as well serving as a bridge between local partner NGO SSICD . There was lots of personality building stuff to do every day like being a weekly leader in rotation and writing reports, blogs and facilitating personal session for the team. The notable things we did in our community were that we made a plastic pond for irrigation, we formed boys and girls youth club and conducted community day alongside with sport day. Other than that we also conducted a lots of session in community and school like waste management, climate change, DRR, drawing and public speaking. We also did a baseline survey on their income generation, crops, family member count, their awareness of climate change and livestock and based on that report and one on one interview conducted with the whole community we selected ten potential entrepreneur from different household with motivation and later conducted three days business plan and entrepreneur training with the help of SSICDC with them. SSICDC along with our support conducted livestock training on our recommendation and also conducted a session to whole village on climate change and DRR. We were quite fortunate as the village also had a community hall where we conducted most of sessions and training.
On the fun note we used to play energizer to keep our-self revitalized and fresh. We also had interesting cross cultural talks and have session team bonding where we shared our experiences, hopes and fears, our strength and weakness on regular basis facilitated by team leaders. Other than that we also had lots fun hiking in our free time around the village, exchanging culture and language and also in Holi where we splashed water and color on each other. We also helped our host family around in their daily chore like cooking, grass cutting, farming and etc which a fun experience. The village also had a three days celebration of Chewar were we danced with them every night on their cultural music.
Living there also gave me confidence, in a hand experience on how NGOs work, how to facilitate a session and rural life style of Nepal. Finally when the day came for us to bade farewell I felt a clenching sensation in my heart without noticing almost three months had already passed now we won’t be seeing the host family and villagers who we had become quite close and accustomed again. My host mom and sister started to weep saying that not to forget them and visit them some time in future. The other villager were also crying and with a small tear in my eye I slowly walked toward the road leading outside the community as villager waved their hands crying out goodbye, the kids of the community followed us till the bus stop and then we set off to Bhaktapur for our final phase review where all team had gathered to we submitted our reports and necessities provided by Raleigh we also did a experience sharing where I represented my team along with my counter part.
Now again the time had come for the our team and other teams as well to part as well after a group hug and group photograph some of us began burst into tears we were very sad as we Nepali volunteers will not possibly seeing UK volunteers again as they left for airport. The rest of us later went to homes filled with precious memories and as well as feeling of having done something to contribute our country. –
now i heard at news most of the villagers are Entrepreneurs. that is my happy moment on my life.
