Background
According to a UNICEF report, India is the home for 31 million abandoned children. Due to the lack of educational resources, curse of poverty and social backwardness most of them are forced into child labour. Adding on these numbers, many children also run away from home to escape domestic abuse often becoming easy targets for human traffickers.
Challenge
The police and local authorities are always rescuing these children to rehabilitate them and enable smooth transition into the home’s of their foster families. At shelter homes, provides them a space to enable smoother transition into their future families. Unfortunately, due to the lack of resources, staff and environment the overall well-being is compromised.
SBB Intervention
We want to ensure that the children are brought up in a safe environment to ensure a positive effect on their psychology after going through traumatic experiences. We are dedicated towards 3 childcare projects in Jaipur with the government’s support. Our work at 2 transitional shelters for young boys aged 4-14 years of age to provide food and temporary accommodation till a suitable foster family is found. Most of them were found abandoned on the street or rescued from child labour. We also work with a home for girls who have been diagnosed with HIV or have lost their parents to HIV. Due to the taboo and discrimination they face, they don’t have anyone to support them. In these shelters volunteers are highly needed to engage the children into studies, arts and crafts, teach some life skills, provide motivation and love. Volunteers can also assist care-takers with cooking, serving food, homework and conducting seminars & events.
Main tasks of the volunteers:
- Get an in-depth understanding of how the shelter runs
- Familiarise the daily routine of the children
- Help the care-takers with cooking, serving the food, cleaning – if required
- Assist the students with homework if applicable
- Teach basic English to children who lack communication skills
- Teach arts & crafts to the shelter children
- Provide seminars on various topics like: friendship, kindness, hygiene, hazardous effects of chewing tobacco and relevant lessons to add value
- Assist the local staff with email writing, proposal writing, project management and event coordination if required
- Program Base: Jaipur
- Project duration: 1- 24 Weeks
- Joining dates: Throughout the year
- Arrival date: Saturday or Sunday are preferable, if not weekdays will be managed
- Arrival airport : Jaipur
- Beneficiaries: 10- 15 Abandoned children
- Working days: Monday to Friday, Weekends are off
- Total volunteer hours: 02:00 PM – 05:30 PM
- Weekends: Free to do sightseeing or travel
- Requirements: Basic English, background clearance and qualifications to work with children
- Advisable for healthcare related students, psychologists, psychiatrists teachers, people willing to work with children
- Pre-arrival assistance
- Detailed pre-arrival orientation and cultural awareness info
- Pick-up from Jaipur International Airport
- A detailed orientation about India, project, cultural responsibility and things to remember in India, SIM card assistance
- Accommodation with host family (single or dual occupancy) or volunteer house
- All meals (Authentic Indian meals) Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
- Resource materials to use on project
- Weekly market visit to shop for your necessities
- Cultural workshops: 1 Hindi class, 1 Indian dress workshop, 1 professional Yoga class, 1 cooking class
- Airport drop at Jaipur International Airport
- Logistics & program assistance if required
- Emergency support
Host family: Indian local family which is ready to receive you like a family member, share food and space with you. Chances of having single or dual occupancy are there as we don’t keep more than 3 people in one room in host families. Host family accommodation is best to discover the local culture and to enjoy tasty home-made Indian food. Food includes breakfast, lunch and dinner made by the host and includes vegetarian authentic dishes like chapatis, daal, vegetables.
Facilities include:
- Shared bedroom (max 2 people)
- Western washroom with toilet & shower
- Hot & cold water
- Filtered water
- Common Fridge
- Common semi-automatic washing machine
- Kitchen access to cook food if wished so
- Wi-Fi or internet Data access
- Family environment
- Comfortable & safe stay option
Volunteer House: This is a common accommodation for our foreign participants to share and experience each other’s culture as we have participants from all over the globe. To ensure understanding and security in this accommodation we have some basic rules to follow to make sure everyone is convenient here. Rules are no smoking inside the accommodation, no night outs, no outsiders allowed. Food in the volunteer house includes breakfast which is self-service (make your own coffee or tea, toast, oats), lunch and dinner are ordered by our coordinator staff with delivery from hygienic and decent restaurants or chefs. Food is vegetarian authentic meals like chapatis, daal, vegetables.
Facilities include:
- Gender based division of participants
- Rooms with max 4 people in
- Western toilets
- Shower
- Kitchen to cook
- Hot & cold water facilities
- Wi-Fi facility
- Semi-automatic washing machine
- Fridge
- Filtered water
- Hindi class
- Indian saree workshop
- Professional Yoga class
- Indian cooking class
- Air fare
- Visa
- Insurance
- Local transportation (mostly on walking distance or support from coordinators)
- SIM card
- Personal expenses
For costs and further details please contact us on info@stepbeyondborders.org