During my stay in Nepal I had the possibility to live a great experience, I lived five months in a foreign country that I didn’t know before, I met people who made me change, I learnt another way of life, I improved my skills, I forged important relationship. During this experience I worked as Italian teacher in Kases school, with students from the 6 to the 9 grade. This experience gave me the opportunity to teach my mother tongue, through games and songs and even if, at the beginning I didn’t understand the utility of my work teaching Italian, at the end I realized how my students enjoyed the lessons and how much I learnt teaching Italian through English. Moreover, I worked with a disable child as a physiotherapist. She was 10 years old and affected by a neurological disease. My work was focused on both the mental and the physical problem. She was not able to speak and communicate so, I started to try to find a way to communicate with her, besides the stretching exercises to overcome the spasticity. Then I worked in an hospice, trying to create a varied program of activities that included physical exercises and creative activities, such as painting, dancing and playing games. I loved with work because it gave me the opportunity to work with old people, to see another part of Nepal and to meet great people. Throughout the duration of the project I worked every afternoon in an orphanage. There, there are seventeen girls, from 4 to 12 years old. I usually helped the girls with their homework when they came back to school and during their holidays we played together, we sang, we danced and we celebrated our birthdays. They have been, and they always will be, my younger sisters. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to meet these girls and to spend time with them, they taught me a lot about Nepali culture and life, they made me realize what are the dreams and the possibility of a Nepali child. Through the work in the orphanage I could realize how only one family can change the life of seventeen children, or even more, without any government support. This made me though about our great possibility to help other people and how this could be the most satisfactory and exciting experience of the life.

Giulia Caligaris

My project started on 3rd of March 2014 when I had landed on the Kathmandu International Airport. In the beginning my coordinator introduced me to his family. All of them for all the time I was staying in Nepal were like real family for me. I could always count of them. The same situation was with other volunteers. I was extremely lucky I met exactly this people. I was living with other volunteers (five of us) in the rented flat in Taukhel. Also with this we were very lucky – our flat has 2 separate rooms plus living room, kitchen, bathroom with hot water and the roof when we could rest in the evening with outstanding view of the mountains in our area. After few days I started to work at school as a volunteer teacher in the kindergarten classes. I was spending there 4 days per week on teaching children in nursery, LKG (Lower Kindergarten Grade) and UKG (Upper Kindergarten Grade) for 4 hours per day. This experience was extremely valuable especially because I am a student of special education and every moment I spent at school had learnt me a lot about teaching, about children development and about that how important is to use all the possibilities to make students creative. School had learned me also how to stay focused, how to prepare lessons according to the children’s age, skills and circumstances and what is the most important- school had learned me which kind of teacher I want to be in the future and this knowledge is priceless. In the middle of April I started to work in the second school, where I found even more of challenges and possibilities to learn.Since that time I was working 3 days per week for 5 hours each in KASES and 2 days for 3 hours each in SEDA. Except working as a teacher I was visiting seniors in the Old Home in Godavari. With other volunteers we were preparing exercises and entertainment for people living in this place. Effects were surprising even for us. From people who didn’t want to stand up they changed into people who dancing with real joy on their faces. We were exercising, talking, playing bowling; dancing, making art and music together and simply we were having fun. And I can’t compare anything to the smile on their faces when we were coming. Anything. Every day we were working in Moonlight Children’s Home. We were helping children doing their homework and playing when they had free time. During the holiday we were spending in MCH much more time than usual. With all the children and the family we were at the cinema, in botanical garden, we made short trekking in Godavari, we were on one Wedding, we were painting children’s faces, made a magic show, were playing football, cooking, celebrating my birthday (which was a big surprise for me and something I will remember for all my life because of the huge dose of positive energy and love I got in this day), celebrating birthday of the Girls from MCH. I will never forget the look of theirs faces, especially one- Sushita’s, the girl who arrived to MCH in the middle of April. At the beginning she was very closed, quiet, and shy. She didn’t want to eat, talk or play. She was suffering and it was clear for all of us. Improvement she made in two weeks was amazing. She changed like nobody could expect. With the day she went to school she started to smile and act like every other child. And in the day of their birthday she was dancing, smiling, jumping and laughing so hard like she was doing this for the first time in her life. This kind of moments was countless number and all of them I will save in my memory and in my heart because there is nothing in the world which taught me more about kindness, politeness, about love, affection, about value of the time and patience than the time I spent with those 17 girls in Nepal. And if there is something I can be sure about in my life now it is that I will come back to Nepal, to my second home, to my family which I love with all my heart.

Aleksandra Bańbuła

volunteer of Moonlight Children Home

March-June 2014

The time I spent in the beautiful Annapurna region of Nepal was the best time of my life. Our day to day schedule included either a bird or butterfly survey in the morning and setting out camera traps in the afternoon. We also went on many primate surveys. The camera traps we put out are to capture photographs and video footage of this region’s rare mammals. Because this evidence is so rare, it’s incredibly exciting when something does show up. The time spent with my fellow volunteers was the best part of the project. We became like a family by the end of my time there. The home stay families are such lovely people and love to embrace you into Nepali culture. I spent many afternoons learning to cook Nepali food in our family’s kitchen. There is never a lack of activity on the weekends and because we got work off, we also planned a fun trip down to Pokhara or to the hot springs in a village nearby. I would definitely recommend this project and I would absolutely return myself!

Jhon