Volunteer with children in China

Community
Volunteering to assist teachers in school, kindergartens, care homes etc is always a rewarding volunteer experience. Principally because your efforts directly influence education of local children and adults and this project in China is no different. By lending your time to this project you’ll be helping children from the local area enhance their English skills and understanding of different cultures. Kindergartens / Pre-schools / Nurseries are so important for families, because they enable parents to continue to work whilst their children are too young to go to school. Consequently your help on projects like these is also helping maintain employment and income for local families from all backgrounds.

By living in the local area you will bring income through tourism and education through cultural exchange. The hostel accommodation on this project is locally owned and all the staff are from the neighbourhood. Where possible produce is purchased for breakfast in nearby shops, helping provide authentic local cuisine. Alternatively you’ll stay in accommodation on Campus, living with other teachers and experiencing real cultural exchange.

Lunch and evening meals are included in the package, provided through a monthly allowance. Volunteers are able to spend this allowance each day in any of the many local restaurants and cafes, tasting local cuisine.

Environment
Transport to and from the project is left up to you to choose (costs covered for public transport). Public transport is always recommended by Travellers and all nearby public transport routes are shown to all new arrivals. If taxis are required, you will be encouraged to share with other volunteers in order to lessen the impact of pollution wherever possible.

Having regard for the local community by being consciously aware of your impact is encouraged in all our documentation for all our projects in all our destination countries. This is because we feel very strongly that many countries are subject to, for example, water shortages, high cost of energy and high impact of energy usage, the negative impact of litter and general pollution. Thus we encourage our volunteers to be aware of these possible impacts so that they contribute positively and not negatively to the community in this respect

Our company:

You taking part in this project enables us to continue to donate financial assistance as well as necessary goods, where it is needed around the world. Examples of donations include building new classrooms, providing school uniforms for poorer students, buying computers, sports equipment, playgrounds, toys, mattresses, classroom equipment and funding school trips and the building of libraries, and more. We also donate significantly to conservation research efforts and the purchasing of necessary conservation equipment. In the past, these donations have been made in all continents and in projects where we work, and some where we do not work. Recent donations made include:

• Donation made of approximately £300 to a school in Ghana to support the purchase of new equipment for a new classroom, funding to build new signs to advertise the school and money to purchase school books.
  
• Ongoing monthly donations made to orphanage in Buenos Aires, Argenitna, and every year additional money given at Christmas to buy presents for children.
  
• Approximately £1,500 towards the building of a desperately needed classroom in a Zulu school in eMakhosini, South Africa.
  
• £1,500 to build a roof at the Grace Kennet Foundation Orphanage in Madurai, India. This was a donation made to match the fundraising efforts of an ex volunteer. A tree had fallen through the roof of the orphanage during a storm, and so a large part of the building was un-usable and dangerous. Work is currently beginning and should be finished by early 2009.
  
• Approximately £880 to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia to help publicise the centre and draw funds to care for injured and abandoned Orang Utans.

We employ an all local staff force in most of our destination countries, which benefits the local economy. These range from skilled country managers, who are often pillars of their community, to local labourers and craftspeople. We believe in paying our overseas staff fairly, and many are rewarded with higher than average wages for local standards. When required, we send local staff on training courses to widen their skills. For example, a member of staff in South Africa recently attended an ‘eco-school’. Here, she was trained in eco teaching methods, which she will take to the schools around her region of South Africa to encourage eco-friendly farming methods.

We are committed to upholding strict ethical standards that ensure a positive and lasting impact upon the environments, communities, institutions, volunteers, animals, children and people that we work with. For example:

• We encourage our volunteers to make the most of local opportunities available to them, such as shopping at local markets, eating in local restaurants and using local services and transport.
  
• We encourage volunteers to pay fairly for goods and services. We believe that over payment for goods and services or payment to beggars can have negative consequences and result in the over-reliance of tourism within the local community.
  
• We strongly advise against purchasing wildlife souvenirs or anything which may perpetuate the death or cruel treatment of animals for the purpose of profit.
  
• We advise on dress codes and codes of behaviour in all of our destination countries to ensure volunteers don’t cause offence to local communities.

Our aim is to create always a win-win-win situation in terms of the benefits for the local communities and institutions that we work in, for us and for the volunteer. We do not embark on any project that is not beneficial to the communities, institutes or volunteers. We conduct regular volunteer satisfaction surveys to monitor our performance.

Our projects enable vital conservation, research, care and education work to take place directly where it is most needed. For example, the schools where we teach English very often have no other English teachers, and so they rely on us for continued lessons. We kept a Species Survival Conservation project in South Africa afloat until completion after it was threatened by lack of funds. Our volunteers contribute, all over the world, to projects that would not exist without them.