Teaching assistant volunteering in Kerala
Description of Teaching assistant volunteering in Kerala
Its always difficult to decide on responsible holidays! We want to take away your trouble by offering some amazing opportunities in India where you can holiday and you can live like a local and give back to the community. Now thats being responsible!
Our holiday programs are based in the lush evergreen sunshine state of India, Kerala. You will be living and volunteering in Fort Kochi area, a beautiful historic port town with charming architecture and friendly people. This is where India really slows down in pace and where you will find some of India's most cultured crowd!
The focus on the volunteering here is to help children, youth and women that are disadvantaged, abused or struggling financially in urban slum areas around Fort Kochi. You will be helping in care homes, and with local grass root organisations. The volunteering is flexible to suit your needs and that helps community development. You could even be painting classrooms or teaching women spoken English!
Whatever you do you will have the full support of our local ground team who are always on hand to be with you on the projects.
Anyone wishing to be involved in teaching without the relevant qualifications or experience can volunteer as an assistant, supporting the teacher/coach during lessons, workshops or other sessions. This could involve helping students practise their English in conversations with a native speaker, or helping students carry out written or practical work under supervision by the teacher.
Depending on the above you will be working independently or with other Volunteers and local teachers to help organise and run classes for English Skill development (basic speaking, reading and writing), Games and Fun Activities, workshops (based on your interest and skills e.g. arts and craft, or sports or health) and any other soft skill development. The children are aged between 6 years to 16 years and we give you resources such as text books, curriculums and resources that are available (don’t worry we have a lot of resources you can use !).
Volunteers assisting with extracurricular activities such as after school support clubs, specialist language schools, or as coaches or teaching assistants may have placements as short as one week. We will work out a curriculum for a course of this length if you want to come and volunteer for less than four weeks. If you have qualifications and want to teach we ideally require a minimum of four weeks.
You will volunteer from Monday – Friday between 9 am to 3pm - but this is super flexible . Our Volunteer programs are all in close proximity to Fort Kochi where you will be living.
Our local staff team will always be there on the project site to guide you and help you volunteer. We will give you planning sheets and have daily meetings with you. You will also meet the Program Manager regularly.
We understand this is your holiday and for that reason we keep it flexible for you to choose what you want to do on weekends. If you want to go to the beaches, tea plantations or just do some yoga our local teams will guide you so you can get the most out of your time in India -at an affordable rates!
To ensure you get a rewarding and enjoyable experience, our local team in India will give you 24/7 support from the time you arrive until you leave. We make all the necessary arrangements for you such as airport transfers, accommodation, project travel, food, staff support and training for any program that you apply for. This leaves you to join us in India hassle-free and simply focus and maximise on your holiday!
What sets us apart from the rest is that we give you a complete experience of India that goes beyond volunteering. In Kerala you can go to the backwaters and stay on a houseboat or goto a luxury boutique island. We have recommendations so what are you waiting for! Book soon as places are limited during our holiday programs!
Please note that we require you to join this program for 4 weeks at a minimum.
Price information
Check dates
2024: 6 Jan, 13 Jan, 20 Jan, 27 Jan, 3 Feb
Travel guides
Reviews
1 Reviews of Teaching assistant volunteering in Kerala
Reviewed on 17 Aug 2019 by Emily Fairchild
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
It was turning ordinary lessons into fun a creative ones, which the children enjoyed.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
Just throw yourself into it and enjoy
this once in a lifetime opportunity
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Yeah I do feel that the children benefited from having us in the classroom
4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?
Amazing
Responsible Travel
Planet
We are addressing our local environment by working with local communities, local charities, local government bodies, local schools, or indigenous tribes. Our tours are carefully selected – we only partner with local tour operators that are either committed to responsible tourism themselves, are eco-friendly, or have ethical policies. Of course we have to use transport and where possible our local guides encourage walking or biking and travelling on public transport- buses, railways or took tuks. This can minimize our demand for special tourist vehicles and fuel whilst giving you plenty of opportunity to meet and interact with local people/communities.Our operations are also eco-friendly as we introduce policy of minimising and properly disposing of waste created, by conserving energy and water, and by ensuring that endangered wildlife and environmentally compromised areas are treated with respect.
On our heath,construction and women’sempowerment programs we focus on environmental development projects such as recycling, gardening and planting trees.
Our independent travel options and small group sizes help us to tread lightly and to use more environmentally sound forms of transport, minimizing impact, and ideally enriching the environment.
We will offer traveller’s tips on how to conserve water, reduce waste, and otherwise minimize the environmental impact of their trip. We hope that our travellers will be able to take some of the conservation tips they learn home with them.
Wherever possible, our employees use recycled paper and recycle waste created in the office, as well as attempting to minimise waste created and be a “paperless” office. We also work to minimise energy and water consumption in our offices, and we encourage our partners to follow similar waste management and energy philosophies.
People
The benefit of this project is manifold. By working in the local community schools we are helping underprivileged children with their education through volunteers who can support them and aid them. A lot of children do not have education reinforced at home, are lagging behind in class as they do not follow what is being taught or have learning disabilities. Our volunteers help such children to come up in class and teach them life skills that will help them. This program also supports teachers who also need helping hands in classrooms that are too big usually. A lot of teachers are not well trained, use rote learning methods only and schools lack teaching resources. With our support we can help train teachers to use limited supplies and make their class more learning conducive. Part of the cost of this trip is used to buy resources for school that will help teachers, students and volunteers.We also want to ensure that Teaching projects are following the guidelines of responsible travel.
We also protect children by having Qualified teaching applicants taking classes only. Non qualified applicants can assist teachers only and are vetted before they are accepted onto the project.
We Make DBS checks compulsory and have a training day for all teaching volunteers before going to the project. All volunteers also have read and sign our child protection code
We emphasis or encourage long term applicants of 4 weeks minimum.
When you work on the construction program you will be helping the community greatly by installing a water sanitation for the family. Some of the families have toilets in the village but do not have a waste disposal unit (called septic tank in India) and thus human waste goes into the rivers that surround their house which is not hygenic. You will help in building a septic tank for the families who do not have one and thus improving sanitation.
A further way we support our community is by employing local staff - they are the cultural ambassadors, know multiple dialects of the sub-continent and can easily facilitate local interaction and thus guide our travellers in general best practices (e.g. how to avoid encouraging a “begging” mentality, how to be sensitive in photographing local people, etc.) as well as specific tips on how to avoid running afoul of local customs. More importantly they will earn an income through employment.
To give you a true understanding of life in a country we will arrange your accommodation in home stays with a family or will house you in a very local area. When you go on any tour we use local hotels and small businesses. Wherever you stay you will be eating locally grown food and delicious local delicacies!
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