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Voluntourism around Kathmandu

Home > Blogs > Uncategorized > Voluntourism around Kathmandu
By:Volunteers Initiative Nepal0 Comment

Voluntourism around Kathmandu

While many of Nepal’s 500,000 annual visitors come for trekking, white water rafting, mountain biking and other outdoor pursuits, this small country has so much more to offer than just dramatic landscapes.

Another of Nepal’s assets is its rich culture, sandwiched as it is between the two vast populations of China and India. Now, thanks to numerous organizations, travelers can experience this captivating country whilst learning new skills and immersing themselves in the culture. Many projects also enable travelers to help the communities they stay with. This type of tourism, known as volunteerism, aims to enable travelers to experience real cultures and lifestyles, whilst simultaneously supporting disadvantaged locals.

Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN) is one such volunteerism organization which runs projects in and around Kathmandu including women’s empowerment, medical and English teaching placements. Helping to ensure cultural immersion, participants on these programmes live with Nepali host families (or in monasteries) to gain a real sense of 21st century Nepali life. Most of VIN’s projects take place in the rural community of Jitpur, 11 kilometres from ‘I am from a very backward community myself’ says VIN Executive Director Bhupendra Ghimire. ‘My mum is illiterate but she educated my whole family – I wanted to give something back to community’. In attempt to help he founded VIN to improve rural communities’ quality of life.

‘The issues in communities are interrelated’ says Ghimire. To address these problems, VIN is running multiple projects in the Jitpur area including women’s empowerment, which provides local women with access to loans, business training and education, medical placements where volunteers assist local doctors and construction projects to build toilets and establish clean water supplies.

Volunteers Parmeet Kaur and Josie Korda both took part in a women’s empowerment programme. ‘I wanted to get out of the day to day working routine and give back to the community’ says Malaysian Kaur who previously volunteered on a similar placement in Bangladesh. Korda from Britain says ‘I like the idea of income generation for women. It seems like we’re doing a good job’.

On a typical day these two volunteers spend time surveying women in Jitpur to establish their needs and also in VIN’s Kathmandu office processing survey data. According to Kaur ‘we already see a pattern in what the local women want’. Recent surveys have investigated the profitability of vegetable farming to ascertain the women’s income after expenses and volunteers have helped to educate the women how they can best use their money to improve their own quality of life.

Austrian, Isabelle Fantina is doing a youth empowerment placement, teaching English to 18-30 year olds and helping local teachers to improve their English, as they teach their own students in English. ‘I worked before with youth and really enjoyed it’ she says. ‘When you want to change something you have to start with young people’ she adds.

Fantina’s daily schedule consists of a free morning in the village and then teaching sessions in the late afternoon and evening. Felix Hänsch from Germany is also teaching English, as well as Maths to locals. He says ‘I wanted to get in contact with another culture and to help with education. You’re really close to locals as a teacher’. Hänsch spends the morning teaching in one of Jitpur’s schools whilst his afternoons are free.

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GOOGLE REVIEWS

Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN)
4.8
Based on 158 reviews
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Cholindra Karki
16:12 16 Sep 24
Volunteers Initiative Nepal(VIN) is a non- religious, non-political, non-for-profit and non-governmental organization (NGO). It focuses on community based projects involving local volunteers backed-up by international volunteers in Nepal.It has been deploying its volunteers in teaching, teachers training,environment, health and sanitation, children development,women empowerment support, youth empowerment and disaster risk reduction. I am proud to be a staff of this known organization. Let the targeted community be empowered together…
Rosie W
09:01 08 Sep 24
Volunteering with VIN was an incredibly experience! I spent an amazing 2 weeks working in 4 schools teaching about disasters and preparedness while enhancing the childrens english. Everyone I met was so lovely and helpful enciting me into their culture. While in Okhaldhunga I got to see multiple festivals including Gai Jatra and Teej, which was unforgettable and really made my time in Nepal. I'm so glad VIN allowed me to see the beautiful sights and culture if Nepal and I wish to come back soon!
Sulav Singh Thakuri
07:25 14 Aug 24
Well, I was that lucky one who got an opportunity to work with VIN (Volunteer Initiative Nepal) as a local volunteer. It was the best part of my entire life till. During my time volunteering (about 3 months), I gained valuable skills like project management , community outreach. This experience also contributed my personal growth by enhancing my leadership abilities and improving my communication skills.Thank you VIN 🥰❣️I recommend all my other friends who are pursuing to do community work and who have commitments to do it, do visit VIN.
Lilou
11:45 05 Jul 24
it was an incredible experience, rich on a personal and professional level. VIN was able to support us throughout our mission. the volunteers met on site were very kind and welcoming. thank you Didi for these good dishes prepared. thank you to the communities for welcoming and accepting us. incredible adventure that I will never forget.
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