Volunteer Programs

More than three quarters of India's population live in the 600,000 villages throughout the country. Mandya is a city of 130 000 people but it is surrounded by smaller villages.

Life in an Indian village is difficult and villagers do without facilities, which in the West are considered as necessities. It is rare to find indoor toilets, washing machines or refrigerators and most villages do without electricity and clean running water.

More about our district and what to see - tourism page.

These are the people with whom you'll be working - pictures, Sandra Fisher during training workshops October 2008. Left, workshop conducted by India Flint (red band on left wrist). Right, workshop conducted by Marion Gorr (black shirt and glasses).

Our young people need English language conversation practice, so they will be your guides after school hours.

Our village craftspeople need photography students and photographers to take photos of their wares to put on web-pages, and creative writers and journalism students to profile them for websites and on-line magazines.

Our home-building teams need people experienced in using power tools who can teach these skills to our youth, as well as donations of angle grinders, circular saws, drills and nail guns. We need electricians and plumbers to help with projects as diverse as rain-water harvesting, composting toilet manufacture and installation and wind-power and solar installation.

In October 2008 we had visits from Australian textiles teachers who taught several of us new skills and we are always on the lookout for more teachers who can show us new ways of using the resources we have to create new job opportunities.

Business and finance professionals can help in our village bank, especially in explaining business opportunities to people who seek to borrow money for micro-businesses. We differ from most other micro-credit organisations because we promote our members’ products for export rather than concentrating on the local community for sales opportunities.

Whilst you’re staying as a volunteer, you can ditch the depression and anxiety of life in the west for a month and come soak up the atmosphere of the east. Live amongst us, participate in yoga and meditation (free for volunteers), share our simple healthy vegetarian diet, learn new skills from our weavers, shoemakers, organic farmers and textile workers; join in our amazingly colourful festivals! You can even learn our folk songs and folk dances! We may not have lives of riches here in India but we certainly have rich lives!

Our volunteers stay at our place (which has water electricity and toilet/washing facilities). Their contribution for energy, food, internet access and transport may be as little as 389 Euros / Rs 25 000 for a 4 week program. This includes 17 meals a week. (i.e. get your own food 2 lunches and evenings a week) Private hotel accommodation is available at extra cost.

Deposit half 30 days prior to arrival, balance on arrival. For more information click envelope.