Volunteers and Visitors

The  volunteering  spirit  is an amazing thing.  People  from remote  corners  of the world,  totally  unrelated and complete strangers, travel thousands of miles to come and share their time with our children and artisans. They bring not only great positive energy but also the varied shades and colors of life and culture. Our children and women, who most often do not even know the names of the places beyond their own villages, get to interact with and learn about the lives of women and young girls in Europe, USA and Canada, our children get to play international (well, almost!) cricket matches with young students from Australia and football with teams from England!

The international volunteer program has become the backbone of our services for children and women. A significant support for the services we provide to children, including education, skill building, residential facilities and the skill-training for marginalized women comes from individuals who have been volunteers at Vatsalya at some time in their lives. Once they are at Vatsalya, they never leave, at least in spirit. They continue to think of us and continue to return to share their affection for our children. They also actively work to spread the word about our work, our challenges and our needs and mobilize significant resources to help us continue our work.

The previous quarter has seen the maximum volunteers from Open Eyes Project, Spain. These are the groups visiting Vataslya since 2010. The project is conceived and managed by Ana Alaman who also recently won the award for Responsible Tourism in Berlin, Germany. For details, please see http://www.todo– contest.org/eng/awarded–projects/to–do–award–2019–open–eyes–india/