As a childcare volunteer in India, you have the incredible opportunity to bring joy and brighten the lives of children from underprivileged backgrounds. Your role involves starting each day by dancing and singing with these young and lovely kids, providing an energetic and uplifting start to their mornings. Serving as a role model for these enthusiastic children, you will support them with their educational journey and help organise engaging activities, games, and basic teaching lessons. By making a positive impact on local Indian communities, you contribute to shaping a brighter future for these kids. You will be assisting with general childcare and daily activities at the volunteer placement and will need to showcase your commitment to creating a nurturing environment for these young minds to thrive.
BACKGROUND TO THE CHILDCARE PROGRAM
Like other developing countries, across India, hundreds of thousands of children find themselves lacking opportunities. In other words, many children struggle to receive the early years development they should otherwise be entitled to. Parents often lack the income and resources to provide adequate early years education for their children. Consequently, many of these children find themselves lacking opportunities to get the best start in life. Moreover, children with disabilities face even greater barriers within and outside the Indian education system.
Volunteers with children in India with PMGY work to support children centres in the Faridabad community. These are projects established by PMGY in the community for children from nearby slum communities. Not only do volunteers provide a friendly face to brighten up a child’s day, but they work hard to support and lead activities, making days at the centres fun and productive. Volunteers with children in India are required to have masses of energy, enthusiasm and creativity to ensure that contributions to the project can be as successful as possible. Volunteering with children is a highly rewarding experience and one that people from all backgrounds can get involved in.
Each day on this childcare volunteer abroad program in India is different and you will get out of the project what you put in. It is a good idea to join the project prepared with lots of ideas for activities so that you can get stuck in as soon as possible. As a childcare volunteer in India, you have the opportunity to think and act creatively. As a consequence, they make a positive impact on the lives of young ones within the local community.
CHILDCARE VOLUNTEER PLACEMENT EXAMPLES
Sector 10 Program - Established by the PMGY local team, this project provides support for children from the Sector 10 community. For context, this is the community in which the local team is from and where volunteers are based during their time in India. Hence, the team has been passionate about establishing a community childcare and education program within their immediate local area to keep giving back.
Around 50 children attend the Sector 10 program each day. Many of these children come from the local slum communities. The children usually split into two groups, with younger children and slightly older children. As a childcare volunteer in India, your role is to work with younger children where activities are less education-based. Instead, spending time making arts and crafts activities, developing playground games in the local park, hygiene education and supporting early years development. Whereas those who want to focus more on teaching will work with the older children to teach basic English and Maths amongst other subjects.
It can often be the case that the older children coming to the project each day to learn are responsible for their younger siblings. With no access to childcare at home, they bring their younger siblings to the project. India childcare volunteers play a vital role in supporting these children as well as all the other younger children at the project.
The project usually runs in the morning for around 3 hours. The morning will start with the national anthem, nursery rhymes and some exercise with the whole group. For the next couple of hours, the childcare volunteers will work with the younger children and the teaching volunteers will teach the older children. The group then reconvenes for the final hour usually involving some Bollywood dancing and snack time. A local teacher and coordinator are on hand to support volunteers with the tasks and activities of the project.
KRC School - This centre was founded some years ago by a physiotherapist. The project aims to provide children with disabilities the care and attention they deserve. Sadly, a lack of awareness and limited access to resources has left many disabled people in India without the care many desperately need. Therefore, the overall goal is to provide children with the skills and rehabilitation for the greatest chance of independence. Staff at the centre have worked with local people and children with conditions that include Down Syndrome and Infantile hemiplegia.
There are local staff at the volunteer project, but most of the additional support is provided by PMGY participants. Daily activities often include storytelling, physical exercise, basic life skill lessons, singing songs and games. You may even get involved in some English language teaching. It is hoped that through these activities, the children will also interact with each other. This, in turn, helps to promote social skills that the children may not otherwise develop extensively. Volunteers with relevant experience may be able to assist with physiotherapy and speech therapy sessions. Such interaction will be under the guidance of the local staff. Volunteers will usually take along toys and educational aids each day to the community centre project.
When participants arrive at this community development volunteer abroad program, they take over the room with their energy, stimulating and supporting children. The project is very hands-on. Volunteers will have important roles in teaching English and feeding, as well as assisting in activities that focus on motor skills.
Although this volunteer work in India can be challenging, feedback from participants suggests the project is one of the most rewarding volunteer opportunities. The bonds international volunteers build with the children at the project are unique and special to each participant. As funding and volunteer support increase, we can continue to maximise our support to communities and the centre.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER WORKING WITH CHILDREN IN INDIA
Return Airport Transfer - Your return airport transfer is not included in your Program Fee. Our local team can help arrange onward transfers to the airport or an alternative destination from the volunteer accommodation. Making specific arrangements once in India provides more flexibility as plans can often change and participants may be on similar flight plans. Alternatively, a more common and cheaper method is to use a ridesharing app. Participants can often be travelling across their final few days and therefore are not necessarily heading back to the airport directly from our accommodation. The costs depend on your method of transport and your final destination. This can often be split across multiple participants if you are travelling with someone else on the program.
Project Flexibility - There may be an opportunity as a volunteer in India to get involved with other India volunteer programs. However, there may be instances where this would lead to overcrowding on these volunteering experiences, and thus limited project work opportunity. Therefore, such flexibility on a volunteer trip to India is not always possible. Priority will always be given to those signed up to that specific program in India.
Resources - On the childcare project in India, resources can be very limited. Volunteers are recommended to bring materials to the project each day to maximise their productivity and day-to-day involvement. It is therefore important for childcare volunteers in India to prepare well in advance to get the most out of their childcare volunteering experience in India.
Placement Settings - PMGY does not provide volunteer opportunities in orphanages in any of our locations. Research and studies have shown that visiting and volunteering in orphanages has the potential to generate an industry that separates children from their families. In turn, putting children at increased risk of neglect and abuse. Therefore, we do not support these institutions with our volunteer network.
Instead, we focus on offering alternative childcare volunteer opportunities whereby children come to and from the placement setting each day. In other words, our local teams collaborate with childcare projects which do not offer any form of residential care. These are safe, responsible, and vetted projects, where participants continue to provide valued assistance supporting local staff.
Weekends - Your project work in India runs from Monday-Friday and weekends are free. You are welcome to relax and hang out at the volunteer accommodation but most participants will use this time to travel and explore the country. As a result, you can check out our India Weekend Travel Guide for top tips on how to spend your weekend.
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