Gap Year Opportunities / Medical Camp Volunteers

Do Something Amazing! Opportunities for Gap Year Students or those with teaching experience to come and work in our English Medium Children's School and Home in rural Andhra Pradesh. Placements last for 2, 3 or 6 week and the charge covers the cost of pick up and return to Vishakhapatnam airport and all food, accommodation and travel during the time with us. There are also opportunities for students to participate in rural evangelism in local villages presently untouched by the Gospel.

Our campus site is in a village called Kuntinivasala in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. The majority of the village people are farmers and very poor. There are no facilities in the village although on the campus we do have western bathrooms and access to the internet (power permitting). Our aim is to give some of the poorest children access to an English Medium education which they would not otherwise be able to afford. The school has been running for 3 years now and has approximately 100 students. Volunteers help to improve the spoken English in the school and give the children a chance to do activities not normally available in an Indian school such as art games etc. We have a small library and a 6 computers for the children to use.

All volunteers work during the day in our English medium school teaching lessons and organising games and other activities for the children. Our children's home on the campus site has between 40 -50 children living on the site and there are opportunities to participate in other activities with the home children.

Our campus in Kuntinivasala is also home to our Bible college where a number of students come for 2 years to train for the pastoral ministry. We do allow volunteers who are interested to join our students on weekly evangelistic meetings to rural villages to preach the Gospel. We are surrounded by 300+ villages who have never heard of Jesus Christ and our ministry works at establishing churches in these villages.

Placement requirements

Previous teaching experience is not essential although work with children and young people would be helpful.

We are a Christian organisation and whilst we do not restrict placements to Christians we do require that there is an empathy with Christianity and an understanding that the school and home are Christian centred. In India there are some cultural differences that volunteers have to work with and understand. This does mean for us to retain our credibility with the local community we work with we do not allow smoking or alcohol.

An ability to work with people and follow directions given.

A good sense of adventure and ability to cope in basic rural conditions. This means frequent power cuts, limited access to western food, no TV only DVDs to watch. We do have internet access on campus although it is slow and limited in availability due to power shortages.

Costs

2 weeks £350 3 weeks £450.00 6 weeks £900. Discounts for group bookings of up to 8 people and longer or shorter periods than listed will be considered.

For application form or more information contact Nicky nickyatbobbili@yahoo.co.uk

Medical Camp Volunteers

Hope Community Trust runs medical camps in Kuntinivasala and the surrounding areas once a year. We are always looking for volunteers to help with these camps. The missions last about 20 days and visit rural villages where medical facilities are limited. Whilst the government does offer medical treatment to the poor it is not always easily accessible to them. We take a team to a village for a one or two day mission and treat if we can or refer to a local hospital if the condition is more serious.

Missions usually in or around the months of Oct/Nov and we meet all volunteers at Vishakhapatnam airport and return them there after the mission. All accommodation & food is free to medical volunteers.

We have a range of drugs and equipment for these camps and our future plan is to establish a medical facility in the village of Kuntinivasala on a piece of land already obtained.

Volunteer posts available.

Nurses - General nursing is always good but those with specialities in ophthalmic or gastric fields also very useful. Tropical medicine is not essential but if qualified then very useful.

Doctors - Gastric/Ophthalmic and Gp's always welcome. Those with any tropical medicine even more useful but not essential.

Dentists - There are always lots of people with dental problems and we are very interested in any dentists who are considering a mission. We would need to discuss equipment as we are unsure as to what would be the basics needed to address the problems we face.

For further information contact Nicky Smith nickyatbobbili@yahoo.co.uk