FSL India Blog

In this last month of the year, nine new volunteers from South Korea, Japan, France, Italy and Spain joined us here at FSL-India.

Standing: Sara (Kishkinda Trust, Hampi,) Elena (Tent School, Kundapur), Anne-Clotilde (Enable India, Bangalore), Jean-Philippe (Parisara, Bangalore), Young Guk (Ashrama, Kundapur), Daisuke (Litle Flowers Svhool, Karkala).
Sitting: Mar (Chikkansal School, Kundapur), Naho (Sea Turtle Conservation), Lim (Shanti ashrama)

Last month saw the first quarterly evaluation of this year’s new Weltwärts batch that arrived mostly in August and September. For some few volunteers, who arrived with Weltwärts in January, it was the second event.

Weltwärts (“world-wards”) is a program by the German BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) that sends young, open-minded Germans into countries like ours. FSL-India is proud to currently host 27 Weltwärts volunteers, who all stay for a year and contribute enormously to their projects and to our organization.

Since Weltwärts is a government program, certain special rules apply to these volunteers, such as the need of progress evaluations every three months. We haven taken this requirement and used it to organize an event worth remembering.

For three days BMZ volunteers, working in different places all over South India, talked about their experiences in their projects, host families and Indian life. They exchanged ideas, they had close conversations with their FSL mentors, and overall they had a great time – as indicated by the lack of sleep and surge of coffee consumption. Overall FSL is very happy with the insights gained at this evaluation event. We know that we’re far from perfect and need your feedback to grow and improve.

Download - BMZ Quarterly 2009 (PDF, 3MB)

We have compiled this document that contains all of your feedback and our responses to them. Please feel free to comment.

As part of our sea turtle project a huge green turtle weighing nearly 100 kilograms was spotted near Uppunda, 25 kilometers north of Kundapur. This turtle was accidentally caught in the fishing net of a fisherman here and he informed our new contact person Mr Kamalaksha who called the project immeadiatly. FSL sea turtle team rushed to the spot immediately and released this turtle to the sea. It is  very good motivation to the sea turtle volunteers who worked very hard in this area just before one day.

Welcome to our 12 new volunteers from France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany!

Standing: Carolina (Shanti Ashrama), Christina and Marianne (Balabalaga), Emmanuelle (Sheon Ashrama), Cecile (St. Marys old age home), Caroline (Little Flowers, Karkala), Janina (Shanti Ashrama).

Sitting: Margrit (Manasa Pamboor), Ilha (Ashrama School, Kundapur), Nadine (Shanti Ashrama).

On the pictures two french girls are missing: Yasmine (Matruchaya) and Jasmine (Sea Turtle).

This month FSL welcomed 14 new volunteers from countries like Germany, Italy, France and Finland.
During our monthly orientation week, they learned a little bit of the kannada language, visited some of the projects and prepared themselves with their roles and responsibilities in the project and in general.
“I think the Orientation week is a lot of fun. I have learned a lot about the Indian culture in the different sessions. People are friendly, food is good!” said one volunteer, another added: “In my opinion the Orientation Week is necessary for all of us, to understand a little bit more about the Indian culture before going straight on to the project. […] Thank you so much for your work! You have respected and followed everything you had said! I think that is not easy and I also think that it’s awesome!”

Please Welcome:
top, from the left: Mehdi (PC & Media), Hannah (Mathruchaya), Cecillia (Kishkinda), Jelena (Chickansal), Annalisa (Seona), Melissa (Manashanthi), Angelina (Dani), Sophie (Shanti Ashram), Bjoern (Spandana), Chandrakanth (EVS to France), Romaric (Sathi)
bottom: Annabelle (Dani), Sophie Valerie (Brahmavar School), Anne (Cancelled), Evan (Seona)

Every year during  holidays, FSL organizes two „Winter Camps“. They are called this way, because right now is the coldest time of the year in India. Children of nomadic families, that normally stay in and around Kundapur for as long as they can find work, can visit these camps to play games, learn about the environment and paint the playground – to name a few examples.

These children normally get no regular education – they’re not elligible for government schools and they can not afford private schools. This is why FSL-India organizes not only the Winter Camps during the holidays, but also regular year-long „Tent School Projects“, that provide free education to the children.

It’s been the annual “JC” (Junior Chamber International India) Event on September 10th. Since four years, FSL-India’s international volunteers have been one of the groups challenged to perform.
This time, our volunteers showed the audience a wild mix of Indian and European culture: They sang a German song “Die Gedanken sind frei” (thoughts are free) followed by the Indian pop-song “Jinke Marina”. The volunteers also performed a traditional Indian dance and finished the show with a 15-minute play – an adapted version of the Snow White fairytale with a strong emphasis on environmental topics.
You can watch some highlights of the event on Youtube
Traditional Dance | Jinke-Marina (follow the links)
In the week preceding the JC-Event, we also shot a short documentary about FSL-India and the volunteers to show interested members of the audience. This video can also be watched online:
Part 1 | Part 2 (follow these links)