Greetings from FSL India! This has been a wonderful camp full of fun, learning and hard work moments. There has been loads of emotions, as well as challenges and fears faced and overcome.For 3 weeks, 14 volunteers from Spain have been working, learning and experiencing India in Bangalore and Kundapur, breaking stereotypes and embracing Indian culture.

We have developed different activities, such as wall painting in an orphanage and drawing and face painting activities with the kids. The Spanish volunteers really gave their best and boosted their creativity during these days!

We also worked together in the organic farm we have in Kundapur. Having so many volunteers engaging in our activities is very helpful. The volunteers got to enjoy our green landscape, eco-friendly building and breathe the fresh air of wet Kundapur during the monsoon. We also worked in a rice field!

We had activities in our tent school like a health and hygiene session, games with the kids and plantation, in order to give them shade and fruits. Working in our tent schools was a really heart-touching experience for the volunteers, since they witnessed and interacted with people living in the most basic conditions.

We had loads of cultural visits, such as Hindu temples, a mosque, markets, tailor, a church, the rain forest or the beach and the lighthouse. Through all these visits, the volunteers got to experience the wide range of components which make India a highly culturally-rich country. We also watched a Bollywood movie, had dance, henna and yoga lessons, interactions with Indian youth, saree wearing day or factory visits like cashewnut factory, tile factory, waste segregation plant and rubber farm to get a deeper understanding of India.

The work at school was focused on teaching about waste management to high school students of rural areas and, through very dynamic presentations and games, the volunteers taught about Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, the recycling process and the importance of these matters. The FSL-India team also conducted a rally in the community to raise awareness among the village people and, in order to make everything more realistic, we gave a memorandum to the local politicians requesting them to work on a waste management system for the area.

As Claudia (Teen Camp volunteer) said, ‘it is not about the individual things but about the perfect mix of well-planned activities’ what makes this program worthwhile. It was a successful camp not because we say it but because of the volunteers’ feedback, like Nicolas saying ‘being impacted by this experience, specifically by the little things like kindness of people, challenges or making friends in the ice-cream parlour’ or Lucia and Manuela expressing that ‘we have received more that we have given and now we are ready to go and change people back home’.

Thank you one and all for your attitude, willingness to help, motivation and commitment to the project. You made it happen!