“Life shapes life” this is the spirit and aim of most of the cultural exchange program. Now, I totally understand it and have totally shaped by it. In these two months, every day is so fruitful and meaningful! I must admit when I first came to India, I was little bit disappointed. The rickshaw drivers are so greedy and the manners of some people were hard for me to accept. Likewise every street seemed to be littered with…
Nearly shouting and sure that his answer was right, the small boy from the UKG stood in front of my colleague and friends. Unfortunately she had to tell him that the word he wrote and spelled was “Deer” and not “Elephant”. It was one of the first days in our school project where we spent the following 11 months and actually we were really amused about the mistake of this small kid. He was four years old and because of…
Thank you for this great time!!! My heart is filled with an incredible love when I think about the past year. As a volunteer of FSL-India at the Little Flower School near Karkala I have worked, lived and shared my life with a great and incomparable community. Last year (2011) August I arrived from Germany on the campus and hostel. Many children along with the leader of the institution Mrs. Jakin Bin welcomed me in a heart touching way. From…
During January and February 2012, FSL-India organised work camp in Chennai for South-Korean volunteers. Puduperu is one of the villages where around 30 Korean volunteers participated in varieties of activities with school children and renovated the school building. During the camp volunteers were extremely glad and impressed by children’s affectionate gestures, communication, cultural exposure, food and so on. Children also invited the Korean volunteers to their homes and shared with them about traditional practices and socio-cultural values. Recently, with…
Exactly at 7.30 a.m. the noise of the school van reaches our ears and we know many children from Pudupakkam and the surrounding villages will walk to the road to be picked up. Now we have one and half hours left until the school starts and one hour till we get our breakfast which will arrives with the first van children. After devouring breakfast we go down to the still-playing students. It’s not a far way because we are living…
I wish to tell you about my time as a voluntary social worker and my inter-cultural experiences in India. First of all I would like to tell about myself. My name is Simon Bering (19 years old) from Cologne, in West Germany. My idea to spend a year in India was based on an experience with the help of AFS Germany in Paraguay. As a young boy of fifteen years, I had the pleasure to spend one year in…
It was 23th of December just two days before Christmas celebration. A day the whole organization joined together to celebrate, eat well, play games and so on. A day on which long speeches about the benefits of work, the attitudes of NGO stuff and the big tasks ahead were hold. Everybody is happy and proud. Everybody has expectation of some Christmas gift and a few days with family and friends. Everybody is ready to go home. But Mr. Sri…
FSL India has given to me is the opportunity to gain a unique insight into life in an Indian family which remains the country’s most powerful institution When FSL India coordinator asked me to write this piece on my inter-cultural experience in India, my first thoughts were about editorship in the sense of what to include and what to leave out. For the article you are about to read would have been far longer if I had…
Basically I’m still and will always be fascinated by this incredible country with its rich culture, its exorbitant contrasts and its totally impressive people. During my voluntary service India has become a second home for me….. This is an interview held with Mr. Lucas Kutscher, a twenty-three year old youth from Germany who volunteered in the Eco Club project of FSL India during August 2008 to July 2009. He was one the first Weltwaerts volunteers under the sponsored BMZ…
And last but not least the India experience is likely to boost one’s self confidence…………… As a volunteer at PLANT India in Chennai, I learnt many things on the professional, intercultural and personal level. The work I was doing was not very closely related to the field of expertise I learned at university – Media and Communication Science. Working at PLANT is more about social work and maintaining relationships with many officials, partners and most important with the people…