Dharamshala, a municipal corporation city in the Kangra valley, is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. Apart from being the home of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama and a considerable Tibetan population, it has many beautiful tea gardens. Internationally known for Kangra green tea, Dharamshala produces a wide variety of teas including black tea, green tea, oolong tea and white tea. Masala chai and the popular Kashmiri Kahwa tea are also available here.

In FSL-India’s Work Camp 829, we had 4 International volunteers from different nationalities, i.e. Italy, France and the US. The camp ran for 2 weeks at Dharamshala, from 4th-17th March 2019.

Our volunteers actively took part in various activities in the Dharamkot Government Primary School, i.e. a Yoga session every morning at the home base accommodation, the renovation of classrooms, art and craft with children, school wall and educational paintings, cleaning the school grounds and a waterfall clean up drive with a local NGO.

As part of FSL-India’s intercultural exchange program, in the 2-week camp, every afternoon our volunteers visited local cultural places.

Our volunteers spread awareness to the public with a campaign called ‘Keep Your City Clean’ by cleaning the Bhagsu waterfall with a local NGO called Waste Warriors. The volunteers were also involved in other activities like creating awareness about nature, and also gardening with the children at the school.

 The volunteers had the opportunity to interact with Tibetan monks. They also took part in a Tibetan cooking session. Although the volunteers were busy doing all of these activities, they had just enough spare time at the end of their stay to take part in a sightseeing excursion to a Hindu temple, Bhagsu waterfalls, Dalai Lama Temple, Tse chok Ling monastery, Narbulingka Institute, Central Tibetan Library and Parliament, the Tibet Museum, and the Tibetan Children’s Village Community. 

Overall, the volunteers had a very good time during this camp and all their expectations were met.