{"id":15349,"date":"2019-02-25T06:14:26","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T06:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog2\/?p=15349"},"modified":"2019-02-25T10:48:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T10:48:57","slug":"enriching-experiences-i-made-here-sophie-elisabeth-germany-womens-development-trust-women-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/enriching-experiences-i-made-here-sophie-elisabeth-germany-womens-development-trust-women-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"Enriching experiences I made here – Sophie Elisabeth, Germany: Women\u2019s Development Trust – Women Empowerment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My name is Sophie. I\u2019m a volunteer from Germany and I live in Tamil Nadu since the last 10 months. I\u2019m working in the NGO Servo Trust, which is a Women Empowerment Project from FSL-India. Servo Trust is working together with the Forest Department of this district, in the Tamil Nadu Bio-Diversity Green Project. It\u2019s an environment program financed by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency)\u00a0 and the government of Tamil Nadu, with the aim of afforestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year, many hundred thousands of trees are\nplanted in Tamil Nadu through this project. This was my main work here, where I\nmade the best experiences. We raised awareness for the importance of trees and\nour environment in small villages through Public Rural Awareness meetings (the\nPRA\u2019s) and Cultural Street Programs. In the PRA-meetings we conducted speeches\nand drew illustrations. At the end, I helped transporting and planting the\ntrees. Furthermore, we collected data for the micro plan book from the\ngovernment, and connected with farmers who want to participate in this project\nto get free trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After a few months, I started to conduct\nEnglish studies in the evenings for the children in my village. I really enjoy working\nwith the children, and now everybody in my village knows my name and it\u2019s funny\nwhen even kids I\u2019ve never seen before call me \u2018Sophie Sister\u2019. Since a few\nweeks, we also draw sometimes together, to support the creativity of the\nchildren. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes we work together with another NGO,\nwhich is working with Tribal caste people. Together, we conducted some\nEducation Awareness Programs and Summer Camps for children from the Tribal caste.\nThis was one of my favorite parts of this work, even though we didn\u2019t make this\nregularly. I really enjoyed spending time with these children, and seeing how\ntalented they are, and how these camps motivated them and empowered their self-confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Servo Trust is also raising Awareness on\nChildren\u2019s Rights in schools, or for the law in villages. In these programs, I also\nparticipated and assisted. Now, we started a new nursery nearby my home, where\nwe raise seedlings of fruit trees to support our environment, and provide the\nlocal people with fruits. During the TBGP, I met many local people from the\nvillages and we travelled almost the whole day, where I saw many places. Many people\ninvited me to eat in their homes. This great hospitality was a new experience\nfor me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The chief of this organisation is, at the same\ntime, my host mother. I live in a small village surrounded by beautiful rice\nfields, and the people are really lovely and friendly here. I have spent the\nfirst 5 months on the weekends in this village because I love it here so much.\nEverywhere are cute animals and children who want to play with me. Everybody is\ntreating me like a family member and I really feel like I have a second home\nnow, 2 mothers and many more siblings, aunties, uncles and grandmothers\/fathers.\nI will be really sad when I have to leave to go back to Germany, but I\u2019ll\ndefinitely come back many times!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through my host family and books, I learned\nTamil and the English studies with children were also a help for me to learn\nmany words. Now, I can speak a little bit Tamil. Sometimes, it\u2019s funny because\neven though I don\u2019t understand what they are speaking, I know what they are\ntelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In my village are people who believe in\nHinduism and Christianity. I got to know many interesting Hindu festivals and\ntraditions, and I visited many temples. I really love Indian food and the\nvariety of colours. Especially the coloured houses and the clothes are so\nbeautiful. I was also able to paint the wall from my home blue. It was a lot of\nfun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my 20th birthday, I visited an Indian church\nfor the first time. It was a really nice and funny experience, because it was\ndifferent to a church ceremony in Germany. We sang many songs and everybody was\nso motivated, and there were way more young people participating than in my\ncountry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also travelled to North India and Kerala,\nwhich was such a nice experience because I saw how different it is from place\nto place in India. I was really surprised. But one thing was the same. The\nhelping mind and the openness and friendliness of the people I met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will never forget these enriching experiences I made here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My name is Sophie. I\u2019m a volunteer from Germany and I live in Tamil Nadu since the last 10 months. I\u2019m working in the NGO Servo Trust, which is a Women Empowerment Project from FSL-India. Servo Trust is working together with the Forest Department of this district, in the Tamil Nadu Bio-Diversity Green Project. It\u2019s an environment program financed by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency)\u00a0 and the government of Tamil Nadu, with the aim of afforestation. Every year, many hundred…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"Closed","ping_status":"Closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[429,439],"tags":[635,633,623,637,634,636,632,638,482,471],"class_list":["post-15349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ltv-bangalore","category-volunteer-voice","tag-afforestation","tag-bio-diversity","tag-child-rights","tag-education-awareness","tag-environment-protection","tag-public-rural-awareness","tag-rural-development","tag-summer-camps","tag-teaching-english","tag-women-empowerment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15349"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15357,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15349\/revisions\/15357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}