AMAIDI's CeO

Volunteering in India is now an open group: http://lnkd.in/3kqTBj

International volunteers are a necessary add-on for local development organizations http://linkd.in/gQbseG

RT @onderwijsindia: eten voor India afgelopen zaterdag groot succes! 1864 euro opgehaald, naast donaties die al eerder gedaan waren. Tot …

Here’s the life story of Mr. D. Survase, founder of Saraswati Anath Shikshan Ashram, an orphanage in Pune, our newest partner in Maharasthra, India:

“I myself born in a interior village of Usmanabad. In a difficult situation it has no any food one time also. I struggled in a childhood. Hailing from a village in Marathawada, when I was 12 years my mother died living his father in mind the children as well as earn livelihood for the family. When some visiting friends offered to give him in a job in Pune, my father gladly agreed. Unfortunately, there friends in differed to Devidas `plight` abounded me on Pune railway station. Meanwhile I get a job in C.I.R.T. Bhosari as a labor, but I want to ensure that no one of there children goes through what I had to say. In between I met Pornima, Social worker, and together we went around to asking people to donate their junk to various orphanages. Eventually, in 1995, we started Saraswati Anath Shikshan Ashram. The work has been started with 5 children in a rental basis. At the it has a rent of rupees 500/- per month. But the situation is that no any rupee at the time. In a very difficult different situation I went to a lot of friends. In a rainy season a lot of expenses feel an illness because it was a very poor situation in a temporary shed”… 

Touched? Read more 

Getting a request to collaborate with a Kenya based volunteer agency, adding to the signals that AMAIDI might get a gl…http://lnkd.in/rhCqXY

Dear Amaidi,

I really appreciate your collection of resources on the amaidi.org website. 

I became interested in world time scales after I was assigned a research project in the field. From that research, we ended up publishing a great article here, that covers all areas of world time. I also came across your site and thought I might pass this link on to you as a thank you for your wonderful resources. I know this article would be a great addition to your information, and I’m sure that it could help many of your users. Let me know what you think!

Best Wishes,

Marci Hummel

marci@onlineclasses.net

Very interesting and useful at that. A must-do when you’re upgrading your website and have not done it already http://lnkd.in/pDTDak

Strange that the masses of volunteers don’t search for ‘free volunteering’ until they find it. It isn’t out there? No one’s offering it for free? O yes, they do! But only when their expenses are covered by money paid by others. Some orgs ask volunteers ‘no fee’ but expect them to fund-raise. That kind-a- feels like using the back-door to receive the money (or much more than) that (what) was so ‘boldly’ refused at the front-door, doesn’t it?

Asking a paying volunteer if he thinks he has been unjustly paying (too much), you seldom get a straight answer. And don’t get me wrong: I really think that when pre-departure (training) is good and the volunteer has gotten all the project-related and practical information he/she needed from the org he/she had to pay, the org has done the volunteer a great service. And why not ask money for that? If costs are not recovered by any other means, that is. Mostly they are not.

What about the costs of hiring staff, paying local volunteers (occasionally or regularly), using computing power (ah, electricity bill) and .. well, I mean: there are expenses to be covered in practically anything an org does. Orgs that offer volunteering for free, how do they do it? What’s their secret?

There isn’t any. They get their expenses covered, as I said earlier, by letting volunteers fund raise ‘pre-departure’ or during/after the exposure is over. Or they manage to acquire a few corporate sponsors who take care of their expenses. I wish I had them. I would give my volunteering service free straight away. But then again. ‘Free doesn’t work’, someone told me. So I’d be probably asking a ‘token-fee’ or something like that.     

The bottom line, of course is, that overseas volunteering is never free (of costs): each volunteer has to buy a flight-ticket, take care of his travel-insurance, vaccinations and ‘travel gear’. But then again - I am speaking from experience here - nearly all volunteers are travelerers or voluntourist. I mean, they come to ‘get to know India’ (in my case) AND volunteer. My apologies, one often formulates its the other way: one comes to volunteer AND (then) travel. This is one of the reasons why overseas or international volunteering can not be compared with ‘volunteering in an old age home two blocks down the road’. 

But of course, you knew all this .. 

The petrified high-end politicians that gave in to Mr. Harare’s request (the first one of many most likely), were probably not aware of this fact. Although in case they are, they most probably did not react because of Mr. Hazare’s deteriorating health (he could have gone on for another 2,5 weeks without a serious threat to his life), but rather because Mr. Hazare touched a sensitive snare with the common man. Everywhere in India groups of young ‘Hazarites’ were emerging, across social barriers and educational backgrounds. Mr. Hazare’s act - on the lines of what happened when India nearly went to war with Pakistan due to Kargil - was busy gaining momentum in uniting the country under the banner ‘say NO to corruption’. And so it should be! 

My son came in running with a sheet of thin, cheaply printed paper. Two-leaves, it said, was going towards a ‘shining victory’ in the Tamil Nadu elections. Mrs. Jayalalitha was CM of Tamil Nadu when I came to India for the first time, in 1990. I saw her rule replaced by that of her ‘Nemesis’, Mr. Kalaignar. No money changed hands, this morning. Ms. Jayalalitha is the ‘First Lady’ of a local party called AIADMK. Mr. Kalaignar, the current CM, is heading the DMK. A few days ago his local representative passed by our house. He was distributing Rs. 500 to all the families in our street. My wife had received this amount and showed me the money-bills. ‘Please give it back to that man’, I pleaded. ‘Why should I?’, she argued.’. He didn’t ask me to vote DMK. He said ‘Here’re a little support for your family. When the time of election comes (13 April), please remember us. So I can vote what I like and still take the money’. This is the ‘small’ corruption Mr. Hazare’s is fighting against. By putting pressure on the Central Government of India to finally let the anti-corruption law, aka Jan Lokpal Bill pass in both the houses of parliament. A JLB adjusted by two committees, one headed by a Government representative, the other by a representative of the ‘Civil Society’ aka the Indian population. 

I sympathize with Mr. Hazare’s point and even see the point in him resorting to a hunger-strike. But blowing it off after a few days (no doubt starting to feel uncomfortable, but that’s the whole point, of course) and then telling the press that ‘there’s a fiercer battle ahead’ (of getting the JLB adjusted so that it ‘gets teeth’), predicts that we will probably see Mr. Harare again stop with taking food. And that, I am afraid, will devaluate his attempt to garner support amongst the representatives of the people in Delhi. But then again, Gandhi was mobilizing the Indian people nationwide and ousted the British Government by doing that. We might thus see the ouster of the Indian Government by Mr. Hazare’s supporters’ support. But .. what will we get instead? 

Looking for a business plan writer to bring us on course for the next 5 years. Apply to camille@amaidi.org