Thursday, March 24, 2011

2010/2011 Sama Volunteer

My name is Aline, I’m 19 years old, I come from Germany and I am a Sama-volunteer for nearly eight months now. As I’m here for quite a long time now it thought it might be a good idea to write something about me, what I’m doing and Sama Foundation.

I came to India through the German organization icja. Icja is cooperating with ICDE-India; ICDE-India is the organization that is taking care of me here in India.

Why did I want to go to India?

When I was about to finish school I had a pretty important decision to make: what should I do after my graduation? I had absolutely no idea. Somewhere I had in my mind to go abroad but I didn’t know which country or even how.

In the end it all went on quite fast, I got to know about the “weltwaerts”-programme of the German government, I found the organization icja and a few months later I was in India.

But why did I choose India?

Actually, the only criteria for me was that the country is English-speaking, so I decided between several African countries and India. As for me India was far more interesting I decided for India. You’d think it must have been a hard decision to choose the country, but somehow for me it wasn’t that difficult. And I’m happy with my decision. Even though I had some hard times (and a quite difficult start) I just like this country with its amazing landscapes, the culture, that couldn’t be more different from what I know, and its people.

Sama Foundation is an NGO (non-governmental organization) that is working for persons with disabilities and disability-right. The special focus lies on children and education.

The first months I assisted the teachers in the Day Care Centres and the Child Activity Centres, there I played with the children and taught them things like little chants, dances, drawing and sometimes a little bit of English.

Although I was a little bit scared of working with disabled children, because I never did it before, I’m really glad I got the chance to do it. It is wonderful when they get used to you and want to play with you. Seeing their happy faces can enlighten your day.

Now Sama Foundation is concentrating a little bit more on fund-raising. This always will be a major activity for an NGO. Therefore, I also got other tasks. I spent for example a lot of time in working on the five year report of Sama Foundation or I do smaller office activities.

I am living in a Hostel near the office (10 minutes by walk), and I really like living there. Because I’m quite independent there, apart from the curfew but that’s only a minor problem to me. I have a lot of privacy and I live there with a lot of nice Indian girls/women that are about my age.

Besides working I also spend a lot of time with travelling through India. So far I’ve seen a lot of places of South India and parts of North India.

The landscapes are always really impressing but sometimes travelling can be really exhausting.

However, I enjoy my time here in India with the “Sama-Family” and I will always remember this year.


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