Namaste from Nepal's Monasteries
Namaste and warm welcomes from all of us at Volunteers Initiative Nepal. Our volunteer work is dedicated to empowering the most marginalized communities within Nepal. Our volunteering and internship service programs include women's empowerment, child care at early childhood development centers, orphanages, teaching English in schools & monasteries, health care service, construction and manual work, child rights and education, etc.
Currently, exiled Tibetan Buddhists are amongst the most marginalized groups within Nepal, with education for Tibetan children constituting a most important challenge. To meet this goal, primary education schools—called Tibetan Children's Villages—were established by the Tibetan community in Nepal. Such institutions support Tibetan religious practices and provide educational schooling in Buddhist philosophies as well as a variety of other areas such as English and computer skills.
However, such facilities tend to be understaffed and underresourced, making it difficult to properly educate Tibetan youth. If you would like to put your knowledge and skill-set to use in a worthy cause, all the while experiencing a singular culture as Nepal's Tibetan communities firsthand, consider applying to teach English (and other disciplines) through VIN's Buddhist Monasteries volunteer program.
What You'll Be Doing
As a volunteer in VIN's Teaching English to Buddhist Monks and Nuns Program, you will provide basic conversational English instruction to Tibetan and Nepali children. Volunteers will also organize games, arts and crafts, and other creative activities. As a unique facet of this placement, volunteers will witness and participate in traditional Buddhist rituals when they occur at the monastery. Whether you are planning for the holidays, a career break or gap year or are even retired from your profession - teaching English at Buddhist monastery is designed for you! While teaching English to Buddhist monks, you will gain much insight to Buddhist culture, meditation etc.
Typically, volunteers will be working in any of 10 different monasteries and nunneries on the outskirts of Kathmandu. The volunteer will teach English to both junior and senior monks, as well as to teachers, for around two to three hours per day and 5 to 6 days a week. Due to the extent of this commitment, VIN does not accept volunteers for less than a month's stay for this program.
Volunteers are additionally more than welcome to pass on any of their knowledge regarding mathematics, the sciences, medicine, computing, etc. Most of the monks have solely been educated in Buddhist subjects and greatly appreciate any skills that will enable them to manage the monastery, its business and everyday life in an increasingly independent and modernized world.
About Buddhism
The Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama in what is now modern-day Nepal in the fifth or sixth century BC. His teaching sprang out of Hinduism's ascetic traditions, adopting its doctrines of reincarnation and karma, along with many yogic practices, but rejecting the caste system and belief in a creator God. The essence of the Buddha's teaching is encapsulated in the four noble truths: existence is suffering; suffering is caused by desire; the taming of desire ends suffering; and desire can be tamed by following the Eightfold Path.