Volunteer on Construction Projects in India

Being one of the volunteers who recently worked on Channel Youth's first Construction and Renovation Program, our dearest Neeraj kindly asked me to tell you guys something about the project, what we achieved and how I felt. Although telling something about the project and what we achieved shouldn't be too difficult it seems very hard to describe how I felt "back there" and even harder how I feel "back here" in Shiny-BlingBling Dubai... Our program started with a short introduction on Udaipur, Channel Youth and the do's and don'ts (you all know the drill) followed by a short visit to the "city centre" of Udaipur. Thanks to the colourful, bustling city and the crazy American volunteer who managed to step with his flip flops right away in fresh and warm cow-dung, I had a very pleasant afternoon. That is until we visited the orphanage in need of renovation. The dorms and the corridors were in a very, very bad shape and the orphanage didn't really look like a place where kids grow up. Nothing cheerful, no colors, walls covered with paan. For me this visit was very confronting and only then I really realized "what I got into". Next day, we started white-washing right away with 6 volunteers, one professional painter and Neeraj as supervisor (sometimes he forgot his laziness and actually picked up a brush). White-washing isn't really difficult, but kind of messy. The paint is liquid like water and splashes all over the place especially into your eyes (and all over your clothes if the other volunteers cannot control themselves). A great advantage of this kind of work is that you actually see the difference after a couple of hours work. Layer after layer you cover the dirty walls in bright white and shocking blue. With every finished wall, the old orphanage gradually disappeared. After a hard days work (I admit, it is not really hard since you have a couple of sweet chais and a delicious lunch in between) you go back to your place with a big smile, satisfied and hungry for more! We finished dorm after dorm and corridor after corridor, we brightened up the kitchen, staff rooms and finally the main entrance of the orphanage. On my last day, after 3 weeks, only windows, doors and the recreation area remained unfinished. That was actually the hard part: leaving the team and the orphanage behind before the finishing touch and before the final party on this week's Friday. Although the kids gave us their endless smiles every day and told us they liked it and although staff showed their appreciation with a little waggle of their head, I regret to miss the "official inauguration" of this reborn orphanage. To all the volunteers that are still there and to the Channel Youth team, please have a chai and a samosa for me!

My most positive experience during my whole stay in the program in India with GVI was the sense of achievement when the construction project finished and we could see the final outcome and how it developed.

Experiencing a completely different culture and being able to construct a playground that I know will bring joy to the children's lives were the highlights of my trip. The work that GVI puts to global initiatives is truly inspiring and I feel like being a part of that is life changing.