Crystal Candall

Volunteer Testimonial !!! Crystal Crystal Crystal Kenda s story In October 2009, I went to Nepal and volunteered at an orpahage located in Pokhara. It was an amazing and rewarding experience.The name of orphanage is called Innocent Children Home. The home was built of rock and bricks with marble floors and counters. The home had 8 children from the ages of 4 12, and a Nepalese house mom. The 3 older boys Naryan, Silas, and Santosh went to school Sunday Friday while the remaining 5 children ages 4 8 Susmita, Biraj, Akiti, Manmaya, Ek Bhadour stayed at the house all day. As a volunteer I helped teach the children about proper hygiene such as brushing their teeth, bathing on a regular basis, and changing their clothes daily. I helped around the orphanage with gardening, washing clothes, cooking and teaching the children at home basic English reading and writing. I wanted to do something for the children in the orphanage so before I went I collected donations at work Devon Canada and had a large duffel bag filled with things for the children. I had balls, play dough, clay, foam airplanes, toothbrushes, pencils, pens, erasers, sharpeners, stress balls, workbooks, story books, addition and subtraction tables, basic elementary reading and writing books, a blow up globe, sparklers, and much more. The look on the childrens face when I opened the bag was unforgettable. It was amazing to see what simple things like a pencil and eraser could do for a child when they have nothing. The directors of the organization were grateful and hung the Canadian flag which I brought for them up in the orphanage. The four older Children were fairly good at English and were really motivated to learn the language. I could have spent every minute I was there writing the alphabet and counting with them. The younger children had a short attention span so I would set up stations with different activities and every 5 minutes have them move around and work together on different activities. The 4 and 5 year old were able to write the alphabet from A-J while the 8 12 year old could do the entire alphabet both upper and lower case plus count to 100. It broke my heart that Manmaya the 8 year old was not in school, this was because they couldnt afford to send her and she was a girl. I put a lot of time into working with her because I could tell she wanted to go to school and although she loved the younger children.