Ms. LAURAINE (France)
My name is Lauraine, I am 23 years-old and I was a volunteer in Mitraniketan for a period of 8 months during 2019 -2020.
I was engaged in teaching English and Arts to primary school students. Besides teaching, I also worked in the bakery where I help the bakers to make products like bread, muffins, sweet buns etc.
Working with the children of Mitraniketan was a wonderful experience for me. It’s about giving the opportunity to these students the time and resources to develop their interest in Arts, Sport, environmental awareness and broaden their scope of activities. But above all, the most enriching part for me was to engage the youth in personal development. As our cultures are different, the children are very curious to learn things from us, it is a good way to exchange with them and to teach new things as well as learning new things from them. Exchanging with the locals & students to understand how life in community was also really interesting to me, and the longer I stay the more I learnt about the values, culture and problems of the community.
About the accommodation, the Guest house is simple but spacious and peaceful. It’s a good start to experience the real rural way of life ! The Guest house is located in the campus so it is not far away from the place of work. All the meals are prepared and served in the Round house. Large portions of rice, sauces and fresh vegetables are available. For the breakfast, you will have delicious meals like Puttu/steam cake, dosa served with boiled eggs, bread, butter, Jam and bananas.
There are lot of things you can do in the campus but it’s up to you to see how you want to help and contribute to the community of Mitraniketan. For example, you can set up dance or music activities after school, organize movie nights, guitar lessons, chess lessons etc.