Support Group > Kakani Information for Volunteers

1. KAKANI INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS

The village of Kakani is reached three hours before Sermathang, on the same beautiful Helambu ridge. It is a small village on top of the ridge with an excellent view of the surrounding mountains.

The village school has about 70 students between 6-12 years old. It is a government run school and their English is very basic. During your orientation Ranjan will arrange a short course in Nepali. It will be good idea to pick up a Nepali English Phrase book while in Kathmandu.

The physical conditions at the school are very basic and it could be challenging to teach without much equipment! You will be expected to teach English and maybe some sports/music if you have any interests in these areas.

You will be staying with a local family very close to the school. The family runs a lodge for trekkers so you will meet quite a few of people from many countries stopping over for the night.

It is only two-three hours walk from Kakani to Sermathang, where our other volunteers are placed. At weekends we can have joint activities. There are lots of short treks in the region and the local festivals etc should also be interesting.

Ranjan will give you all details regarding health, local travel, social etiquette etc. He is based in Kathmandu and will be your contact throughout your stay in Nepal.

Gopal Lama
Sept 2000

2. LETTER FROM KAKANI, NOVEMBER 2000. WRITTEN BY LIGA MILLERS AND ANDREW MATTHEWS

"Namaste Sir, .Namaste Miss, how are you?" can be heard echoing around Kakani shortly before 10 o'clock every morning as children emerge from the lower valleys in order to attend the primary school. They arrive in all sharps and sizes; some wear the uniform, some come barefooted, some carry books but, without a doubt, all of them come with an enthusiasm to learn. Being the first volunteers sent to Kakani by the Sermathang Project we are somewhat of a novelty and the morning greeting has become a daily ritual with pupils from all classes. In turn we ask the same question, "How are You?" to numerous children" most of whom are keen to practice the adjectives we have taught them, "I am cold," "I am tired " or "I am angry" are therefore fairly normal replies. During this prelude to the morning we cannot help but wonder -how many pupils will we have today?

One of the first things we noticed about the school was not only the flexible timetable but also the sporadic attendance. Many children cannot attend every day because they have to help in the fields or work as porters. It is not uncommon to prepare a potentially brilliant lesson for the following day only to discover that 2 pupils from a class of 10 have turned up. Consequently our improvisation skills have been put to good use during these past few months. One result of the poor attendance is the large variation of levels within classes and sometime it is difficult knowing whether to slow classes down for the benefit of a few children attending for the first time in a fortnight or to develop a subject already covered with the rest of the class. One way we have overcome this problem has been to split classes. Again, this is usually done on an ad hoc basis. Another result of the sporadic attendance is that the pupils progress very slowly. Indeed, when we first arrived the standard of English was lower than we expected and as communicating with them in Nepali was, and still is, not really an option we had to develop our own method of interaction. We also felt that the children lacked some of the rudimentary and fundamental learning skills, which form the basis of a child's education and simple games such as 'memory cards' and singing songs have proved hugely successful. Furthermore, we discovered that, although many of the older pupils could recite paragraphs from their textbooks, they did not understand much of what was written. But more importantly, they were unable to hold simple conversations in English. To start with, therefore, we discarded the text books and concentrated on oral expression. Perhaps our greatest achievement is that children from all classes can now converse in English, be it a basic level. Discarding the textbooks has meant that we have had to make our own teaching aids and as school resources are practically non-existent we have again had to improvise. Using pages from notebooks glued on to old cardboard boxes we have made lots of flashcards for a variety of use, including memory games and bingo. Material-wise we have greatly benefited from the fact that Kakani is on a main trekking path. We have received generous donations of paper, pens and coloured pencils and some tourists have also give up their own time. A group from England spent a day drawing a board game and a small army of French trekkers spent an afternoon copying dozens of blank clock faces on which the children could then draw the time. For a few hours, Kakani had its very own photocopier!

The children are extremely appreciative of the materials we make for them and the time we spend with them. If we walk past a classroom, which at that moment has no teacher, we invariably receive requests of "Come in here Miss. Teach us Sir." It is very hard to walk past with eager-looking children peering at you through the window. Furthermore, the local community takes an interest in our teaching methods and the day is not complete without an audience of goat herders, porters and mothers. Officially, school finishes between 3 and 4 o'clock but our job as 'entertainers' is rarely over. There is always something we can occupy the local village children with, be it skipping, drawing or taking them for extra reading lessons. And when the children no longer require our attention there are plenty of cardboard boxes to be cut! As the first volunteers of the Sermathang Project, teaching in Kakani has been a challenge but at the same time has extremely rewarding. We sincerely hope that the good work will continue once we leave, as these children desperately want to learn. We have enjoyed our time here immensely and we know that on our last day when we are asked, "How are you?" there will only be one answer: "We are very sad."