The Children's Village Project, Thailand

Overview

Immerse yourself in Thai culture by volunteering as a teaching assistant with children.

This is a chance share your experience, skills and love with the children at the Children's Village, a home for deprived children.

The Children's Village has been long established in Thailand to protect children's rights and take care of neglected children and is home to children who have suffered family or social problems.

This programme has various vocational training projects, where any skills are welcome that can help the children learn, and give them the attention that they need and deserve.

What's included?

• Pre-departure briefing in London
• Pre-departure information and advice
• In-country assistance and support
• 24-hour emergency contacts
• In-country induction or training
• Donation to the project
• Transportation: airport pick-up, airport drop-off, transportation from the accommodation to the project and back
• Accommodation: volunteer or on-project residence
• Food: some meals included and provided by staff

What's NOT included?

• Flights
• Insurance
• Visas
• Sightseeing activities
• Monthly stipend

Location

Thailand is one of Asia's top tourist destinations. Bangkok, the capital of Thailand is a tropical metropolis and one of the most traveller-friendly cities in Asia. Bangkok is a modern city that boasts stunning temples, great shopping and a thriving nightlife.

Kanchanaburi is located 130 km west of Bangkok and is famous for being situated on the River Kwai. It is home to national parks that have amazing waterfalls, mountains and caves to explore, as well as temples, museums and war cemeteries.

 

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Project life and Photos

Day 1: Bangkok - Arrival Transfer
Arrival and joint-transfer to your accommodation. An experienced guide will meet you at the airport and will provide you with some useful tips for exploring the city and give you some ideas of what you could do on your tour.

Day 2: Bangkok - An Orientation tour - Learn Thai
Today is a tour on foot. The aim is to ensure that you see as much as possible of the everyday life of Bangkok and its people, and what better way to do that than to combine your walk with as many different modes of public transport as possible. Stops on the tour will normally include some interesting temples, a flower market and Little India or Chinatown. Then you will spend some time learning Thai in an informal atmosphere. You will have lessons that start with simple words and conversation, just enough to get by, and then more specific words that you will need according to the project you are joining. Then you can go out to try it in real-life situations, such as a local market, taking your own transport and trying to bargain for things by yourself.

Day 3: Bangkok - A Village Experience | (B, -, D) 
You will have a lazy morning to discover more of Bangkok and then leave the bustling city behind by taking a local bus for about 2 hours to a small village near Kanchanaburi town. After settling into your charming home stay and receiving a warm welcome from your host family you will then have time to explore the village and the chance to practice your Thai skills with the villagers. You may also join in the farming activities of your 'Thai family' in their organic garden.

Day 4: Home stay - Kanchanaburi - Children's Village | (B, -, D) 
Time to say farewell to your kind hosts as you need to catch the local bus to Kanchanaburi and explore the town, see the famous 'Death Railway', World War II Museum, etc. Then continue by public bus to Moobandek, or the Children's Village - Upon arrival the teachers will give orientation to learn about their project and the area.

Days 5-12: Children's Village | (B, L, D) 
The village is one of the voluntary projects of the Foundation for Children. They receive vocational training, learn about farming and join the classes that include language learning. There are now about 100-120 children of various ages. The program for each day normally starts with an early morning routine check of the village's vegetable plantation then breakfast. You will need to help the children prepare food. The project coordinator will then run through what you will be working on. This could be preparing for lessons, teaching lessons about your home country (it would help if you could bring some items/props from home to use in lessons) or helping in the kindergarten or nursery. You can also join one of the village's development projects (cleaning the school, vegetable farming, planting, vocational workshops, etc.) or look after the small children who have no class. There are also a great variety of vocational workshops, such as carpentry, agriculture, construction, computers, cooking and handicraft activities such as batik, sewing, weaving, etc.

Day 13: Kanchanaburi - Bangkok | (B) 
After saying farewell to the children return to Bangkok by public bus.

Day 14: Bangkok - departure transfer | (B) 
Spend this last free day shopping or exploring more of Bangkok on your own. Then joint transfer to the airport for flight home.

Weekends and public holidays are free for you to do as you please. The co-ordinator will help you with information to plan your own travelling during this free time.

* (B/ L/ D) - (Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner)

During weekends and public holidays your coordinator will help you with information to plan your own travelling during this free time.

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Flights, transportation and visas

• International flights are not included.
• The price of the programme includes all transportation to/from the airport and projects sites, either by van or public bus.
• The travelling arrangements during your free time, weekends and holidays are not included in the price of this programme.
• You will need a visa to enter in Thailand.

 

CIBT Visa advice... For expert visa advice we advise our volunteer, work placement, and internship participants to get in touch with CIBT - a company that we work in partnership with. Our UK, Canadian, and US travellers can use CIBT for visa advice and to get their visa applications processed - with visas returned within a week. UK travellers can contact CIBT for visa advice. Canadian participants can contact CIBT for visa advice or call Toll Free: 888-665-9956 US participants can contact CIBT for visa advice or call Toll Free: 800-577-2428 Canadian citizens should state account number: 57497 US citizens should state account number: 57496

Dates and duration

This programme is not available on the following dates due to local holidays:

• New Year
• 12-17 April
• Mid March to mid May
• Mid September to mid November

Safety and insurance

• All of Twin Work & Volunteer's placements are in partnership with recognised and established local organisations, run by or employing local people. These organisations, depending on the nature of what they do, might be small-scale NGOs, family projects, schools or orphanages, or local initiatives with environmental or social goals.
• We often use local businesses to provide logistical and support services to volunteers such as transfers, pick-ups, accommodation and so on. In this way, we support the local economy through helping independent local businesses to thrive. We take our partnerships very seriously and work extremely closely with all our partners.
• We provide 24-hour emergency support from the UK and our partners provides support locally.
• We have an agreement with the crisis management service Tranquillico, should the very worst situations arise.
• If any wider safety concerns arise in the destination, such as civil disturbances or natural disasters, we seek advice from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and implement their recommendations where appropriate.

 

Insurance options... Comprehensive insurance is available for all programmes. You have no obligation to take up insurance with any of these companies, but insurance of a suitable sort is mandatory on all our programmes. For UK participants: Here are the full details of our partnership with Endsleigh. For American and Canadian participants: We offer insurance options with International Volunteer Card (IVC).

Eligibility

• Minimum age: 18 years old
• Basic command of spoken English is essential
• You do not need any formal training or experience to participate but whatever experience you do have will be taken into account when arranging your day-to-day activities
• Having a caring nature is considered to be of vital importance
• Volunteers need to be independent, enthusiastic and adaptable, hard working, with an open-minded attitude and a great sense of humour
• International volunteers are welcome

Accommodation and Food

• In Bangkok is a tourist-class hotels or guesthouses on shared-twin basis with breakfast. All rooms are air-conditioned with private facilities.
• At the project the children stay in different houses with one teacher living in each house to supervise them. You will be staying in one of these houses with the children. There is no air conditioning. Bedding and equipment provided.
• On the extension week the 6 nights accommodation is at the children's village with meals on a full board basis.

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