Name: Corinne Dobinson
Volunteer Job at Lha: News writer, tutor and conversation class assistant
I had the pleasure of volunteering for Lha in April. I was involved in tutoring two students in conversational English, joining the drop-in conversation class in the late afternoons and writing for Contact magazine. I stayed at Ahimsa House, the volunteer guesthouse just below the main temple, which had good facilities and was competitively priced.
Having not taught English conversation before I was a little daunted to begin with, but I soon found common ground with my two students, who I believe were thoughtfully matched with me by Lha. We developed a lovely relationship and as well as having interesting discussions, things were light-hearted and we had a lot of fun.
Inevitably, during conversation classes, I heard people’s stories; a first hand account of the struggles people have had and are still undergoing.This might have included crossing the mountains by foot from Tibet into Nepal or India, or taking a long bus journey of the same kind, but in either case, separation from family. What impressed me though was the cheerfulness and determination of the people I met, despite their hardships. It is wonderful that organisations such as Lha are there to help them, providing affordable education to help them build a new life. Volunteering for Lha means one makes a contribution to that.
I had never written in a journalistic style before, so writing for the magazine was also a new experience for me. I wrote two different articles; one reported on the lectures given by Professor Samdhong Rinpoche and another focused on a Tibetan refugee in Sweden being charged with espionage. The former was written from my personal experiences from attending the lectures and the latter, very differently, reporting from other media sources. I received some useful feedback from the editor before the articles were published.
Staying for a whole month and volunteering gave me the opportunity to “get beneath the skin” of the community. It allowed me to see how McLeod Ganj functions on a day-to-day basis. It wasn’t long before I began to bump into people I recognised and who recognised me, and a sense of belonging developed. I would therefore recommend lingering a while in McLeod Ganj and getting to know the people. Volunteering for Lha can provide you with a much richer and satisfying experience than staying in a place for a short period of time and moving on once the novelty wears off.
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