Avala Up School

Background and Locality

Avala Upper Primary school is located in the village of Cheruvannur, Vadakara.. Vadakara is a small costal town in the district of Kozhikode, Kerala. Blessed with lush green landscape, famous temples and beautiful waters Vadakara was once a booming trade centre in ancient times. Today the local workforce in the surrounding villages, including Cheruvannur, is predominantly farmers and daily wage workers. Yearoutindia came to know about this school after a volunteer intern, Esther from UK, took the initiative to visit the local area with Sreedharan, a resident in Cochin whose family and children live in the area. Esther discovered the poor condition of the school and following successful discussions with the school’s management Yearoutindia decided to help.

The School

The school was founded in 1943 and has gradually grown to meet the needs of the community. There are now approximately 1000 children at the school, aged 5 to 13, from the surrounding area. There are 30 teachers at the school and great importance is placed on learning English. The school is privately managed and receives no funds from the government. It is a respected and well-run school; however lack of funds means that essential developments to the school’s infrastructure cannot be completed without assistance. The school desperately needs a water purifying system and water pipes to ensure that drinking water reaches the children safely. Furthermore essential renovation and repairs to the existing classrooms and kitchen are required as well as teaching facilities (books, apparatus etc) for the teachers and children. Teachers and assistant teachers are required as the school is unable to employ more staff.

Voluntary Positions

Yearoutindia plans to support the Avala UP School by providing assistance in the way of Volunteer Teachers through its Reach & Teach programs. The volunteers will be able to assist at the school by teaching the children various subjects including spoken English, Arts & Crafts, Drama etc or any other subject depending on the school’s needs and volunteer’s interests. You can help with the training and daycare facilities or help host staff conduct recreational activities, teach classes and serve meals.

Besides enabling them to interact with someone from a different culture, it will be a wonderful and rare opportunity for children to learn new skills often beyond their present financial, social and educational constraints.

We are also attempting to raise much needed funds for these community development projects and volunteers on the Reach and Teach programs are encouraged to undertake these if their timetable permits. Volunteers will have the opportunity to help in repairing and renovating the existing infrastructure of the school and also contributing/helping in installing a much needed water purification and pipe system etc.

To enable a sense of continuity, we request our volunteers to commit to a minimum of 4 weeks. This will help the children get used to you and also enable you to settle into the school community. We have a maximum of two volunteer places available at any one time at the school. These can be extended according to the needs of the children and the availability and skills of the individual volunteer.

To enable a sense of continuity, we request our volunteers to commit to a minimum of 4 weeks. This will help the children get used to you and also enable you to settle into the school community. We have a maximum of two volunteer places available at any one time at the school. These can be extended according to the needs of the children and the availability and skills of the individual volunteer. You’ll usually teach about four hours a day, Monday through Friday, and have 2 hours each day to collaborate with the staff and prepare for classes. The rest of the day is for free time. Please apply early.

The location being remote, volunteers will need to be resourceful, flexible, adventurous, patient and above all have a big heart to work with these children. Please note that teaching schedules are planned taking into consideration the current timetable of the school and teaching volunteers must be flexible enough to adapt to the teaching needs of the school.

“This is a challenging project that require volunteers to be resourceful, committed, self motivated and will definitely involve long hours of work with plenty of excitement and fun. You will be involved in planning, organising and building activities with the help of a team of volunteers, local laborers and members of the community. Please note that the project area is remote and basic facilities will be provided by Yearoutindia. Amenities like Internet, ATM’s, Fax etc are only available at the nearby town centre”.

Program Costs

Please contact our volunteer coordinator in your region for more details and breakdown of service internship fees and placement availability. Duration of service internship placement vary from a minimum of 4 weeks to 12 weeks. Majority of the fees go directly towards the projects we support. The remaining covers program related costs: all food, accommodation, project-related transport, and staff and project maintenance. This project is suitable for groups of volunteers (maximum of 4) who can take on the larger renovation projects together. Volunteers are encouraged to fundraise for this project if they can.