Zentopia

Volunteer to work with Tibetan refugees at Lha Charitable Trust, Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh)

About the organization -
Lha Charitable Trust is an award-winning, grassroots and registered 12AA & 80G non-profit organization and one of the largest Tibetan social work institutes based in Dharamshala, India. They aim to provide vital resources for Tibetan refugees, the local Indian population and people from the Himalayan regions.

About the volunteering program -
As a volunteer with Lha you will be immersed in the fascinating culture of the people you are serving, develop friendships, learn about issues currently facing the Tibetan refugee community and create positive change in the lives of others.
Lha is staffed by 13 full-time Tibetan employees and assisted by the valuable contribution of volunteers from around the world. Wider social services, courses and vocational training on offer at Lha are designed with the understanding and insight required to acknowledge and respond to the challenges faced by the Tibetan refugee community and to also provide long-term assistance in rehabilitation and transition into the Indian community.
With the assistance of volunteers, there is an ever-increasing variety of services on offer to the Tibetan refugee and local communities, including daily English language conversation classes, graded language classes (Tibetan, English, Chinese, German and French) and computer training. Lha also maintains partnerships with many international volunteer organisations.

For more details about this opportunity, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/volunteer-for-tibetan-refugees-in-dharamshala-himachal-pradesh



@ Dharmshala (Dharamshala), India

Volunteer with One All Trust in Chennai/Gudulur, Tamil Nadu

1. About One All Trust -
We are a registered non-profit organization that works with adolescents at schools and communities in Chennai and Nilgiris to teach life-skill education through mixed-gender sports, specifically Ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee is a mixed-gender, self-refereed and non-contact sport. Our operations currently engage with more than 215 children across 3 schools and 3 communities in Tamil Nadu.

2. Why volunteer with us -
Youth in India, especially from undeserved communities, face challenges due to societal norms, peer pressure, gender bias and influence from media that shapes their ideas and behaviors. What we believe: Our goal is to provide life skills such as identity building, understanding feelings, conflict resolution, empathy building, nurturing interpersonal relationships and awareness about gender stereotypes to develop childrens' ability to make informed choices.

3. Nature of volunteer work -
We are looking for volunteers to work in any of these fields -
1) Evaluate the current system
2) Develop impact assessment to evaluate the outcome of our programs
3) Participate in life skill education through sports sessions with the One All team
4) Design documentation materials for better systems
Working together to build better systems with One All team will provide you with valuable experience in the social sector and help develop strategic planning for community engagement.

For more details, visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/volunteer-with-one-all-trust-in-chennai-gudulur-tamil-nadu

Register for the Ecological Futures course at Shunya Farm in Bir, Himachal Pradesh

1. About Shunya Farm -
Shunya farm is a community supported farm in a small village called Bir in Himachal Pradesh, India. With an area of about 3/4th of an acre, the farm produces food for a few local people and restaurants. The farm is as much a source of food as it is a home to innumerable soil microbes, insects, birds, mongoose and more beings than we can see or identify, and place for visitors and seekers to reflect on the our connections with soil and food. The practices on the farm are influenced by Fukuoka’s natural way of farming and Permaculture design towards creating a sustainable organic food farm and a regenerative community.

2. About the course -
Ecological futures brings forth an exploration into the possibilities of and beyond sustainability and of the future of humanity and this plant. The clues for imagining these scenarios are revealed through patterns in natural systems that are inherently sustainable and that inform us of the next stage of human evolution.
The course will offer tools to synthesize our scientific and spiritual understanding of life and in that imagine ways of transiting from anthropocentric to eco-centric paradigms. To create a cohesive understanding of this, we will review philosophies and experiences from both the eastern and the western part of the world. During the course, we will journey through the history of our mankind and the history of life to put our future in perspective.
This course is for people who feel the need to articulate their ideas on sustainability before they begin working towards it. Overall, the objective of the course is to send back the participants with a lot to think about and the confidence and skills to start observing deeply and design their own gardens or farms

3. Dates - May 18 - 30

4. Course fees - Rs. 15,000

To read more and apply, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/the-ecological-futures-course-at-shunya-farm-in-bir-himachal-pradesh

Register for the Soil Course at Shunya Farm in Bir, Himachal Pradesh

1. About Shunya Farm -
Shunya farm is a community supported farm in a small village called Bir in Himachal Pradesh, India. With an area of about 3/4th of an acre, the farm produces food for a few local people and restaurants. The farm is as much a source of food as it is a home to innumerable soil microbes, insects, birds, mongoose and more beings than we can see or identify, and place for visitors and seekers to reflect on the our connections with soil and food. The practices on the farm are influenced by Fukuoka’s natural way of farming and Permaculture design towards creating a sustainable organic food farm and a regenerative community.

2. About the course -
This course explores the depth of the hidden world of soil and its amazing relationships with microbial, insect, plant and animal lives and presents simple techniques on how we can participate with the natural processes to create abundance and diversity in soils.
This course is for people who want to develop a deep understanding of the relationships between food, soil and human health and develop skills on building healthy soil in urban/farm settings from locally available resources while establishing how soil microbiology helps in accelerating succession and creating healthy ecosystems.
In learning about the soil, the course aims to facilitate learning a little bit better about ourselves, and the world around us.

3. Dates - June 8 - 13

4. Course fees - Rs. 7,500

To read more and apply, please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/the-soil-course-at-shunya-farm-in-bir-himachal-pradesh

Register for the 'Sacred Calligraphy' workshop or learn about Kabir through films, songs and conversations at the Deer Park Institute in Bir, Himachal Pradesh

To know more please visit https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/sacred-calligraphy-workshop-traditions-history-and-techniques and https://www.zentopia.in/product-page/being-with-kabir-a-4-day-retreat-with-shabnam-virmani-swagath-sivakumar