Program Reviews

Nighttime at the edge of the world. Kathmandu is Nepal’s capital, and sits in a large valley surrounded by the Himalayas. Beautiful and dense architecture catches the eye at every turn, and the people seem to let life unfold organically with smiles on their faces and a big warm welcome resting fittingly on the edge of their lips. It’s a place you can be homesick for without ever having been there, and once you go you’ll never be the same. The food, captivating monasteries, and exotic wildlife just add to it’s divine allure. Do yourself a favor, pack lightly, embrace humility, and buy a one-way ticket to change the way you view the world and reorganize the priorities you think are important.

To attempt to articulate this experience is a welcomed but daunting task. How do I let the world know in a way they'll understand that serving in your preferred manner in a place like Nepal is viscerally uplifting, a certain collective peace & divinity is felt just being there. The locals certainly add to it's truly unique, beauty and offer their time & support at the drop of a hat were they to see me struggle in any way. I went because when I was registering for my university courses I saw an advertisement that mentioned teaching monks in the monasteries English. I've always been fascinated with Buddhism but also my departed grandmother was a devout Buddhist, chanting every morning. I went to Nepal three weeks later for a little over a month. From the moment the father of my host family picked me up at the airport I felt safe and in a state of true wonder, even at 1:00am and also meeting for the first time. I could say so many different things about the genuine kindness of the Nepali people, especially the Kalanki Mundi area. The bottom line is, if you are considering volunteering in Nepal, I encourage you to be honest with yourself and the truth is you already know that something profoundly sacred and morally enlightening awaits. I now hope you will be subtly brave and take the step towards going. I've lived many different lives and had many unique chapters of existence so I believed for a while that I was truly desensitized. Nepal was the shock to my heart that was badly needed and I wasn't even aware. I learned more from my students than they did from me it feels like. I felt a deep sense of purpose being blessed enough to guide those boys for a few weeks. The Light has a funny way of creeping in no matter how much resistance there is. The family that was kind enough to host me was absolutely amazing. I felt so close to them and know our relationship will continue. They truly felt like family to me. Didi and her son were the first to answer any questions at all I may have had, or places I needed to get to. But after a couple mornings you have your routine down and it becomes muscle memory, no worries at all. The home cooking was punctual and incredible, promptly on the table at breakfast lunch and dinner, same time everyday unless your schedule requires otherwise. Beautiful and dense architecture catches the eye at every turn, and the people seem to let life unfold organically, with smiles on their faces and a big warm welcome resting fittingly on the edge of their lips. It's a place you can be homesick for without ever having been there, and once you go you'll never be the same. The food, the captivating monasteries, and exotic wildlife just add to it's divine allure. Do yourself a favor, pack lightly, embrace humility, and buy a one-way ticket to change the way you view the world and reorganize the priorities you think are important. Teaching in the monastery was one of the most enlightening things I've ever done in my life and I learned so much about myself just by stepping outside myself. The Nepali people were there to catch me if I fell and they helped me heal in a way I never have experienced before. For that, I am eternally grateful. I say by not going and volunteering in Nepal is doing a disservice to oneself. Say yes in a polite email to Anjana, and I promise you she will take care of the rest and will be right by your side if ever need be. The program is organized, reliable, easy to communicate with, and were always clear in their words and honored any requests with a genuine kindness and welcoming disposition. I love RCDP and will be working with them again and again. Go be useful and see what happens. Trust me :)

To attempt to articulate this experience is a welcomed but daunting task. How do I let the world know in a way they'll understand that serving in your preferred manner in a place like Nepal is viscerally uplifting, a certain collective peace & divinity is felt just being there. The locals certainly add to it's truly unique, beauty and offer their time & support at the drop of a hat were they to see me struggle in any way. I went because when I was registering for my university courses I saw an advertisement that mentioned teaching monks in the monasteries English. I've always been fascinated with Buddhism but also my departed grandmother was a devout Buddhist, chanting every morning. I went to Nepal three weeks later for a little over a month. From the moment the father of my host family picked me up at the airport I felt safe and in a state of true wonder, even at 1:00am and also meeting for the first time. I could say so many different things about the genuine kindness of the Nepali people, especially the Kalanki Mundi area. The bottom line is, if you are considering volunteering in Nepal, I encourage you to be honest with yourself and the truth is you already know that something profoundly sacred and morally enlightening awaits. I now hope you will be subtly brave and take the step towards going. I've lived many different lives and had many unique chapters of existence so I believed for a while that I was truly desensitized. Nepal was the shock to my heart that was badly needed and I wasn't even aware. I learned more from my students than they did from me it feels like. I felt a deep sense of purpose being blessed enough to guide those boys for a few weeks. The Light has a funny way of creeping in no matter how much resistance there is. The family that was kind enough to host me was absolutely amazing. I felt so close to them and know our relationship will continue. They truly felt like family to me. Didi and her son were the first to answer any questions at all I may have had, or places I needed to get to. But after a couple mornings you have your routine down and it becomes muscle memory, no worries at all. The home cooking was punctual and incredible, promptly on the table at breakfast lunch and dinner, same time everyday unless your schedule requires otherwise. Beautiful and dense architecture catches the eye at every turn, and the people seem to let life unfold organically, with smiles on their faces and a big warm welcome resting fittingly on the edge of their lips. It's a place you can be homesick for without ever having been there, and once you go you'll never be the same. The food, the captivating monasteries, and exotic wildlife just add to it's divine allure. Do yourself a favor, pack lightly, embrace humility, and buy a one-way ticket to change the way you view the world and reorganize the priorities you think are important. Teaching in the monastery was one of the most enlightening things I've ever done in my life and I learned so much about myself just by stepping outside myself. The Nepali people were there to catch me if I fell and they helped me heal in a way I never have experienced before. For that, I am eternally grateful. I say by not going and volunteering in Nepal is doing a disservice to oneself. Say yes in a polite email to Anjana, and I promise you she will take care of the rest and will be right by your side if ever need be. The program is organized, reliable, easy to communicate with, and were always clear in their words and honored any requests with a genuine kindness and welcoming disposition. I love RCDP and will be working with them again and again. Go be useful and see what happens. Trust me :)

My time in Chitwan, Nepal was wonderful.l and I am so glad I went through Rcdp. The experience at the hospital allowed me to see medicine in a different way. The host family was extremely kind and compassionate. The volunteer coordinators made sure everything was set before I arrived and answered any questions I had along the journey. It was very easy to contact the coordinators for help. Transportation was set up and provided. I highly recommend this life changing volunteer program! You will not regret your time abroad!

I volunteered in a public clinic in Cusco for 4 hours in the morning and then had Spanish classes for 4 hours in the afternoon. It was a hard work and tiring but very enjoyable. I was severely limited in seeing by patients by my low level of Spanish. Everyone at the clinic was friendly and it was interesting to see a different healthcare system but my personal impact was low. The Spanish school 'mundo antiguo' was brilliant and organised lots of social activities such as meals, salsa classes and cultural experiences. Cusco is a very safe and beautiful city with loads of historical sites to visit at the weekends

Through this program I was given the opportunity to teach at a primary school in Kimuka, a small, rural village just outside of Nairobi, for a few weeks. I hit the ground running and started teaching from day one. Students and the other teachers were very appreciative of my contribution to the learners success.
My host family is super friendly. Virginiah and the family gave me lots of insights to the local way of living that one would never get otherwise, and included me wherever sensible.
Finally my local coordinator Jackson was kind and caring. He kept in touch and checked in on me regularly.

I spent a month in a medical centre located in Ngong, a town closed to Nairobi. As a Physio students, I learned so much with the project! The project was more then I could have ever imagined. And the host family was outstanding. Meals were great and the housing that I stayed in was more then what was excepted. So thankful to join part of this family. I couldn't say more amazing things about this program. It was absolutely an eye opening experience. Couldn't recommend it more to come and lend a hand.

Superb program if you’re looking to diversify your perspective or dwell into the unknown. The communication with the team is easy and all arrangements will be taken care of. In regards to the actual content of this experience - the quality was also really good, I stayed in Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of Nepal and taught monks aged from 7 - 17, English, Maths and Science. I was given a room and plenty of free time as well as my meals being provided by the monastery. The children were a pleasure to teach and observing the lifestyle was just remarkable.

I spent a month in a school located a couple of hours out of Nairobi.
I was unsure of what I'd be doing exactly but knew I wanted to spend some time being useful.
Ended up funding and helping lay concrete floor in the classrooms where before it was just dust and dirt. And we also refurbished the toilet block.

It was an absolutely fantastic experience. The co-ordianter was welcoming and made everything run smoothly at all times. Was a pleasure to stay at his place in Mitaboni as well as with his family in Nairobi.

Village life was fantastic and everyone was so welcoming and kind. Even ended up playing guitar in a church band one Sunday.

Couldn't recommend it more to come and lend a hand. Whatever you can do to help, if I wasn't mixing cement with the workers, I was helping in classes, making posters for the children.
It's not a fast paced lifestyle but it's never boring in the slightest.
An amazing experience

First off, I loved my two weeks of volunteering in Bali and I couldn't be more glad I did it. This was my first volunteer experience abroad and it really was perspective-shifting, fun, challenging, and overall a really positive experience. During my time I volunteered at three different schools, one in urban Kuta, one in the smaller town of Amlapura, and one in the country. (Note: these were all normal public or private schools. None of them were for orphans, which I'd somehow gotten the impression they would be.)

What I loved: connecting with the kids. All the kids I worked with, from kindergarten through high school, were so fun. They loved having a foreign volunteer there, and even though the majority of them couldn't speak much English, I still was really able to connect with them in and out of the classroom just by keeping a smile on my face and giving out liberal high-fives. The faculty was also always very friendly and enthusiastic to have me there. Leaving each school was always a challenge and I found myself trying to stick around each day as long as I could.

What was unexpected: First off, I was the only volunteer with RCDP in Bali while I was there, and from the sounds of it they don't normally have more than one person there. This meant that when I wasn't at the schools I was mostly by myself, the first week in a simple but serviceable hotel room, the second in the guesthouse building owned by the great Bali volunteer coordinator, Komang. While I didn't mind this relative seclusion, if you're looking to meet other volunteers, this is not the place to do it.

Because of the low volume, individual nature of this volunteer experience, I found that there wasn't as much of a system in place as I had expected. In practice this meant that there was both less and more for me to do than I had anticipated. Less, because instead of having arranged classes to assist in all day I usually only had two and sometimes just one. More, because sometimes in those classes I was asked to conduct parts or the entirety without much instruction and because outside of class I had free range to hangout for hours with kids on recess. Let me tell you, it takes both considerable energy and creativity to engage with dozens of non-English speaking kids at once.

Outside of the limited arranged time helping in class, there was also some difficulty finding me a school to volunteer in at all during my second week in the smaller town. This was apparently because with the burgeoning Coronavirus situation the local schools were scared to have a foreigner come in. A reasonable fear, except that I had been in at that time Covid-free Bali for more than two weeks without displaying symptoms so there was really no chance that I had it. I missed having a school to volunteer at that Monday, despite the efforts of Komang to gather some local children that I could work with at his home. But after I talked to Komang again he did find a school that would have me for the rest of that week, during their afternoon sessions. The third school I also volunteered at a couple days that week I found by myself because it was connected to a Catholic church which I had been visiting daily. I met the nuns who ran the school and they invited me to come and volunteer there too, which I could do in my free mornings.

So, I ended up having plenty of volunteering, but it was all rather impromptu and I kind of had to fight for it (staying at school after I was done helping in class, insisting on finding a placement for the second week, and finding an additional placement myself.)

I do want to stress that Komang was very helpful and accommodating, but he was working with what really felt like a less than polished system.

Taken all in all, as I said to start, this was a fantastic experience, but I had to be flexible and engaged to make it that way, and I don't think any two experiences would be quite alike. The advantage is you do really feel like you're meeting locals who are excited to have you because you're not just one of many volunteers. The disadvantage is that things are a bit messy. But if you're ready to roll with the adventure, go for it!