I arrived in Kathmandu on September 8th. My experience here has been nothing short of wonderful. I teach English at the monastery. Initially I was supposed to be here for 3 weeks. I was so pleased and happy with everything that I extended my stay until November 25th. The staff have been so helpful and pleasant and the host family has made me feel at home. The food is organic and cooked fresh for every meal. Anjana has been going out of her way and beyond her duty to help me whenever I needed it. The children at the monastery have learned a little discipline and amazingly enough they like the structure. They say good morning, listen to instructions and are happy to do so. Can not be more pleased.

I have many words to say, but to save our time, I prefer you can directly check my daily life record in my instagram account. @miss.fang66. So you can know I’m a real person, and my real experiences.

I traveled alone, I attended other volunteer program to Philippines before, 2024/2/25-3/8 I went to Nepal with the help from global crossroad organization.

I joined for one week English teaching and one week medical program. Those are great experiences for me.

Besides, I am a 31 years old female, have formal job (I took 2 weeks off for this), just want you to know never too late to do this. And I hope I can help people who want to join but still concerns.

This was my first ever solo-trip, so I was rather nervous to begin with. However, from the moment of first contact with the organisation until the end, they were always there to support me and answer any questions that I had. My country coordinator was especially helpful and showed me around the town and helped me exchange money and get a sim card. The people at the hostel were also very accommodating and treated me like a family member. My project was healthcare and although I could only do minimal amount of work (since I was only a high-school student), I still took away a lot from the nurses, physicians, and patients.

The hostel itself was very nice and clean. Both the airport pick-up and drop-off were efficient. The people at the hostel always asked me about how I was doing, how my day was, and made sure I was safe and happy.

It was a fun experience and definitely enjoyed myself and im sure my friends did as well. I felt our placement lacked a need for us volunteering. The help from the staff was perfect and they helped whenever we asked. The children at our placement taught as a lot about how to appreciate what you got and make the best out of everything. Over Christmas it was enjoyable and great to see how the family interacted and celebrated. Although church was difficult, as it was protestant and in nepali. Great experience overall, other programs might be more enriching though.

the host family was very accommodating. the kids are so independent it was initially hard to feel useful. however, it didn’t take long to become more involved.

the food was very basic but there was plenty of it so can’t complain. would’ve been pleased with a bit more mattress between me n a metal bed frame but again, wasn’t expecting much.

we had lots of fun, it was very exciting to spend christmas with such a big family - it was a very wholesome experience.

Global crossroads does as described by finding you a program to volunteer in and supply support services on call. Overall good. Host family were very friendly and provided a great place to be. We lacked purpose in a program and were constantly told to rest and food consisted of mainly rice. At the end of the day it’s what you expect it to be. I was not pleased with the program but global crossroads was warm and an excellent service. Other volunteer I met during my time with global crossroads had more purpose.

We had the most amazing experience on our volunteering project in Nepal. We were placed in Kathmandu (we had originally requested Pokhara but they were unable to fulfill that), we weren’t at all disappointed!
Mary Home orphanage provides a fantastic home to 10 children. They are very well cared for.
They looked after us well and we feel that we developed life long friendships.
Global crossroad and the organisers were in contact with us throughout the trip. However, I think the registration fee to Global crossroad was quite high. It was over $300 and whilst the program was great that money was simply an expensive admin fee. There was also a separate program fee to cover the room and board costs in Nepal and to support the local organisation.

My wife and I spent eight weeks teaching English at the monastery. We both have teaching experience in the United States so we were able to apply a lot of what we know to the classroom here in Nepal. It was very rewarding to see the children learn English and become more comfortable speaking and writing in English as well.

The in country support staff were helpful and able to address our needs and request when needed. They were flexible when we had some concerns about housing accommodations and were able to respond to our needs In a satisfactory manner.

We ended up staying at the Volunteer house in Kathman do and had a great experience being able to meet the other volunteers coming in and out when starting and ending their programs. We also enjoyed the family we stayed with and the food was always good.

The monastery does not have a set curriculum for teaching English so I would recommend to anyone coming into this program to do some research in teaching English and come prepared to teach a wide variety of skill levels in order to have the biggest impact on the kids.