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VESL aims to get away from the many tourists that head to Thailand every year, and is setting up projects in rural areas, where they are most needed and will get an opportunity to really have a ‘Thai experience’. Alongside the education department VESL has chosen the Chiang Rai Province to send its first volunteers to. These projects include schools situated on the Mekong River, in the famous Golden Triangle. One school actually overlooks Burma and Laos! The area is famous for its fantastic scenery, hill tribes and history. Volunteers will be based at local schools, running teaching programmes and clubs for the local children (many are from the hill tribes) and the communities.
VESL believes that the most successful approach to international volunteering is one that compliments the needs and goals of the local communities we work with. We believe that local people know what is valuable and appropriate for their own community, and we're committed to providing volunteer work that helps them carry out their own set of objectives, rather than imposing our own.
VESL works hard every year to monitor and evaluate its programmes to ensure they are making a difference. Every year our programmes have been adapted to respond to the needs of the people we work with and the feedback we receive from the schools and our volunteers. Examples of this include the addition of the teacher workshop programme and summer schools in 2006.VESL puts a great deal of effort into ensuring that volunteers are matched to projects where we know they will make a real difference. We want to find projects were volunteers will have a fun and memorable experience but also feel like they have really given something back to those they work with.
A survey of 2006's volunteers showed that 100% said they would recommend VESL to others.The VESL programme this year, as before, was really valuable to our community. Thanks so much for your volunteers contribution. The teaching programme was rich and the volunteer teachers so energetic as well as so enthusiastic. The schools have vastly benefited from the VESL volunteers immense work and experience.
Mr Rathnayake, Deputy Head, Marassana School.
