| 21 April 2004 | 2004 4 21
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| 21 April 2004 | 2004421
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I have made my mind up that after this semester, I want to do some volunteer work in China. Realising that I have vitually no experience in the NGO sector, my plan is to offer myself completely free for 6 months, even paying my own accommodation and living expenses if necessary.
You would think it would be easy to sell oneself at that price! But I'm not too sure where to start looking, and so I'm appealing to my readers for advice. Furthermore, there are several limiting factors. One is that the only job I am not will to do, teaching English, happens to be the one in greatest demand. Also, my hope is to find a job that is either based in a rural area, or at least involves rural concerns, because that is a side on China that I haven't seen much of. Another factor is that I'm seeking a position with an international NGO, not just a chinese organisation, because I'm worried that the latter will not be able to arrange a suitable visa for me.
Yet another issue is the location. Actually, I'm a bit torn about that. For the purposes of using and improving my chinese, it would be better to find work in one of the northern provinces (Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang) since the local languages there are close to standard Mandarin. But on the other hand, I'm also considering the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, and Shaanxi. On a map, these are close to the centre of the country, but in fact they are the core of the so-called West—the poorest part of China. Many of my friends urge me not to go to such a poor area, but I would like to broaden my view of China, and hopefully do some good at the same time. The problem is that although the dialects spoken there technically belong to the same major family as Mandarin, I don't hold out much hope of understanding the local tongue unless I spend a long long time getting used to it. But on the other hand, there ought to be lots of people who have learnt Mandarin at school. The bottom line is, I'm willing to go to any of the provinces that I've mentioned.
At the moment, I'm waiting for replies to the emails I sent to a few potentially suitable organisations that I tracked down on the China Development Brief website. But I didn't find many, and I don't have much information about the organisations.
If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment or email me. Thanks.
| http://www.humana.org/ you might want to check this org out, their principles are pretty solid, the have training centre in Yunnan, and are working with minorities in that area, among others. Ive got sights on working with them in the future. Also theres the volunteer services org, which Im sure has programs running in china, not sure on contacts. good luck daniel |
| daniel [] 25.04.2004 , 12:35 |
| article here: http://www.humana.org/Articel.asp?NewsID=224 |
| daniel 25.04.2004 , 12:42 |
| hey todd -- alas, i have no advice to offer on this one except to just imagine that something that's 'just right' will come up. good luck!...it sounds like it'll be a fantastic experience :) -- anita |
| anita 27.04.2004 , 06:07 |
| hi there, google brought me here.... Just wanna help, cus i'm a chinese students doing a MSc program in the UK at present. To be more specific, I'm right from Ningxia, the province u mentioned above. pls feel free to contact me for further advice, if u like ^-^ |
| Sarah [] 29.05.2004 , 07:55 |
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