DaLaa

DaLaa 20th anniversary camp

April 1, 2024 DaLaa Leave a comment DaLaa News, Workcamps

Dates: 10 – 23 October, 2024

SHORT DESCRIPTION

A workcamp together to experience and practice the values of our association “Living, learning and working together”. In this camp, it’s all about the voluntary spirit and community power. We are going to have an open space for everyone to discuss, share, play, heal, learn, help, and do things together. We welcome everyone to join no matter DaLaa’s staff, hosts, old and new volunteers, and children regardless of their ages. We will prepare our 20 years anniversary and organize it together.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Since the establishment of the association in October 2004, we have organized a celebration each year . In 2015, we moved our office from Hat Yai to a local village known as Baan Kok Riang in order to get away from bustling city to live a simple life in the countryside. Again this year, the flower of DaLaa still blooms, we go over another step and turn 20.

For more information of Baan Kok Riang village, it is located in Klong Hoi Khong district of Songkhla, The approximate number of villagers settling in this village is about 1,200 people or 140 families. Most of the villagers own fruit gardens and rubber plantation. Nearly all of them are Buddhists. There are a few Buddhist temples in the area and lots of rubber plantation lined up on the sides of the road.

AIMS of the PROJECT

To gather up DaLaa members (old and new), international volunteers, old friends, project hosts and interested people
To manage our daily life smoothly in a spontaneous environment and activities, mixing all ages
To promote and raise the understanding of our common values and IVS (International Voluntary Service)
To celebrate the 20^th year Anniversary of DaLaa organization

WORK AND ACTIVITIES

The ACTIVITIES to strengthen the relationship and to support the aims are roughly planned as below.

Deal with the daily life
Work together on the vegetable gardens
Adjust surroundings around the volunteers service communities
Create forums-discussions on “Voluntary Service”
Organize activities with kids in the village
DaLaa20^th anniversary celebration

** We’ll keep you update 1 months or 2 weeks before the camp starts for a more detailed schedule**

** You will be supervised by a DaLaa coordinator that will be the link between you and everyone who can’t speak English.

** We will try to mix Thai volunteers and international from different countries, but we cannot guarantee it. We will keep you informed during and after your application.

* Clothes worn in the village- schools and temples: skirts or shorts long enough to cover your knees also when you are sitting. Women should wear tops that cover their shoulders, no low neckline. Bikinis are not appropriate to swim if you go on holidays in a non-touristic area. Please wear long shorts and a top instead.

FOOD and ACCOMODATION

Volunteers will sleep in the tents and small huts. There will be thin mattresses, yoga mats, pillows, and mosquito nets. There are basic toilets, showers, and a kitchen. We will take time to cook together. Volunteers will be welcome to cook their own food using the ingredients available there. (No oven, only a gas and woks or pans).

Watpikulthong School

April 1, 2024 DaLaa Leave a comment Workcamps

(Activities with kids at a primary school)

Dates: 18 -31 August 2024

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Phikulthong School is a very small Buddhism school in Chamuang, Khuan Khanun district, Phatthalung province, Southern Thailand. We got to know this school through the director that we use to work with in his former school. The school director who shares the same values as Dalaa would like to provide the chance for the students to improve their English by using the language in real life with foreign volunteers. There are 162 students in this school. Volunteers can help organize English lessons or other fun activities with the students from kindergarten to Grade 6 (6-12 years old). The English skills of the students are very poor, and they are not familiar with foreigners. Here you can experience the locals’ way of life, exchange your cultures with other volunteers and villagers, and support the children’s education.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Watwipulthong School in Phatthalung province was founded in 1915. Nowadays, there are 162 students with 12 teachers, teaching from kindergarten to Grade 6 (6-12 years old). The director, Mr.Preecha Pannum, sees that his students are in need of exposure to English speaking atmosphere and different cultures of people around the world. Therefore, he contacted us to see if there is the possibility to cooperate with DaLaa and have some volunteers to help at his school. After a survey visit, we decided to start a workcamp in this community.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT:

To support Watphikulthong School
To be a part of the community of Chamuang village
To help children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-culture atmosphere
To improve students’ English skills

FOOD and ACCOMODATION:

Volunteers will sleep in the classroom. There will be only some yoga mats, pillows, and mosquito nets. We suggest you bring your own sleeping bag, inflatable mattress, or another yoga mat. It’s ok if you don’t bring any of those, but you need to be sure that you will be comfortable in such condition.
There are basic toilets, showers and a kitchen at the school canteen. The teachers and villagers are willing to help you to cook as well. Local people eat rice (or noodles) 3 times a day with side dishes like curries, omelets, local leaves and vegetables. Volunteers will be welcome to cook their own food using the ingredients available there. (No oven, only a gas and woks or pans).

Thungprue Pittayakom School

March 28, 2024 DaLaa Leave a comment Workcamps

“Activities with kids at a primary school”

Dates: 21^st July to 3^rd August 2024

SHORT DESCRIPTION

DaLaa became acquainted with Thungprue Pittayakom School after being introduced by the director of Prang-moo School. Additionally, Dalaa organized several mini work camps that Thungprue Pittayakom School participated in. As a result, Thungprue Pittayakom School is now eager to extend a warm welcome to volunteers who are interested in contributing to the students’ development by organizing activities to enhance their language skills and other areas of expertise. Moreover, volunteers will also have the opportunity to engage in local community activities.

HISTORY and REASONS OF THE PLACEMENT

Thungprue Pittayakom School, Songkhla Province was founded in 1957. It has 5 school buildings, 2 buildings for teachers to live in, a multipurpose building, and a cafeteria. Additionally, there are 4 temporary buildings provided by the public, 3 toilets and each school building has 2 bathrooms. There are currently 224 students from kindergarten to lower secondary (6-15 years old), and there are a total of 16 teachers along with a janitor. The kids have very few chances for interaction with foreigners and English language is more and more needed for their future.

AIMS of the Placement

To exchange culture between the volunteers and students.
To encourage the student to learn the English language and develop a good perspective of the English language to students.
To encourage the parents or guardians to send their child to school.
To create good English skills for students.

WORK AND ACTIVITIES

Provide a non-formal English classes and other fun activities for the students
Create teaching materials for teachers and kids
Activities with villagers: cleaning the temple area, sport activities, homemade dessert

** We’ll keep you update 1 month or 2 weeks before the camp starts for a more detailed schedule**

** You will be supervised by DaLaa’s coordinator which will help you and people in this community to connect with one another.

We can’t guarantee about the number of participants (both Thai and international) We will keep informed during the application process.

FOOD and ACCOMODATION

Volunteers will sleep in the classroom. There will be only some yoga mats, pillows, and mosquito nets. We suggest you bring your own sleeping bag, inflatable mattress, or another yoga mat. It’s okay if you don’t bring any of those, but you need to be sure that you will be comfortable in such condition.

There are basic toilets, showers and a kitchen at the school canteen. The teachers and villagers are willing to help you to cook as well. Local people eat rice (or noodles) 3 times a day with side dishes like curries, omelets, local leaves and vegetables. Volunteers will be welcome to cook their own food using the ingredients available there. (No oven, only a gas and woks or pans).

Koh Sukorn

March 27, 2024 DaLaa No Comments Workcamps

Rice planting, Agriculture, Activities with kids and Embedding in the fishing Community

DaLaa Work Camp: DALAA-WC6709

Dates: 1-14 September, 2023 (Maximum of volunteers: 10)

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Koh Sukorn is a preserved island of Andaman sea in South Thailand. During this work camp, we will have a chance to join hands with the community members to preserve the local agriculture (rice planting) while we can learn about their way of living. Moreover, we will be creating activities and games with children and young people to open their views and let them learn about international culture together with the volunteers.

HISTORY and REASONS OF THE PROJECT

Sukorn Island (KohSukorn) is a small island situated in Palian district, Trang province. The island covers an area of 14 sq km. Like every year, we will be conducting activities with communities of Baan Laem and Baan Toong. In these 2 villages, there is population of 1,200 or 337 families, of which 95% are Muslims. The common occupations of the villagers are fishing, rubber tapping, as well as agriculture; growing paddy, watermelons, traditional way of growing vegetables, and keeping livestock. In general the villagers are very generous and still remain the culture of supporting and sharing with each other. Furthermore, they also believe that paddy and agriculture is the main food stability of the village.

Already some years, a group of local researchers had been working with the 2 communities mentioned above. In one community, the village members are still remaining their traditional way of living, while in another, people started to drop their old values and turning to development from the cities. Less and less people are working on paddy fields, or growing their own food supply as it is easier to buy. Therefore, these researchers aim to bring awareness to the locals to keep their old lifestyle and revive the tradition of growing paddy, other traditional agriculture, as well as developing local rice species and doing farmer’s co-operative. However, it is sad that in recent years, the researcher group has not been much active in the effort they created in the early stage. Though we lose their part, we anyhow have successfully continued activities (mainly agriculture and activities with kids) with villagers and develop good relationships through short term work camps and middle term volunteers.

DaLaa has been involved with the villagers of these two communities since the first work camp took place in December 2013. For more information, Koh Sukorn has been for a long time one of our long-term project sites that it has offered an opportunity to long-staying international volunteers to live with a local host family through their service. We had to stop the long-term program in 2023 because of the main host health issue but hopefully we can re-start at some point.

AIMS of the PROJECT

– To support the initiatives of local agricultural activities
– To fully and wisely utilize local resources
– To be part of the communities
– To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-cultural atmosphere

WORK AND ACTIVITIES

– Working in the rice fields
– Growing vegetables together with village members and kids
– Learning and integrating in the fisherman’s lifestyle

REQUIREMENTS

The volunteers should be ready to stay in a remote area, to adapt to the local conditions with only basic facilities. Not many local people are able to speak English. Volunteers should be able to handle spontaneous working environment and constant changes in the plans. The mentality and way of thinking is very different from the western world. There will have activities with the children. To have responsibility for you, the kids and full involvement in community matters is a must. For the 2 weeks, you will be led by a DaLaa member/staff who will help to coordinate the project.

FOOD and ACCOMMODATION

Volunteers will stay at the local people house. You will need to bring only a light sleeping bag. We will provide with a small mattress and a mosquito net. The living condition is very simple than you would think. You may find it completely different than in your country. There are basic toilets and showers and a kitchen where volunteers will cook by themselves. They can take turn in daily tasks. The ingredients can be purchased at local grocery stores. It may be helpful if you bring some instant ingredients from home, so that you can share some of your traditional food with other volunteers. (No oven, only a gas and woks or pans). As mentioned, that it’s a Muslim village, so there will be no pork used in cooking.

**Please do not expect intensive comfort during your time at the project

Kids holiday camps at VSC

December 15, 2023 DaLaa Leave a comment Workcamps

Work Camp – code: DaLaa6703
Dates: 24 March- 6 April 2024 (Max. number of volunteers: 10)

SHORT DESCRIPTION

During those 2 weeks, we want to organize 3 children camps at DaLaa Voluntary Service Community in Kok Riang village. Each camp would take 3 days and involve different Thai children from 7 to 13 years old. We will keep 1 or 2 days in between to relax, evaluate, and prepare the next one. The activities and camp’s daily life organized by volunteers should be strongly connected with our community values, authenticity, responsibility and inclusion. Besides, they should allow children to be in a harmonious and safe environment. English language is poorly understood by the children, so we’ll have to find possibilities to overcome this challenge with the help from our coordinator and Thai volunteers.

BACKGROUND

DaLaa Voluntary Service Community (VSC) is the first door for outsiders to get to know DaLaa organization. The main mission of DaLaa is to coordinate between the hosts and volunteers for working together in the active communities for social growth and environmental preservation.

This new work camp idea is born from a few reasons:

1-Every year, we organize a kids’ camp during summer holidays (March and April)in VS welcoming the kids from each of the long-term volunteer placements we have.

2- We have organized kids’ camp with children from SOS Children’s village. It is an international independent non-governmental social organization that helps children without parental care and families living in difficult conditions.

3- We used to organize activities with children around our village, but we haven’t been organizing much during Covid pandemic . We want to start again.

ACTIVITIES

In this workcamp, we will combine 3 camps with the 3 groups of children described above. Each camp would last 3 days. We expect the groups of 10-15 children maximum mainly aged from 7 to 13 years old. The children will be sleeping with us and so taking care of daily life which is as important as other activities. We’ll have a few DaLaa coordinators, Thai, and foreign volunteers. We expect all of us to be fully active and responsible for the children and planning for activities. One person involved in this camp would need to lead at least one activity for the kids. Before it starts, we will organize an online preparation to brainstorm what we are going to do, who is the leader for which session, and so on. Any idea is welcome no matter art, sport, games, English lessons (basic), theater, cooking, gardening, recycling. However, keep in mind about the language barrier, the learning process, and the security.

** You will be supervised by a DaLaa coordinator.

AIMS of the PROJECT

To spread our love and values to local children
To let children be familiar with volunteers and learn in international/multi-culture atmosphere
To develop our VSC activities

REQUIREMENTS

The volunteers should be ready to stay in a local area, and to adapt to the local conditions with only basic facilities. Be prerpared of the kids’ poor English skills. Volunteers should be able to be with the kids and prepare some games and materials for activities.

FOOD and ACCOMODATION