First Impression, October 2008
Ms. Stephanie Valuks


Hello, my name is Stephanie, I live in Wiveliscombe, a small town in Somerset England and I discovered the Sambhali trust on the internet while I was studying at college. Now that I am on my gap year I decided to travel all those miles to India to volunteer at the Sambhali Jodhpur project for three months.

I flew first to Mumbai and had to spend a night there before I could fly onto Jodhpur the following day, nothing could have prepared me for my first steps in India but it quickly became apparent to me what the ‘culture shock’ is that everyone had warned me about. After one night in Mumbai it was great to be welcomed into the warm hospitality of Durag Niwas guesthouse where Govind spoke to me about the history of Sambhali and the amazing progress that has been achieved over the last two years. I was made to feel very welcome by the girls as well when I walked into the end of their English lesson and was greeted by beautiful flowers and gleaming smiles.

I observed my first full lesson on Tuesday October 7th in which previous volunteer Fay was teaching them the final lesson of their sexual health workshop, something that was clearly valuable to this group of teenagers who seemed to have had no previous education or advice on the subject and were thus full of myths and misconceptions.

The following day Lena, my fellow volunteer and I were on our own with the girls so decided to hold a few getting to know each other games which would hopefully give us a little insight into the varying abilities of the girls. When asked to answer some simple questions about self and family all the girls present were confident enough to speak in front of the group which felt like a fantastic start. Since then it has continued to please me to see the enthusiasm and willingness that so many of the girls have. In this lesson we also taught them the simple game ‘fruit salad’ which they all seemed to love and was a fantastic way for us to watch the ways that the girls interact with one another and the natural friendship groups that exist.

Our second getting to know one another game was focused around birthdays in which we taught simple vocabulary and asked each of the girls to make a postcard which would be strung up onto a birthday calendar. The level of concentration in this lesson was really variable as some girls stuck to the task while others held their own unrelated conversations or strolled off to do something different. From this I learnt that as volunteers we must try to make the most of their English lessons which means adopting more of a teacher role so that each girl feels that they should put maximum effort in, where possible, to gain the maximum results.

In our last lesson this was achieved as we began teaching properly and all of the girls were encouraged to speak a lot of English and many felt comfortable standing in front of the class and doing so. A clear ability mix made clear what the handover notes from Meg and Fay said about girls working better in a separated basic and advanced class which we will begin this week. This would also be a way of making the most of having two volunteers. At the moment I still feel very new to India and the project but I am sure that in time I will settle and discover more ways that Lena and I can work together to help the lovely girls here at the Sambhali trust.