Nutrition Related Volunteering

jennyg

Hi there!

I went to India 2 years ago and have not stopped thinking about it since. I fell in love. However I have returned back to school to pursue a degree in nutrition to become a registered dietician. So needless to say I cannot really afford to travel much these days. I was thinking of volunteering abroad for a few weeks and would love to return to India. I cant find any nutrition related volunteer experiences, does anyone know of any organizations I can contact? Even just helping out in a shelter of some sort dealing with the food, etc, anything like that.

Thanks!!

desertrose

Khamaghani Jenny,
I m aware of a project here in Jodhpur called the Veerni Project , they have adopted some villages around town and have a very good working team of doctores,nureses and nutritionists where they r concentrating on the Nutrition program for villages women and girls,soon they will be working with new things in the programs. www.veerni.org
if you require any other infomration about the project feel free to contact me.
Regards
Rathore.

girlone

Hi Jenny,

There are many, many grassroots style, local initiatives involved in teaching women nutrition principles. I volunteered at one such place in Haryana.
The trouble is, they tend not to be organised. Often, its just a group of women, maybe a retired Dr, or associated with a local school. They have no resources or funding, and certainly not a website or listed telephone number. This makes them extraordinarily difficult to find!
My advice is to do it 'on the ground' - visit schools, health centres, hospitals, community groups. Talk to people.
The next barrier is language - to teach, you generally must be able to speak a local language. That said, I assisted by doing the research, sourcing educational material, devising lesson plans etc. The material that I provided was then taught in Hindi by local women. I went to a few of the classes and although I was a 'drawcard' as the only white face, I felt like my presence detracted attention from what was being said.

Just my 2c worth.
Good luck.
G1

poipleshadow

We would love somebody to do some nutrician work with the families at the slums we work at and also to work on our menu (to improve where needed) etc. However we require volunteers for a minimum of 3 months.