My name is Gavyn, from America. I did volunteering in Koh Sukorn and Koh Nang Kham for 6 months 2019-2020. 

My time at Koh Nang Kham was enjoyable. The community is very kind, the food is good, and the neighbors, who are in contact with dalaa, are very helpful. The kids like any school are on a spectrum with how much they are willing to learn. However, regardless of their aptitude to follow in class they are good children who are kind and a joy to be around.

There are a lot of downtime in Koh Nang Kham, so be prepared to entertain yourself.

I had a great time in Koh Nang Kham, making a second family, a home away from home. I will miss these people and hope to come visit them later in my life. 

My name is Yong. Now I’m 28 years old but I was 24 years old when I participated in long term volunteer project in France.

I was a volunteer in Service Civique program, which is supported by French government. The organization that I worked with is called Citrus. It is in the south of France, about an hour from Toulouse.  

This was my first time living aboard for a year. It was challenging in the beginning. I carried a lot of fears and worries. But once I arrived in the project, I felt much better with a warm welcoming from the staffs and also other volunteers.

About working, we worked together between volunteers and insertion workers. Most of the time, we cleaned or renovated the train station. Apart from this, we also host the groups. When we hosted the group, we worked together and also cooked together. It doesn’t sound difficult but it does. Cooking for a big group of people was one big challenge of our voluntary service. At the end of my volunteering year, I also took part in the workcamp. I led teenagers’ workcamp with 2 more leaders. Workcamp leading helps me a lot to be more patient and flexible at the same time. I experienced a few hard situations and we had learned from them. Moreover, we worked also with teenagers in the village. There was a club named “Bouge Ta Bogue”. We organized some trips outside and also some cultural activities with teenagers.

About living, we lived together in volunteers’ house. There are 3 bedrooms, one for girls, one for boys and another for guests. It sounds simple but not actually. Washing dishes was always our issue. We had a meeting every Friday with our mentor to organize and discuss our daily lives in the house. Imagine living together all the time for a year, it was not easy but in the end, we end up to be really close friends.

After this one year experience, I found myself growing up a lot, for sure not for my physical aspect haha. I had learned how to open my mind for the strangers, how to adapt and compromise when they were hard situations and also how to be confident and make a decision when it needed. I had learned to believe in myself and my abilities. This volunteering experience gave me a chance to learn that voluntary service supports us to discover about the others and (the big part is) to discover ourselves. J   

I am Ayano Minoura, 21  years old, from Japan. I volunteererd for 3 months in Koh Sukorn.

The main activity there was agriculture, especially we did gardening (organic vegetables), harvesting rice, fishing. Besides that we also visited the kindergarten and organised activities for the children. But for me I can say that the biggest task was to learn Thai language actually.

Through my volunteering, I saw a totally different lifestyle from the Japansese one, and it was a really good opportunity for me to rethink about how to live, about my future life. And the biggest thing that I realized was actually that I am a person who prefers to live surrounded by nature, than to live in the city! And now I know how to live more happily!

One of the biggest challenges for me was to learn the Thai language. Since there was no English speaker on that island, I had no choice but to speak Thai! I managed this difficulty thanks to other volunteers’ help. I don’t have a tough mind enough to overcome this by myself.

My best memories – working, learning, living and eating together with the local people, and with other international volunteers. It was so simple life there but at the same time, it was the most happiest time in my life. I surely would recommend anyone to be a volunteer.

My name is Echansi. I was honored to spend 13 months in People’s Theater in Germany, as a volunteer, from to 2018.

The volunteers in this organization are doing interactive theater at a public school. That means we play a show showing a conflict in front of a class of students. When the conflict reaches the climax scene, we stop the play and discuss with the audience about what happened and how the conflict could have been prevented. Then the audience gets the chance to try out their own ideas and solutions.

Though this experience I learned to act in the theater; well, it sounds easy but actually isn´t, not at all, especially for me, a person that is not so confident to act in front of the audiences. Acting in many roles as well as learning the scripts in German language was challenging. My involvement in acting with the team also gave me chance to express myself in the discussions about the observed conflict, and to take part together in looking for the possible solutions for conflicts, both for the theater scenes and also in real life.

Working in a big group of people of different ages, backgrounds, personalities also taught me to be more tolerant, open-minded and open-hearted, responsible and, most importantly, patient. There were many incidents, conflicts and dramas along the year that I spent in Germany. All of these taught me a lot about how to survive and adapt.

Last but not least, I am very satisfied with my 13 months of long-term voluntary service in Germany. I would like to say thank you very much to DaLaa Thailand for this great experience.

My name is Thibaut alias Phu Pha, my Thai name. I’m French and I’m 20 years old. I’m studying engineering and after the 3rd year we have the opportunity to realize a personal project, the only “rule” is to open is mind and discover a culture different of ours. I wanted to be volunteer during this period because it was important for me to be useful and meet people from all around the world. The environment is for me really important so that I wanted to find a project which permits me to work outside close to the nature. I found this project in Kok Riang proposed by Dalaa association and decided to join the project to learn about gardening, bio agriculture and of course Thai culture.

I have been living in Kok Riang (Near to Hat Yai, south Thailand) for 3 months with Lung Jaeng the host, Panoi his wife, Yai his mother, Can his son and many other people who visited. Since the beginning I felt really comfortable because Thai people seems always happy, are always smiling, and Lung Jaeng family like to live with volunteers and share almost everything.

During these 3 months I learned a lot about:

Living in a community

That means living with Lung Jaeng’s family, his friends, Dalaa members, other volunteers but also with people we don’t even know. For example we are joining all the events or ceremony at Kok Riang temple and we served people, wash the dishes and try to involve people in the project explaining what we are doing in Thailand and proposing people to visit us.

We are also organizing some activities with kids, we went to the school worked on their garden but teachers wasn’t involved and not so much children join to work in the garden. That’s why we plan to organize more in the future. Some children went fro a Week end at home and it was really nice to play games and talk about Gardening and chemical and non chemical agriculture.

Almost every day some friend are visiting and sometimes working with us. It’s interesting because they are happy to share their knowledge.

And that’s because of all these people I learned so much about gardening and construction.

Gardening and construction

There are three different places where we are working in Kok Riang: the house with the garden, the second garden where we grew vegetables and fruit trees and the place where Lung Jeang is growing the rice (but I didn’t work a lot in the last one).

At home we are cleaning the garden so that everything is growing better and we can also plant some vegetables. And the other tasks are just about living together, cleaning, cooking …

At the second garden we grew vegetables, planted new trees and took care of everything by watering every day.

Then with a 2 weeks work camp we begin to build new toilet. It was interesting because they are doing everything alone and with methods totally different from European.

Thai culture

It is a peaceful and relaxing way of life where people are not creating useful problems. At the beginning it was difficult because I needed to change all my habits and almost to ‘forget’ my European way of life. But then after few weeks, I just enjoy every day without planning anything. It was always different, full of surprises and beautiful meeting.

It was for me a beautiful experience and will never forget it. But to understand what really happen here you need to come and live your experience.

So come and enjoy the AMAZING KOK RIANG.

Phu Pha