VOLUNTEER
What’s in it for you?
If you love to connect with people, or just want to be involved in a worthy cause, there’s really nothing more satisfying that the volunteering experience – especially if the service is genuine. Volunteering always has a positive impact on the ones being served, and the community – making it a better place to live in. As a volunteer, you are always making new friends, expanding your network, and improving your social skills. And, you get the chance to change lives – for the better!
What’s in it for the children?
You know how children need to be nurtured and loved. They thrive on attention, praise, validation, and kindness. Our children are no less. They are differently abled, but they aren’t emotional cripples. Although overcoming the challenge of rejection from their biological parents, with love and care most of them are bouncing back to normalcy. They just love to have visitors! Spending time with them is making a statement that you indeed love and care for them.
Here are ways you can volunteer at our home. Our children would be absolutely delighted to meet you!
Recreation/Play Time
If you are single, come along yourself. If you have children, bring them along. The more the merrier! Our children love to play. Spend time teaching them new games or songs, reading stories to them, or doing fun things together, which can help them develop their minds and their social skills.
Art Therapy
This is for artists who can spare some regular time with the children. Art therapy is especially beneficial for children who are less capable and less comfortable in expressing themselves via words. Besides being therapeutic, it could help the children get more in tune with themselves and even develop a new skill!
Music Therapy
Are you a musician? Even if a budding one, why not spend your time here? It’s a fact that music therapy does wonders for children with intellectual disabilities. You could serenade them or even teach them how to play an instrument. You’ll find this experience mutually exhilarating!
Pet Therapy
Do you have pets? Friendly animals that love to be around children? Dogs are considered ‘man’s best friend’ for a reason. Labradors, golden retrievers, pugs, and some other breeds are safe around children. Of course, conditions apply when bringing them here – i.e. they should have been vaccinated and certified safe, groomed and bathed, and have good dispositions. Give us a call to understand all the requirements that make it safe for a healthy interaction.
Train the Trainer Program
Are you a specialist in your field? Physiotherapy, teaching, or care giving? Compared to the West, much needs to be done in the field of rehabilitation in countries like ours. There are always new things to learn and implement if it would help our children develop better and faster. Would you care to conduct short refresher courses for our staff? Do get in touch with our office.
Green Time
We want to set up a vermiculture project for the older boys at our center. If you are a vermiculture expert, could you mentor them and help this project take off? We also want to start a plant nursery. Help train our boys in simple, sustainable farming techniques. They are eager to learn.
Data Entry
We need help to effectively manage large amounts of information. If you are a data entry expert, please help us compile, review, verify accuracy, sort, insert, update and maintain accurate data in our systems and archives. You will need to apply data program techniques and procedures, and generate reports, store completed work in designated locations, and perform backup operations.
Software Development for Simple Tracking Systems
We have three critical systems that are currently operated manually. If you are a software developer and have time to spare, please help us fully automate them to provide dashboards with analysis and reporting capabilities. These are simple yet effective manual systems that we’ve been using so far but it’s now time to get online so that we become fast and more efficient in our tracking methodologies.
Enhancing Vocational Skills for Girls
We want to expose our children to new learnings. If you are creatively inclined in any area like making jewellery and trinkets, cloth handbags, or embroidery for clothes, scarves and handkerchiefs or even making puppets, please contact us. Our girls are always eager to learn. Please consider volunteering for this project.
Research Specialists
We need help with research. In order to grow, we need to continually stay abreast of new opportunities and findings in the area of mental retardation. Please consider helping us if you are good at researching and can plan, conduct and evaluate research in our field of operation. You will need to help us collate and analyse the latest research, which must be presented in reports for immediate action.
Marketing Advisors
We are looking for ideas on how to effectively promote and sell the products produced by Prayatna – our vocational training unit. We have some ideas ourselves but want to know how to get things going viral, especially in today’s ultra-connected world! We are just moving much of our systems online, so we are on the way to becoming technologically savvy – but, still need your help!
Documentary Producers / Radio Jockeys
If you are a documentary producer or a radio jockey who is touched by our cause, help us make a better impact. Help us get our story out far and wide. We not only want to promote our home so that the funds we receive can help our children but we also want to educate the general public on how to act when they see an abandoned child. If more people are aware and trained to act quickly, we can save many abandoned babies from falling into the wrong hands! It is a campaign that is close to our heart.
Sri Arunodayam will never take good work for granted. Here are a few ways we thought of appreciating you. On the successful completion of major projects, Sri Arunodayam will give you a Certificate of Appreciation containing a description of your project. For recreation, pet, art therapy, training for girls, and green time, a minimum of 3 months or 25 hours of volunteering is required to qualify for a certificate. Regular and committed volunteers could even get a chance to feature on our website!
If all this sounds interesting and you have the heart to help, please take a moment to fill our Volunteer Guidelines & Registration Form online. Do give us sufficient notice to plan for the activity and arrange standby staff to assist.
If you haven’t found a program that interests you here, but have other sustainable ideas, do mail us at: sriarunodayam@gmail.com
Ganesan Ravi
Being with the children has taught me to be more appreciative of life. I complain because I lack some material comfort. But these children are so happy despite some really serious physical challenges. This was truly an eye-opening experience for me!
Marie Dsilva
