From: Emily <-----@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 12:40 PM
Subject: RE: Cosmic / Emily & Ben
To: info@cosmicvolunteers.org

Hi Scott,

Kenya is amazing! We’re having a really great time, everyone is so lovely and so far everything has been really fun!! We’re going to give our coordinator some photos at the end of the trip so she can give them to you. We spent the first week at a baby orphanage and just got back from Nyeri [wildlife volunteering ranch] where we stayed with Peter’s mum and had an amazing time, will let you know how the next step goes!

Hope you’re well,
Emily and Ben

For orphanage volunteering in Nepal, we have placements in the city of Kathmandu as well as rural villages in Chitwan such as Bijayanagar.

The volunteer work at orphanages in Nepal typically involves teaching conversational English, basic math, playing games, arts and crafts, helping with homework, playing sports, taking them on day-trips, and sometimes getting the children dressed in the morning and helping them with meals. The work schedule is generally Monday-Friday from 9 to 4.

A new friend in Nepal

Kathmandu is an urban setting, very crowded on the streets, with shops, businesses, and apartment buildings everywhere. There are a lot of incredible sightseeing opportunities on weekends, such as Monkey Temple, Pashupatinath Temple, the ancient neighborhood of Bhaktapur, and Durbar Square. For accommodations, volunteers stay with a local host family. You would take a public bus to reach the school (our coordinator will show you how to do this).

In Chitwan, the orphanages are located in rural and semi-rural areas. Bijayanagar is a very rural area, located about 100 miles southwest of Kathmandu (6 hours by bus). The area consists mostly of farmlands with small adobe houses, with schools and medical clinics and shop located at the end of dirt roads. There there is not much to do in your free time except meet and hang out with villagers, read at night, and walk around the forests (where you can actually see wild rhinos!). The nearest Internet cafe is about 30 minutes away in the town of Narayanghat. Some volunteers enjoy this isolation and slow pace of Bijayanagar, which I did when I first volunteered there myself in 2000 for 3 months. The people are wonderful, the students will love you, and the natural scenery is incredible.

Getting around in style !

For photos from Nepal, please see the albums on our Facebook Page.

Volunteers taking a dip in a river near the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

How Cosmic Volunteers uses your program fee

• Over 70% of volunteers’ programs fees are sent to the host countries.
• The other 30% of the fees remain in the US to pay for our operations.

Cosmic Volunteers is a tax-exempt charity, and as such we do not run these programs for profit. By law and our mission, any profits earned are spent directly on humanitarian projects in our host countries in the form of donations of money and materials to orphanages, school, and hospitals.

We provide our volunteers with an individualized, supported insider’s view of the cultures of our host countries, with the opportunity to contribute directly to these communities in meaningful ways.

Unlike “donor” organizations which simply collect money/items then donate them, Cosmic Volunteers is involved 24 hours year-round with recruiting, preparing, and supporting volunteers, with our expert knowledge gained from a decade of living and working in developing countries. In order to accomplish all of this, we ask our volunteers to pay us a program fee; fees which are our sole source of funding.

Our annual tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service contain all of the income and expenses of Cosmic Volunteers. As we are a public charity, our tax filings are public knowledge and copies are available to anyone who requests them.

The following items are just some of Cosmic Volunteers’ costs that your program fee pays fo, but hopefully it gives you a better idea of how your program fee is spent.

• Recruiting volunteers (school fairs, advertising online, trade shows, media, brochures).
• Keeping daily contact with coordinators in 15 countries.
• Preparing volunteers on items like culture, visas, vaccinations, flights, insurance etc.
• Writing/updating thorough, detailed handbooks for each country.
• Providing airport pickup and drop-offs.
• Housing and feeding volunteers 7 days a week.
• Arranging and managing quality volunteer placements.
• Providing in-country orientation to all newly arrived volunteers.
• Providing 24 hour support both in-country and in the US.
• Hiring and managing reliable, trustworthy and expert in-country coordinators.
• Arranging homestays with supportive and friendly host families.
• Obtaining higher listings on search engines (Google, Yahoo etc).
• Preparing tax returns and other government filings.
• Following-up when volunteers return home.
• Providing letters of reference and/or certificates of completion.
• Advising and often donating funds to returned volunteers’ own start-up development projects.
• Legal/accounting fees.
• Wages for Cosmic staff in the US.
• Developing our website.
• Wire transfer fees ($5,000+ USD annually).
• Fielding calls and emails from potential partners / coordinators / host families.
• Occasional staff travel to our destinations to make sure things are running smoothly.
• Buying equipment/shirts for sports leagues, etc.

From: Erin <-----@ufl.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 11:32 PM
Subject: Peace Corps Nomination
To: Cosmic Volunteers

Dear Scott!

I found out last night that I’ve been nominated for the Peace Corps, and wanted to thank you again for helping me with the application process by writing me reference letters. All I know right now is that (if everything goes right) I’m supposed to leave for West Africa in October or November to work in the health field. I’ll let you know when I know more.

Thank you,
Erin

Want to volunteer in rural Kenya?

A couple of videos to give you a better idea of placements in the Rift Valley:

An Elementary School

The View from Your Host Family’s Back Yard

At TEDxChange, Melinda Gates makes a provocative case for nonprofits taking a cue from corporations such as Coca-Cola, whose plugged-in, global network of marketers and distributors ensures that every remote village wants — and can get — a Coke. Why shouldn’t this work for condoms, sanitation, vaccinations too?

Jessica, 26 from San Francisco, spent 6 months (June-Nov 2010) in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam volunteering at both the Chua Dong Phuoc Buddhist Pagoda and the Saigon Station Children’s Shelter.

Click Photo album of Jessica’s farewell party.

Jessica and one of the Buddhist monks

Jeroen Prinsen, 35 and Dutch, came to volunteer in Peru after leaving corporate finance in London. Prinsen has since been teaching, blogging and consulting.

His latest project, however, will catch the attention of expats and Peruvians alike: He created a Lima bus map. To be more precise, it’s a map of 12 recommended routes to get around Lima, called Rutas Recomendables. (Lima has almost 600 bus routes, Prinsen says.)

Rutas Recomendables in Peru