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| Fair Play |
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 Every year in the month of July, AMAIDI organizes a sports event, named Fair Play, for teams from the Auroville surrounding villages and a team of foreign volunteers. Fair Play, as well as a free subscription to 'Friends Gym' in Puducherry and free us of our cycles, is part of AMAIDI's promotion campaign for a healthy lifestyle. |
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| 100 Miles' Walk |
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 Every year from August 28 till September 10, Christians from all over South-India celebrate the festival of the Holy Mother Mary as 'Our Lady of Health' in the coastal town of Velankanni, 12 km south of Nagapattinam on the Coromandel Coast in Tamil Nadu, South-India. Here Mary, also known as 'The Madonna of Velankanni', is believed to have phenomenal healing powers. Thousands of pilgrims belonging to various castes and communities flock daily to this 'Lourdes of the East'. During the festival period, pilgrims from all over the country and even from foreign countries flock to the site, bathe dutifully in the sea, have their heads shaved and then walk on their knees or roll up to the shrine as rituals. AMAIDI wants to facilitate volunteers who'd like to take part in this event, walking from Puducherry to Velankanni in about 10 days time, meeting other people along the way, participating in a remarkable event in South-Indian culture. AMAIDI's partner organizations will take care of our food- and other needs along the way! To register yourself for the next walk in Aug 2009, click here |
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| Ishaan |
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 AMAIDI wants to help children with learning disabilities, such as 'dyslexia'. For this it wants to promote a new project, called ISHAAN, named after the main character in the Oscar nominated Hindi movie 'Taare Zameen Par' by director Amir Kahn. Ishaan is an eight year old boy, who is dyslectic but not acknowledge as such. As a result his life turns more and more into misery until he is 'rescued' by a young arts' teacher. He also discovers Ishaan's talent for drawing and painting, changing everyone's opinion about the boy. ISHAAN's mission is to help the system adapt to the children's needs by advising both parents and teachers. We are currently looking for sponsors to get us started. For more information, send us an email (click here) |
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| Cycle rickshaw |
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 Thanks to our volunteers Kim, Martin, Marije, Roshnie and Rodee we purchase a new cycle rickshaw a month ago, specially designed for the transport of children, senior citizens and physically challenged people. Each trip, regardless of the distance but within Puducherry Town, will cost one Rupee only. Balu, a jobless rickshaw driver (its a disappearing phenomenon in India) is back at his old trade, peddling the orange-and-green painted cyclerickshaw in Nellithope, one of the quarters of southern Puducherry. As we have not yet been able to raise funds through sponsorship for Balu's salary - we've decided to let him also take on board other customers, paying the normal rate, so that he can also earn his buck. It is perhaps reassuring to know that from our observations we conclude that Balu sticks to the agreement. For more information click here |
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| Volunteering in Auroville |
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 Auroville has its own facilitating agency for volunteers and interns: Auroville Volunteering and Internship Service (AVIS). Once a prospective volunteer has decided he/she would like to come study or volunteer in Auroville for more than 1 month, sending an email to unity@auroville.org.in, indicating ones interest, will be followed by receiving an application form to help Auroville gather more specific information about the volunteer's interests. A list of contacts at potential places where one could undertake a learning/volunteering experience will be prepared and sent back to the volunteer within 2 weeks of receiving the application form. The volunteer can then contact the people recommended directly to see if one of them is interested in welcoming him/her, and work out the details. Visit Auroville's website here |
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| Virtual Volunteering |
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 If you can't come to India (less carbon footprint!), but like to help; or if you're back home and like to keep on helping: use your PC, laptop, netbook or mobile phone and become a 'virtual volunteer'. Share your competencies in areas as research, design, proposal writing, legal- or environmental consultancy. Provide assistance from out of your lazy chair. AMAIDI will shortly present different options to volunteer-by-distance. |
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| Volunteering Impact Assessment |
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 In line with the general pressure to show the impact of aid spending, there is an increased need to measure and demonstrate impact of individual volunteer placements and international volunteering as a whole', it is mentioned on page 12 of 'Trends in International Volunteering' (2006) by I Development Initiatives. AMAIDI will therefore - in a more systematic way - continue to ask its partners where a volunteer has added value, worth the investment in time and money both from the side of the volunteer as the receiving partner organization. To read the full report, click here. |
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| Millenium Development Goals |
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 The world has made strong and sustained progress in reducing extreme poverty, but this is now being undercut by higher prices - particularly of food and oil - and the global economic slowdown, according to the UN's Millennium Development Goals Report 2008. In line with the policy of the major INGO's and International Volunteer Sending Organizations, AMAIDI aims at assessing in what manner its partner organizations contribute towards the achievement of the MDG's.For more information (and a funny card game to test your knowledge on the MDGs): www.tigweb.org |
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| Carbon Footprint (CF) |
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 The carbon footprint is a measure of the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide". For more info on carbon footprint, click here.. AMAIDI is offering its volunteers and interns from Jan 1 onwards to offset their CF, caused by the emission of CO2 by the plane that brings them here, by planting trees. Click here if you want to calculate your CF |
| 13 Feb 2009: planting 20 trees in Thiruvannamalai |
| 20 Feb 2009: planting 15 trees in Villupuram |
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| Future Plans |
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 AMAIDI Volunteering in India is discussing a possible joint venture with its travel partner Travelers' Choice'; AMAIDI aims at establishing a Delhi office to cover operations in the Northern parts of India; AMAIDI is exploring strategic partnerships with other Indian organizations in the field of volunteering; AMAIDI wants to found an organization in the Netherlands as its first liaison office outside India to (better) maintain its relationship with Dutch global partners, to inform aspiring Dutch and Belgian volunteers and to act as a meeting point for (ex-)volunteers after their return. |
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| A Paperless Office |
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 Since 1 January AMAIDI is working in a paperless office. A paperless office is an office with a minimum amount of paper. The aspiration level is '0', but even if this is not feasible on a short term, every potential new piece of paper that would previously have been thoughlessly added to the already present stack, will be given a careful thought. In a practical sense - for volunteers and AMAIDI staff - this would mean: restrictive printing, whether bills, internal memo's, reports, copies etc. Printing will be largely replaced by scanning, aiming at saving the environment (more trees, less ink), saving costs (no more buying paper, cartridges, new printer, electricity bill, extra staff salary), saving space (record archives, cupboards) and improved document security (back up, disaster recovery protection) . As an additional step towards an eco-friendly office, we are looking into incorporating the concept of 'the carbon footprint' in our policy. For more information on 'carbon footprint', click here |
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