In this article, I have crafted a bagful of volunteering opportunities in India after travelling for three years across this beautiful country, to guide you through your possible connections with the diversified Indian cultures more meaningfully.
Stories unfold in actions. Knowledge opens up in frequent and infrequent dinner conversations. And when you share the load, something shifts; a sense of sharing the world with many chores and cores.
It doesn’t get said enough how volunteering has reshaped my travels into deep-free spaces of belonging; readjusting every syllable, line, circle, and square; in the contours of my multilingual mind. The untainted visibility of knowledge through participation propelled me into the hearts of the hearts, without fences. For me, there’s one thing being an observer, and another pushing the bricks on my shoulders.
Before full-time travelling, I didn’t know it was possible to bring those two pillars of ‘travelling’ and ‘volunteering’ together. And when they chose to co-exist, I found myself in the remotest corners of India; interviewing the flood-stricken people of the Sundarbans, sleeping in traditional ‘Kathkuni’ architectural houses, and teaching English to the girls in the contentious Kargil.
The Best Volunteering Opportunities in India If You Love Teaching
I primarily volunteer as an English teacher in rural schools, community centres and learning spaces. Education is my main sphere of interest; education that transcends classrooms, paved walls and the ‘labor’ involved. The Indian Education System doesn’t borrow much space for sustainable and healthy ways of knowledge assimilation; knowledge laden with ideas and practicality. Especially in the rural parts of India, where the English teachers don’t speak correct English, learning only sees a fear-invoking stick, the ‘parrot-way’ and a compulsion to cross the standard-hierarchy. Sustainable learning has never been introduced.
Along the meticulous journey of discovering ‘education’ in the rural Indian backdrop, I have met Jaucque and Helene who taught me in action the necessity of prompting ‘fun’ and ‘passion’ in little children. In a tribal village in Rajasthan, where unbelievably the ‘untouchables’ exist, or rather ‘untouchability’ prevails in indigenous intersections, a Frenchman is fetching sustainability onto the missing holes of education.
That, and many other experiences alike, I have curated a list of places where you can volunteer meaningfully as a teacher and I myself have volunteered first-hand in all of these initiatives.
1. Toliyon Village in Uttarakhand to Teach in A Garhwal Community (Or Farming)
‘How do you want to help us?’ Om Bhaiyaa’s wife asked me as I finally reached Toliyon in jumpy hitchhiking rides that lasted for 12 hours! Their homestay was under renovation at that time, and they had to accommodate me in their family room for the first week. I found myself sleeping on the floor with their little girl, crammed up with the rest of the family dozing off on a bed in the same room.
‘I want to do farming. I know nothing, but I want to learn’.
In acres of bamboo fields they call Ringal in Garhwali, I would lay on the mud, feeling the tender composure of the Earth on my back, as Om Bhaiyaa taught me how to do gurayi around the baby bamboo shoots. This forgotten Garhwali village in Uttarakhand was my initiation towards hands-on farming and also my first tune-up to the rural plateau of life. On and off, I volunteered for three months here in Toliyon; a village settled in 4-5 houses and stepped mountain slopes. Not before the familiarity of soul and soil kept bringing me back to its rural intimacy, I decided to initiate English classes in a community space in Markhora, the next village.
Point of contact: Om Bhaiyaa at White Peak Homestay – (+91) 9997342790.
Read further – ‘Tumaru Nau Kisso?’ Living Rural Life in the Garhwal Region
2. Conduct Workshops for the Women in Kargil Ladakh
Kargil is where India diverges from POK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) in the Upper Himalayan region. Right before the long binoculars stationed for the vigilance of the opponent armies in Hundurmaan, you live the tension that brewed out of invariable parameters of our strategic past; the ‘partition’. A border that doesn’t deserve to exist.
Kargil ends in India with its Muslim-majority population that doesn’t convene much introspection for women. These women in veil scratch the output of their own religion, and apprehend what awaits next onto their fate, unless they make their way. In such a self-asserted patriarchal society, Sajjad Hussein (Bob Sir as we call him) brought together 30-40 girls in 2019 to share a project of painting different school-walls. In the spree of artistry and sustainability for these women, his enthusiasm made way for regional opportunities to paint local schools with educational drawings, A-B-C-Ds and impounded credibility. Together they are called ‘Team Stringmo’ (Stringmo in Ladakhi means ‘sisters’), led by Kaneez Fatima, a 20-year-old local girl.
Bob Sir often organizes workshops for these girls in all niches, on writing, web designing, or preferably traditional forms of art. And it is a credible window for outsiders to see through and contribute with the knowledge they have mastered. I conducted a ten-day ‘documentation in words’ workshop for these beautiful women who still reign in my heart, and will, for all the years to come.
Point of contact: Bob Sir from Kargil – (+91) 9971406703. Also to volunteer in village schools all over the Kargil district in Ladakh, he is the man for you. He can send you to the remotest Suru Valley with no internet or to a chaotic school in the main town of Kargil.
Read further – Kargil Beyond its Projections of the India-POK Border
3. Teaching in Zanskar Puts You Close to A Ladakh That is Invincible
There is no barrier as to all the ways I have loved the barren Ladakhi mountains of Zanskar; the little Tibetan faces in their brown sweaters and dust-masks adapting to a tricky semi-deserted region. Our excursion to a Zanskari village Tahan meant teaching 30 kids how to pitch tents! Then we slept all night under a sky that depreciates every other nudge in the universe, at that moment.
Islam Public School (IPS) in Padum, the main marketplace of Zanskar Valley; where the Kashmiri principal’s personal frustration comes out in kicks at little 10-year-olds, where a senior teacher still uses a stick and insulting words to bring ‘discipline’ to the school corridor, where the school is a mere building, and these Ladakhi children don’t know how to conform to the standard structure. My one month in the windy-cold layers of Zanskar with these tiny souls put me in the immediate cultural and social alleyways. Abbas Sir, the chairperson of the school committee, arranged for a private room in a guesthouse and fixed me up at a local eatery for all my meals. I can still smell the aroma of my favourite Tibetan dish, Thupka, and the homemade liquor Raksi Wangbo the owner brought for me from his home in Karsha.
Point of contact: Abbas Sir from Padum Zanskar – (+91) 6006970755. You can volunteer at Islam Public School and teach any skill.
Read further – Zanskar in the Lights & Shadows of Life
4. Volunteer in a Kutchi village in Gujarat And Stay with A Local Family
Jeet, Hitesh, Meet, Aishwarya… I would put them up against each other, in debates. One day I wrote in big capital letters on the board, ‘It’s good that alcohol is banned in Gujarat’ – ‘Now tell me why you may agree or disagree.’ Hell, that ended up in a fight – a verbal one, thank heavens!
Another day I asked them to turn into ‘anything’, and Jeet wrote, ‘If I were time, I would just rewind and forward myself. The world would be angry and happy because of me. But I will only see the angry side. I will help the ones I can, but not the bad ones. I would play with the world. I don’t know when I was born and if I am ageing or not. I will see the origin far back in history.’
In a Kutchi village Devpur, Krutarthsinh and his extended family hosted me in their 100-year-old heritage Darbargarh (a small manor). I volunteered in their family-run school for a month and shared unmatched garba dance rhythms at Gujarati weddings. He even arranged for an outer room at Pragmahal, the Royal Palace of Kutch, for one night, and sent me for a day-trip to the famous salt-desert of ‘Rann of Kutch’ in his friend’s Thar.
Point of contact: Krutarthsinh from Devpur in Gujarat – (+91) 9825711852. They also have a mango farm where they often take volunteers as well for helping out in the cultivation.
Read further – Tourism in Gujarat Can Be Sustainable with These Places
5. Know A Different Side of Uttar Pradesh Despite Its Ill-Reputation
In case you don’t know, Uttar Pradesh is notorious in India for perpetually high crime rates, religious crimes and violence against women. ‘According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Uttar Pradesh topped the country in 2022 in the total number of crimes against women (such as rape, murder, kidnapping, and gang rape). It recorded 65743 such cases, compared with 56083 in 2021 and 49385 in 2020). (Source: The Hindu)
Whereas all that is true, they are true for specific strips of Uttar Pradesh. Crime in UP is very concentrated around certain areas (yes, Lucknow is included), but UP also is multi-faced. I am grateful to have lived ‘the other story’.
The story of how in a Hindu-dominant village, a Muslim family has been running an organic farm, a friendly dispensary, and a school since 2010. For me, the goodness of Ammi and Abbu (mother’ and ‘father’ in Urdu) brought dimming morning light before the sun, as I taught the nursery kids and painted the school walls with the sky, river, huts, poems and life. I was in the presence of a placid beauty that only the sugarcane fields of rural India know.
Point of contact: Abbu from Gulripurwa in Uttar Pradesh – (+91) 9559129190. An exceptional volunteering opportunity in India.
Read further – ‘Vintage Village’ in Uttar Pradesh Will Take You to Rural India
6. A Frenchman’s Journey to Bringing Education to A Rajasthani Village
It all started with a love affair. A Frenchwoman fell in love with a Rajasthani camel rider and they decided to start a family in Rajasthan. And the prospect of a family also posited the children of Darbari, a village inhabited by the Bhil tribe, the ‘untouchables’, who were denied education by virtue of generational caste-gap. In the process, the Frenchwoman asked her teacher Jacque back in France to take responsibility for the school. Jacque, now 70, had already backpacked across India in his late 20s, and was moved by the extreme poverty he encountered in Rajasthan. He had made a note to himself, ‘I will come back to India one day and do something about it.’
Decades apart, he finally took the plunge to build the school his student had structured. Seven years of hard work he had put in just to arrange the donations that came from overseas, picking the first bricks and setting up a ‘school’. Rather a community space where the Rajasthani girls, whose fate weighed on the stick of ‘child marriage’, can receive sustainable education.
Point of contact: Ganpat from Darbari Waldorf School – (+91) 8078688902. (Updated: As of 2023, the school is no longer functional. You can still connect with him in case they have any new initiative of re-opening the school in this village close to Jaisalmer.)
Read Further – Girls Get Married At the Age of Nine in Rajasthan
Other Volunteering Opportunities around India
If teaching is not your area of expertise, you can also volunteer in cafes, hostels, animal shelters, local initiatives or on organic farms across India.
1. Help in an Organic Farm Close to Nandi Hills in Karnataka
It wasn’t until 9 pm we could make our way through the insane traffic jam of Bangalore, and in slow and hopeless short jitters of our cab, as the monster cars slowly faded in numbers, the air shifted to a much transparent layer, and we were on the foothills of Karnataka, but could only feel it in its shifting night breeze.
Poobala Krishnan quit his high-paying corporate job (jab) in Bangalore six years back with a backpack of dreams to develop this piece of organic land he lovingly called ‘Mayavadi’ (‘Full of Illusory Love’). Away from the concrete, his passion burned in learning about the quintessential ways of growing organic fruits and vegetables, and experimenting with permaculture, aqua-phonics, hydroponics and agroforestry, to bring the idea of sustainable living into a viable context in action.
Mayavadi Organic Farm accepts volunteers to help in the daily clearing of leaves, farming, cooking, and eco-building natural huts and walls, primarily using mud and stones. We camped in a bamboo treehouse for a month during our volunteering days!
Point of Contact: Poobala at Mayavadi Organic Farm, 55 km away from Bangalore. Contact him – (+91) 9740382841.
2. Support A Local Trekking Endeavour in Tirthan Valley in Himachal Pradesh
Sanju Negi. You wouldn’t think much of him at first glance; a petite man in simpleton shirts and dirty pants, chewing betel leaves or cheap tobacco, and riding his four-wheeler to pick up passengers from Kulthi to the more concentrated villages of Tirthan Valley. He is also one of the foremost trekking guides of Himalayan Ecotourism; a company committed to bringing eco-sustainable measures to the realm of trekking in the Great Himalayan National Park.
Virender Negi; his brother who runs a traditional Kathkooni-styled Himachali homestay in Village Kulthi. A raw and wooden solitary cottage in a village of 4-5 families scattered on a hiking slope where bears take night strolls down the corn fields. Virender’s hospitality and honest smile assimilate in orange sunsets of a valley that knows no other colour than green on the surface. Greens that fall in many shades.
Sanju Bhaiyaa needs volunteers who can help digitally; in any form of virtual promotion like social media, article updation on their website, or designing flyers and posters. As Sanju bhaiyaa says, ‘I can handle the guests on the ground in any situation, but I don’t know how to reach out to people’. Disassociating himself away from Himalayan Ecotourism, he has set up his own locally-led trekking enterprise ‘Trek with Mountain Man’. Help them digitally, stay in a traditional house, eat homemade Himachali food, go for the week-long Great Himalayan National Park trek, and you may as well spot a bear!
Point of contact: Sanju Negi from ‘Trek with Mountain Man’ – (+91) 9418240710. Virender Negi from ‘Tirthan Ecostay’ – (+91) 8219132462. This is one of the most wonderful volunteering opportunities in India if you want to take direct part in a local initiative in Himachal!
Read further – Connecting to Himachal through Village Kulthi in Tirthan Valley
3. Take Care of Rescued Dogs at An Animal Shelter in Coimbatore
Humane Animal Society (HAS) is the brainchild of Dr. Mini Vasudevan, an Engineer by profession, and the recipient of the prestigious ‘Nari Shakti Award’ for her immense contribution to animal welfare in Coimbatore. HAS is committed to animal rescue operations, adoptions, Animal Birth Control and special surgeries.
They run both rescue center and a residential unit for the rescued animals. In the sanctuary, more than 100 dogs, 8 cats, 2 cows and one horse live amicably (not always), and the animal hospital caters to a continuous procession of newly rescued animals.
As a volunteer, I used to wash 100 bowls for 100 dogs, give the skin-problem dogs daily baths in rotation, and groom them in the sanctuary. And if you help out at the rescue center, you will be asked to assist in fluid transformations, giving baths and playing with the handicapped dogs.
Point of Contact – Mini Vasudevan from Humane Animal Society – (+91) 7708011800
Read further – One Woman’s Efforts into Changing Animal Welfare in Coimbatore
4. Talab Needs Help with Desert Safaris in Jaisalmer Rajasthan
Jaisalmer, sitting in the heart of Thar Desert, is bluntly distinct from the rest of Rajasthan. The ‘Golden City Jaisalmer’ blends perfectly well with its yellow landscape. Bashing the sand dunes with the tires of the jeep is quite an experience in Jaisalmer! I was fortunate to have Talab as a driver, the owner of Wonbin Safari Hostel, who was also my host.
Born and brought up in the desert, Talab knows the turns of the deserts intimately (he still gets lost though). The 90-degree downslide which for a moment really felt like a fall, is mind-wrecking from the front seat. And then sleeping under the shooting stars on the squishy sand without a tent was the apogee of my Jaisalmer days.
Talab needs help with computer work, social media promotion for the hostel and the safari. He accepts volunteers year-round, and accommodates them in his hostel dorm.
Point of Contact – Talab from Wonbin Safari Jaisalmer – (+91) 9636009386
5. Volunteer at Charu‘s Art Cafe in Kasar Devi in Uttarakhand
Charu didn’t leave a chance to test my perseverance. ‘I want to live the village life’, I told her at a Holi gathering in Kasar Devi. And she took it rather personally, and made sure I got the ‘real Kumaoni village experience’; and that meant pumping up the water, feeding the dogs, hiking for 4 km up and down to buy our daily necessities, carrying heavy sacks on our heads on unrefined trails, and yes, staying awake from 6 am to 6 pm! Even then if guests appear out of nowhere in the evening at Charu’s newly-shifted Art Cafe, we would be lugging around the kitchen; Charu cooking and me chopping vegetables or washing dishes. I would finally drop the curtains at night and sleep inside the cafe with Charu’s three adorable dogs, until we do it all over again.
‘You wanted to experience the village life’, yeah, it was all my fault.
Afraid not, volunteering is for 4-5 hours a day, but in pursuit of living the ‘village life’, I ended up on this extensive battlefield I wasn’t prepared for.
Charu runs a cafe and a homestay in Maat Village, a 4-km hike down the main road of Kasar Devi, the famous geo-magmatic field that only exists in three places in the whole world. Charu needs help with the daily workings of her cafe; like cooking, cleaning, painting or doing some creative DIY projects.
Point of Contact – Charu at The Himalayan Hippies Cafe & Homestay – (+91) 8449837738
Read further – Is Almora Worth Visiting? Let’s Find Out!
Just so you know, volunteering is for 4-5 hours a day for 5 days a week, for you to spend the remaining time in your own pursuits. Travel freely beyond those hours! Food and accommodation would be on the house (free!). Taking part in volunteering opportunities while travelling is also a great way of curbing your expenses and being more involved with the locals.
How have these immersive cultural experiences made a difference in your life?
Support my solo adventures around the globe by joining the Patreon community!
Leave a Reply