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Gap Years & Volunteering in India

Gap Years & Volunteering in India

Incredible India!

This extraordinary country has incredible diversity, from the towering silence of snowbound peaks to the lap of waves on coral shores via the cacophony of noisy, frantic cities.

Hot deserts, cold deserts, fertile flood plains, tea plantation covered hills, thousands of different people, languages, ancient cultures and religions. New wealth but also staggering poverty, both in the cities and in the countryside, where we work in the Darjeeling hills.

Gap Year Teaching in India

Both our volunteer teaching projects in India are followed by an eight day safari in Sikkim, in the mountain areas close to the Tibet border, or trekking in the approaches to Kanchenjunga. Then you have three weeks to see as much of India as you can - perhaps to visit the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, see a tiger in Jungle Book country or a snow leopard in Ladakh or talk with the street children in Delhi. Your return flight will be from Delhi (you will fly out from UK to Calcutta).

The AV Experience offers the following two volunteering projects in India:

Lepchas - Living and Volunteer Teaching in the Lepcha Community

We work with the Indigenous Lepcha Association to help their fight to retain their ancient culture.

Living in a Lepcha village at around 1500 - 2000m, your volunteer project will include helping with subsistence farming on tiny terraced fields of rice, ginger and spices. You teach English in the village culture centre and in tiny local schools for three months, living with a Lepcha family.
Volunteer Teaching in Lepcha

Darjeeling - Volunteer Teaching the Darjeeling Tea Plantations

Three months living among the tea plantations of the Darjeeling hills, where you will find the small towns where you teach English in small schools during your gap year placement. The people, children and schools of this area are almost all Nepali and it is amongst them that you will live and work, teaching English to some of the friendliest people on earth. You live either with one other volunteer with a Nepali family or share a flat with about five other AV volunteers.
Volunteer Teaching in Darjeeling