Live your Experience… Come to the City of Joy to work as a Volunteer
Volunteer with Mother Teresa of Calcutta – Two Hands and a Heart
Calcutta is a city of contrasts that always leaves its mark on those who visit. It is the third largest city in India, where its 14 million inhabitants speak many languages and boasts the highest concentration of artists. Calcutta has been home to two Nobel Prize winners, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the writer Rabindranath Tagore. Until 1912 Calcutta was the capital of the British Raj, something that can be seen in its colonial architecture, of which the Victoria Memorial stands out.
A city proud to recover its cultural and spiritual heritage that always offers a warm welcome pleasant to any traveler.
SELECTED PROGRAMS
“Two hands and one heart“… that is what Sister Mercy Maria told us on our arrival at Mother Teresa’s House in Calcutta. That’s all we need to wear.
There are not enough words to describe or quantify the work that the Sisters of Charity have been doing since Mother Teresa began her work and founded the order back in 1950 in Calcutta. “I never thought there would be so much suffering in this world“. A work and a dedication that is an example for all humanity. Today, more than 4,500 sisters in 133 countries have followed in her footsteps. Today, Mother Teresa is respected, loved and venerated in India as much as the fathers of the homeland. Today, Calcutta is a white and blue city.
“To help the poorest among the poor“, the sick, the helpless, the abandoned. That is what you will do in one of the houses of the Missionaries of Charity. Some believe that Charity with the most needy is not development… We believe that development cannot exist without attending to the most needy.
Download the program for details.
In addition to the Missionaries of Charity, we also collaborate with the Mission of Dr. Sujit (Indian Institute for Mother and Child), whose objective is the development of the rural areas around Calcutta.
A day of a Volunteer
The volunteers who will live with you come from all over the world and are very different people. But sharing this profound experience imprints the volunteer shelter with a warm atmosphere of fellowship and friendship that is perceived as soon as you land. It’s something close, something special.
So, among friends, your day begins with breakfast before you go to your project, where you will be welcomed with open arms as volunteers are highly valued and respected in India. If you want you can attend the 6:00 Mass at Mother House, an experience of spiritual living that will inspire you. You will work in the morning, eat on your project, and in the afternoon you may have more work, which is just an enormously rewarding time where your help will bring you more than them.
When you finish you will have free time to visit the city or do cultural immersion activities. And on weekends… free to rest, or to travel!
ACCOMMODATION
We recommend a volunteer shelter / hostel near Mother House (Bose Road), or in the Sudder Street area, which is not far away (15 min. walk) and there are many lively shops and cafes that volunteers tend to frequent.
If you search in advance, you can book a hostel such as the Sunflower house or an Oyo hostel online at a very good price.
Shelters are usually basic accommodations, but with everything you need. Hostels are a bit more comfortable. For about 9 € a day you can have your room with private bathroom and AA, plus an Indian-style breakfast that itches a little, but does its job.
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean… but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop“
CALCUTTA has a lot to see…
MAKE YOUR VOLUNTEERING A PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
The Victoria Memorial, an imposing white marble palace dating from the early 20th century, was built in honour of Queen Victoria after her death in 1901. Inside it houses a museum of Indian history. The Victoria Memorial is located inside Maidan Park, Kolkata’s “Central Park”, where locals gather for walks, cricket, yoga or horse-drawn carriage rides.
Kalighat, in the “red light district”, is the mother temple of Kolkata, dedicated to the goddess Kali, patron saint of the city. It is an important center of Hindu pilgrimage, and inside are animal sacrifices. The Howrah Bridge, also known as Rabindra Setu, is one of the symbols of the city of Kolkata and one of the busiest bridges in the world. The river Ghats are the setting for traditional Hindu rituals.
And of course, the home of Mother Teresa, which is in the Mother House on Bose Road. Here we find her intact room, as well as her tomb, where the Sisters of Charity gather several times a day to pray. A small room gathers some representative objects and several photographs of the nun’s life.
The Sudder Street area, near the park, gathers most of the volunteers and travelers. In Sudder Street we will be able to find cheap lodgings, restaurants. There is even a “Spanish restaurant”, a meeting point for Spanish-speaking volunteers, where they prepare typical dishes of our Spanish cuisine.
WHAT IS A FREE VOLUNTEERING in CALCUTTA?
Helping is what moves us. And the more volunteers we can send, the better. That’s why we have specifically evaluated and selected these volunteer programs, always under two premises:
- Maximum usefulness of the Volunteer for society.
- Minimum cost for the Volunteer.
It is not about our organized programs, and therefore:
- The costs of accommodation or meals are very low (or nil) and you will pay them directly there, as well as any excursion or activity you wish to do.
- The supervision and assistance you’ll receive at your destination is less than organized programs, but you’ll never be short of someone to turn to in an emergency.
- We will inform you about vaccinations, visas…, but everything will be in your hand.
Our mission is to select these projects, as well as volunteers. And it is not an easy task; we have visited, evaluated and discarded many projects because we understood that the usefulness for society did not justify the effort we all make. And it’s not easy to find volunteers like you either. For our work we only ask for a donation to our own project CiENViDAS Jaipur. And we will send you the corresponding Certificate of Donations, with which you will be able to deduct your help.
We are in charge of evaluating and selecting these projects for you, and you are in charge of working and being useful… That’s the deal.
