Ankura Ranade
Location:
India
Regions of interest: Latin America, Europe
Skills: work with children, teaching, photography/documentary, marketing/strategy
Volunteer Activity:
Intag October 01, 2011 - November 01, 2011
Helping Hands December 01, 2011 - January 01, 2012
Stories by this Volunteer
Settling down back home
by Ankura Ranade
April 06, 2012
In ten days, it will be two months since I got back home to India. Time has flown! And it has gone even faster that it did when I was in South America. I think it is because there is nothing new happening every single day, no travel plans being made, no new destination being explored or new people met everyday anymore. Life has settled back into my pre - travel routine and on some days now I even forget that I went on a five month life changing trip to Ecuador and Peru.Soon after I got back home, I experienced some withdrawal symptoms. I wanted to go out and walk around town everyday, I could not identify with some things that were happening around me and the safety of...
How volunteering changed my life!
Intag, by Ankura Ranade
January 24, 2012
It was in February last year that I heard from a friend that she was going to volunteer in South America. It was from her too, that I heard about Omprakash. I had been feeling restless in my job for a while then and so when she told me about her travel and volunteer plans, I instantly knew that I wanted to do the same. It took me six months after that to be able to get visas etc in place and leave the country. I was headed for South Am too.A few days before I left I met some expats living in my city and working with NGOs there. One of the girls said to me ´You´re going to have a great time!´ I knew it too but I...
Door to door marketing for a cause!
Helping Hands, by Ankura Ranade
January 22, 2012
Before I quit my job to travel, I was working in the marketing department and to promote our chain of retail stores, we often hired agencies to go door to door and speak to people about our products, stores etc.While volunteering with helping hands, I (along with 2 other volunteers) was the one going door to door around a well - to - do neighbourhood in Cusco. Our mission: to collect old clothes, toys, food, books - anything that people did not have a use for and wanted to donate. We first designed and printed flyers which we distributed in the area. We would ring each doorbell, talk to the people, drop the flyers and explain that we were going to be back the next week to collect the stuff....
La carrera
Helping Hands, by Ankura Ranade
December 31, 2011 | 1 comment
On 22nd december, helping hands organised the first ever run for the residents of the community where helping hands does all its work. There were four categories in the race - children in the age groups of 4 to 11 and mothers! Everybody had to register for the race and everybody was going to get a gift for participating in the race.We had been (trying to) raise funds for buying the gifts for the race for weeks before. We organised a party at a local club in cusco with an entrance fee of 10 soles to help buy gifts for the kids. Unfortunately, the party was not much of a success.The night before the race, the manager of one of the clubs had a surprise for us and donated footballs,...
The other side of volunteering
by Ankura Ranade
December 15, 2011
Volunteering might seem all glamourous and fun but what is needed to be a good volunteer is a lott of flexibility. What happened to me recently was that I am volunteering at a great organisation and project but I somehow felt that I was not able to contribute enough at the school as there were too many people there already and not as much work. I was feeling dissapointed about it and trying to understand why I was not feeling good about the work. A solution then occurred to me. Instead of moping about it or looking for a different project, I decided to be frank with the founders and had a chat with them where I explained that I would help and contribute with all the other activities that...
First week at helping hands, Peru
Helping Hands, by Ankura Ranade
December 02, 2011 | 2 comments
My first one week at helping hands has just flown by! I arrived in Cusco on Monday but had to rest for a day because the altitude saps all the energy out of you.The second day I went to the school and met the kids - around 30 amazing little kids- and saw the school. It is a small cute school with two classes - one for 4 year olds and one for 5 year olds - all coming from poor families in the community. The school or Jardin is free of cost for all the kids and sustains itself through donations.Mario and Rosa who started the project are friendly, energetic individuals and make sure that all the volunteers are comfortable here. Wednesdays are puppet show days at the school and...
Life at Intag
Intag, by Ankura Ranade
November 07, 2011
4 weeks have flown by and it is time for me to leave Intag in 3 days. When I got here, I thought '5 weeks is a long time' and given that I thought that there was nothing much to do here, I was worried about how I was going to pass my time.As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about! Intag and Cuellaje (the village where I am staying) are indeed special with special people. Intag is the name of the zone and it comprises of many communities. Cuellaje is part of one such community with 6 neighbouring parishes. I taught english at the Cuellaje school to kids aged 7-11 for 3 weeks. The kids were adorable and genuinely wanted to learn! They would start cheering when...
First experiences as a volunteer
Intag, by Ankura Ranade
October 18, 2011
I have now been a volunteer for one week. It seems like it has been longer though! And through this one week, I have dealt with some amount of restlessness before settling down and getting used to life in this village in Ecuador and moving on to having fun!So I am in a village in Ecuador called Cuellaje. It has indeed been along journey from India to here via NYC, houston to Quito by flight. From Quito (which is the capital city) by bus to Otavalo and then to Cuellaje with another bus. Didn´t end there though! I got to Cuellaje and stayed overnight at a small hotel they have here. The next morning I was supposed to go up to the mountains (which surround this village) to meet the co-ordinator at Intag, Ned. He...
Getting travel ready
by Ankura Ranade
September 19, 2011
It was late Jan when I got to know that a friend was going to volunteer in south america and she had recieved an Omprakash grant. It took me about a month to decide that I wanted to do it too. It is mid-September now and I am ready to leave on my volunteer trip. 6 months have passed since I decided I wanted to travel. It took that long to get everything in place for me to start travelling. This time was spent in writing a grant application, writing to NGOs which I wanted to volunteer with, figuring out the best routes to reach south america, realising I needed visas for the best connections, applying for visas, getting them, booking tickets, getting vaccinations, resigning from my job, shopping and...
Last leg of preparations
Intag, by Ankura Ranade
August 20, 2011
So I finally got my visas! :) And now I'm all set to leave for Ecuador in a month's time to volunteer with Intag. I am very excited and a little little scared somewhere sometimes. But this fear of the unknown, uncertain is what makes this journey interesting, challenging and highly satisfying. Now it was time to resign from my job and tell everyone why I am going, where I am going and what I will do. In the Indian context, its not very commonplace for someone to quit a very well paying job, stall a career mid-way and head off to the other side of the globe to volunteer. I got various reactions - my boss called it a "holiday" and told me that it was not the smartest...
From one end of the world to the other! Visa sagas and other blues
Intag, by Ankura Ranade
June 23, 2011
So I have recieved a volunteer grant from Omprakash and am delighted about it! I plan to volunteer with Intag in Ecuador and possibly Seeds of Hope in Peru in September/ October.Once the excitement and celebration of having recieved a grant died down, I got down to the more practical business of logging onto multiple travel websites to book tickets etc.I have travelled a lot and one hurdle that I constantly face is that of applying for and getting visas to various countries. Since I am an Indian citizen, I require visas to almost all countries in the world before I leave home. Which means buying round tickets, getting employment proof, bank statements and in some cases even insurance before applying for the visa. And many countries insist on personal...