Volunteering Experiences
Volunteering with PSD Nepal is more than a journey - it’s a transformative adventure of culture, service, and personal growth. Every year, people from across the world join us to support rural communities, lead creative projects, and make long-lasting connections.
On this page, you’ll discover true stories from our volunteers - each project, from teaching and tree planting to health camps or environmental clean-ups, has made a meaningful impact. As you read their experiences, we hope you feel inspired to contribute your own chapter to our story of positive change in Nepal.
Intern Experience: Leo Parker's Reflection
September 2025
My six weeks living and working in Nepal over this past summer was an incredibly profound experience. It taught me a great deal not only about sustainable development but also about myself and indeed about the world. I come from a small town in the north of England so despite my familial connection to Nepal, my prior visit and research of the place, landing into Kathmandu, hopping on a Pathao motorbike and speeding round the ring road was once again a near overwhelming feeling.
As I was flying into Nepal, I was naturally captivated by the breath-taking scenery below, I was also intently observing each village and town we were passing over on our descent into Kathmandu. Those thousands of families, all of those thousands of places in-between the urban nodes of global travel. It is exactly these ‘places in-between’ that PSD Nepal seeks to empower; rural communities bursting with practical knowledge and wisdom yet lacking opportunities to fulfil their collective potential. This is the mission that inspired me to make the journey and work with the Partnership for Sustainable Development.
My time working from PSD’s office in Kathmandu was interspersed with three trips out of the city. Firstly, we travelled by bus to Pokhara where myself, PSD Director Bishnu Bhatta, and another intern Juliette took a fascinating tour of Himalayan Life Plastic’s recycling and upcycling factory. It was inspiring and insightful morning; I learnt a great deal about the process of recycling PET plastic bottles but also about the opportunities of forging circular green economies on the back of plastic waste. Following this tour, we spent two days at the Recycling & Upcycling Festival and Conference hosted at the Pokhara Event Centre where PSD Nepal had a stall showcasing its work. This was a brilliant opportunity for networking with other organisations in the sustainable development space, with a particular focus on waste management, recycling and upcycling.
The second of my trips away was to the village of Jugu in Dolahka about 180km to the east of Kathmandu. When I arrived in Nepal, I began by setting up a
personal fundraiser to help with one of PSD’s central projects: the Dolahka Tree Planation. It was incredibly rewarding therefore to take this trip to see first-hand where these funds were being used to help the local community generate sustainable incomes. Throughout the day, the team and I (pictured below) set about planting the trees. The afternoon monsoon rains did little to damage the spirits of our group and we powered on through and by the end of the day over 2000 trees had been planted. Funds are still being raised for this project and a similar effort in Baglung as it required significant outlay costs.
Returning from Jugu we spent the night in Sailung and following an early morning hike watched the sunrise over the Himalayas atop Sailung hill. As one of the highest points in the mid-hills of Nepal, there is a 180 degrees view of the Himalayas to the north and 180 degrees view to the south of the Terai stretching out to India. We were incredibly lucky to avoid the typical monsoon season clouds and the views (as pictured beside) were absolutely astonishing. It was more than worth the 04:00 am alarm!
My final trip away from the city was north, up to the village of Syabrubesi where PSD has invested in a plastic collection site as part of its Plastics Project in the Langtang Valley. We first stopped off in Dhunche, where Director Bishnu Bhatta had a productive meeting regarding the plastics project with the chairman of the local council. We then completed the journey to Syabrubesi and observed the collection site working as intended! At this time of year there tends to be less waste generated due to monsoon season resulting in fewer people venturing to the remote trekking regions but it was still remarkable to see the sheer quantity of plastics being collected. It was also useful for me to see the ‘upstream’ of the factory I had visited in Pokhara and marked a cyclical end to my time in Nepal.
Across my visits and throughout my whole time working with PSD, everything was focussed on their practical mission: connecting resources to communities for the benefit of the key priorities, environment, education and health. On my penultimate day in Kathmandu before flying home I visited the learning centre where I saw the future of Nepal. These children were diligently and enthusiastically working after school hours in a safe, clean environment where the focus was allowed to be resolutely on personal and collective growth. As my closing impression on Nepal, it reinforced my understanding of sustainable development as built from small, consistent actions driven by the needs and wants of individuals and communities.
Leo Parker
Volunteer Reflection: Daniel Murphy from the USA
Daniel Murphy, an international volunteer, an ongoing impactful teaching and community support placement with PSD Nepal.
Teaching English Across Grades
Daniel taught two to four English classes daily, adjusting to local weather conditions. His focus was on improving pronunciation, particularly challenging sounds like “sh,” “ch,” “th,” and “kn.” With younger students (grades 4–7), he emphasized phonics and simple vocabulary. For older students (grades 8–10), he introduced sentence formation, everyday expressions, and basic conversational English, often bridging gaps with Nepali translations such as “Have a good day” (Suva din). To make classes interactive and engaging, he used music, questions, and visuals, covering themes from body parts and clothing to American geography and culture.
Building Connections Through Play
Beyond the classroom, Daniel spent time with students and staff during breaks, joining volleyball, football, and badminton games during tiffin time. His efforts to build trust and friendship enriched the experience for everyone involved.
Planting for the Future
As part of our environmental initiatives, Daniel joined the plantation of 650 fruit-bearing trees across school grounds and surrounding communities. This effort supports long-term sustainability while offering future sources of food and income.
Sanitation Support for Hostel Girls
Daniel also supported the construction of a new bathroom and shower block for 70 girls living in the school hostel. Previously, the lack of proper facilities posed serious health and safety risks. The new infrastructure has drastically improved hygiene and restored dignity and comfort to the students’ daily lives.
Testimonials from PSD Volunteers in December 2023
"Volunteering here has been an amazing experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. One of the best parts of the trip was staying with a Nepalese family. Lastly, PSD are a brilliant help to my volunteering here and I couldn’t have seen so much of Nepal without them."
Kerri McEvoy
It is one thing to visit a country as a tourist but quite another to live as a visitor. You not only get to see all the usual sights and attractions, but gain an understanding of the people and culture. You will be amazed at how warm and hospital everyone is. It is a great chance to witness the differences between ”western medicine” and the problems faced by developing countries. You will learn so much…
Victoria Brown
A fabulous country with some of the most beautiful landscapes and welcoming people in the world…I would unhesitating recommend PSD as a volunteering organization, they are exceptionally competent, helpful and welcoming; and you will come away from your project feeling that you have had a unique and truly productive experience.
Paddy Curry
Bristol Volunteers for Development Abroad - Report from Anna, Ellie, Molly, and Libby
September 2022
We - Anna, Ellie, Molly, and Libby - are English volunteers through Bristol Volunteers for Development Abroad (BVDA) who have come to Nepal to work with our partner PSD with the aim of making a sustainable difference in a rural community in the Baglung district. We arrived in Nepal feeling excited about our adventure ahead. We had 3 days of full training to get ready for the project in Sima.
In the mornings we learned Nepali with Sushila which ended up helping us so much in the village to communicate and connect with the community. In the afternoons we learned about Nepali culture, details of the project, and different teaching techniques to make sure we were ready. All of this preparation proved so helpful throughout the project. We then took a bus to Baglung. Here we met BP Sharma, the chairman of Sima, the village in which we completed our project. The next morning we took a jeep to the village and met our host family. Our host family had prepared the most delicious food for us on arrival. We loved living with this family, they were so hospitable, kind, and always ready to care for and look after our needs. Living with the host family was a highlight of the project, it meant we were immersed in village life and after no time at all were walking the buffalos and helping to cook. Village life was very different from England and Kathmandu so it took us a few days to get used to the slow-paced, relaxed lifestyle. However, we slowly adjusted and were able to enjoy the beautiful views of the mountain from our house.
On our first day, we went with BP to visit the village office where we had a small welcoming ceremony and took pictures. We felt well and truly welcomed to the village and excited to start the project. We started the project by helping to construct a women's bathroom in Salam. The project began with another welcome ceremony with flowers and blessings from the local people. Again, we felt so welcomed into this community, despite the site being in another village, over an hour's walk from our host’s family home. Alongside skilled laborers, we helped carry cement and stones to aid the building work. It was so fun learning to carry building materials in dokos with the help of the villagers and really felt like we were working as a team. After the bathroom was constructed we painted the whole building inside and outside a bright turquoise color which was really rewarding to transform a bare spot in the village into a bright bathroom. The shower will be used by around 50 women, meaning they have their privacy when showering and washing clothes. We hope this will drastically improve the women's quality of life. We also carried out road maintenance on stretches of road in and around Sima. This was very rewarding as the condition of the roads was something we noticed right away, especially as it was monsoon season, the roads were flowing with water which meant vehicles had to travel slower and there were road damages from landslides. Alongside local people, we dug channels at the side of roads in order to divert the flow of this water. Moreover, we helped slot large boulders and rocks into a jigsaw-type manner to make a sturdy and long-lasting road surface for the vehicles to travel over and make the surface less slippery for people and animals walking.
This project was so rewarding as the difference it made was tangible and we quickly saw the results, within one afternoon a large stretch of road could be drastically improved. The majority of our time in Sima was spent teaching English at the local primary school. Getting to know all the bright, funny and kind children and teachers was one of the highlights of the trip. They were so curious to learn and a pleasure to teach. We started teaching the highest grades, creating paintings and written descriptions of their families. In my younger years, we played games and taught English songs. The children also enjoyed the extracurricular activities we did with them and especially loved playing with the cricket, volleyball, and skipping equipment we provided for the school. We thoroughly enjoyed teaching at the school and noticed that a lot of the children’s English improved and hope they continue improving their English language skills.
At the school, we also painted three of the classrooms and designed a mural to paint in one of them too. The children in the school all helped us to prepare the classrooms, scraping off glue and paper from the walls and washing the walls ready to paint. We loved transforming the classrooms to bright white and red, and think it has drastically improved the working environment in these classrooms. The mural was also one of the most fun parts of the project and allowed us to get creative designing, drawing up, and painting our colorful Nepali mountain range. This really felt like a tangible impact and we felt like we got to leave something behind for the school that we grew to really care about.
Overall, this project has been one of the most incredible adventures that any of us have experienced yet, and we’re so grateful for the kindness and support that the community of Sima and Bishnu, PSD offered us. We got to learn so much about ourselves, and a completely new culture and community that we never have had the chance to experience otherwise. We believe the project has made a sustainable impact on Sima and hope that we have made a long-lasting personal impact on the community too.
More can be read online: http://www.bvda.org.uk/
