Update 12.x - My official weltwärts report (after 12 months)

Weltwärts – A report after staying one year in Coonoor, India
© Logeswaran Akilnathan, 2009


One year of my young life I have spent in India. It was definitely a terrific one. I would go that far to say it was the year in which I learned the most even though it was the first in my adulthood which I spent not going to school as a student.

I always had respect of the teachers, but being a teacher really told me what it takes to try to teach somebody something which you personally think is important for the student's further life. Being at the other side of the school bench is hard, but it also gives you the opportunity to improve things you always wanted to change in the academic process. While teaching I realized how good actually the German school system is. Because you don't have to memorize everything and you learn in different ways like transfer tasks etc. and above all you don't get beaten in school. All these things made me think about how and what to teach my students. So I always tried my best to teach them some things which might be interesting and not too boring to talk about in class with a few activities and on the top the lessons should be interactive ones. Nobody likes a teacher who is just droning out everything.

But what else did I learn during my stay? It is one of the hardest questions to answer, because you will learn, adopt and develop so many things and skills just without recognizing it. Of course you learn about the different cultures you face, the different languages you listen to and you get more patient if you just have to adjust with a bus being late for 2.5 hours, but the most important thing is that you get more mature without noticing it.



I had not many expectations when I came to India, but I have to agree that I made vast experiences which I did not expect. On the one hand I did not expect India to be that backward in some areas I went to, on the other hand I neither believed that India could be that developed.

But the most striking point was the corruption. Being a semi-naive German citizen the closest I came to corruption was to read about it in books or listen to some narrations. At first I was shocked how wide-spread that issue really is. Of course people from your organisation and others tell you that you will have to face that topic if you come to India, but I never thought that it is spread to that extent. It is a serious topic which nobody should neglect and which is to be opposed in the next centuries!



My project was difficult to handle at first, because nobody but the children seemed to be interested in us staying there and in us helping as much as we could. Slowly we discovered that the self-proclaimed heads of the Ashram are corrupt and seem to be doing even more bad / illegal things. But we instantly found people we could trust and no matter how the structure of your project is, you can always find ways to contribute in some extent. It only a matter of your attitude how you handle your work. Just being there for the children is one point, supporting them while learning or doing their homework another one. Playing with them is a contribution as well as to invent new games and showing them how to play these. By talking to them you play a significant role as psychologist, improve the fluency of their English skills and give them confidence that somebody is there who is at least trying to understand their point of views and is trying to help them and is not just coming after them with a stick if they did not do as they were told. And the most important contribution was to teach them special “Spoken English” classes and to show them a different, wider, more open perspective of the world! Especially the last point is – I think – one of the main goals of a voluntary service from abroad.

Being a representative of your own country and actually of the whole western world gives your service a bigger connotation & influence than you would think. Just being there and acting in the one or another way can change so many point of views or strengthen them. So it's actually not only work what you do in your project, it's all about how you behave in your host country!



Especially against this background I would have liked a bit more contact with the relevant embassy on-site. But I guess they have more than enough to do than to get in contact with every volunteer being in that area. But this lack of closer contact does not mean that you get no support. I got the needed support if I wanted it from whoever I contacted. Not only the weltwärts supervisor of ICJA Freiwilligenaustausch weltweit e.V. in Germany with whom I was and still am in busy contact with helped me, also the my host organisation ICDE India was always at call if I phoned them. And because I mentioned the German embassy before it is just fair to say that they also helped me by answering my mails and sending me the required informations, if ordered!

It is always a matter of how much guidance is really needed. Of course there should be somebody to help if necessary, but otherwise it is also really target-aimed to the future development of the volunteers if she or he handles a few things alone on her / his own!



Alone does not mean that the volunteers should stay alone, if anything it is more than useful to have two or three volunteers from all over the world in one place. They not only represent the vast variety of different point of views, cultures and languages of the world, but are also helpful to each other. Having a room-mate or working college from somewhere else in the world makes the voluntary service a even more win-win-situation for everybody. After the children also the volunteers benefit from each other, learn more cultural habits and gain more general knowledge! The skill to work as a team is important in life and strengthens the whole experiences, by being able to reflect them from more than one point of view. I would almost go that far to say that it is necessary, if possible, to send volunteers from different nations into one project. I can only say that I really benefited through having an American couple on my side for the first six months.


In the end I want to thank everybody who helped me in advance, during and after this year to make it the year which will influence many parts of my further life.

A cordial “Thank you” to all my family members, friends and organisations.

But my special Thanks goes to somebody who we often forget to thank:

I am really grateful that the Federal Government of Germany , namely the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development initiated a project like the “weltwärts”-programme to support on the one hand us adolescents and on the other hand the development work.

Through various conversations with volunteers / people from other countries I really got to know how precious this opportunity is, so I thank minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, her staff and everybody who worked to realize this special project.

Despite all the critics it proves once again that the Federal Republic of Germany is on the right way, at least to try to invest into the future and to help not only its own inhabitants but cares about the world.