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REZA PRADHAN

Kalimpong, March 2: Visitors to the archery competition held at Bombasti here yesterday were greeted with the sight of foreigners taking aim dressed in traditional Lepcha costumes.

The hospitality of the people of the hill town has earned them a few friends from across the ocean who have decided to work voluntarily as teachers in rural schools. “More and more people from Europe are now coming here and helping as volunteers,” said Thendup Tshering Lama, assistant regional director, Africa and Asia Venture, an NGO based in England. “Earlier, they would go to Himachal Pradesh and Nepal. We brought them here for the first time in 2003 and since then, they keep coming back.”

The Africa and Asia Venture organises programmes for Europeans interested in working as volunteers in Africa and Asia and Lama looks after the assignments in Nepal and Darjeeling. Most of these volunteers, who spend around three months here, are students who have either finished their advanced level of education or have just graduated. “In the first year, only 13 had come, while this time, the number has gone up to 31,” said Lama.

Eighteen-year-old Chris Stevens, who has come all the way from England, said: “After talking with two students who had been here, I knew I had to come for the experience. I worked at a buildingsite and then at a pub back home, and saved the money to come here.” He is working as the English-cum-sports teacher at Biyong, 56 km from here.

Julia Weston, the assistant director of the Asia chapter of the NGO, added that even after going back to their country, the volunteers keep talking about their work here. As a result, more and more Europeans are eager to come here.