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VOLUNTEER PROGRAMME
The Volunteer Scheme The Amida Volunteer Scheme has been in operation since a pilot project was established in Autumn 2004. This built on eight previous years of overseas involvement. Amida Trust has always been keen to build a world-wide sangha, offering international friendship and dialogue. This page offers supplementary information about volunteering wth Amida.

Amida Trust VOLUNTARY SERVICE SCHEME The Buddhist House 12 Coventry Road Narborough LE19 2BR Leicestershire U.K. Tel: 0116.286.7476 MAIN SCHEME The Amida Trust Voluntary Service Scheme has grown out of a range of initiatives that the Trust has taken in the past to assist disadvantaged groups and to support Buddhists engaging in social or humanitarian action in various parts of the world. The way that the Scheme currently operates is as follows. Each autumn, commencing in mid–September, there is a training and preparation course run at The Buddhist House in UK. Volunteers who wish to participate in the scheme attend this training programme. It includes elements that are particularly directed at the needs of situations into which volunteers will be going, and elements that draw on the wider educational programmes of the Trust, as well as team–building activities and community life. On completion of the training programme volunteers may be selected to participate in Amida Trust schemes overseas. Generally, volunteers taking part in the full scheme will spend three to six months on placement. This is followed by a short debriefing period after return to the UK. Thereafter, volunteers are free to leave the scheme or to sign up for another round, or to consider other possibilities of progression within Amida Trust. Volunteers are adults, willing to work in a team and engage in the process of communal living and co-operative learning. The experience is one that can benefit people of all ages, and the scheme has so far attracted both people in their twenties taking a post university “gap year” and older people taking a career break or early retirement. For younger people we are keen to ensure good support systems and staged learning so that the experience can be a positive one, leading to new avenues of personal development and big gains in confidence and experience. In all our volunteer programmes and other overseas involvement, principles of mutual learning and inter-cultural co-operation and friendship are paramount. Volunteers learn and gain much as well as giving. Volunteers need not be Pureland Buddhists, but they should have a sympathy for Buddhist principles and a willingness to participate in Buddhist practice. Volunteer placements may be in centres or projects that belong to any Buddhist denomination and volunteers are expected to participate in the practice that is normal to the centre where they are placed while they are there. This is a condition of participation in the scheme. India Project Amida Trust has rented a house in Delhi as a base. The building houses both the Amida Trust team and a group associated with the Universal Maitri Foundation who are there as guests of Amida Trust. The centre offers Buddhist activities, community work and the teaching of English. Beneficiaries of the scheme include many who are severely disadvantaged by the Indian social system or by being refugees. Vietnam Amida Trust and our sister organisation Amida West have developed a valuable partnership with the Nirvana Pagoda, a Buddhist temple near Ho Chi Minh City which supports large numbers of orphan children. Dharmavidya and Prasada visited the temple in February 2004 and since then we have raised a sum of money to assist with the building of a new dormitory block. The Pagoda was visited by a novice in the Amida Order in June 2005 for a month long placement. At present we envisage that this placement will primarily be used by trainees with the Amida Order because of its monastic setting, however volunteers from the Amida Voluntary Service Scheme may go to the Pagoda at a future date to assist with English teaching and other supportive tasks. Zambia Amida Trust supports the Tithandizane Project in Eastern Province which provides primary health care and health education to the local area. This project has been built up from scratch with the co-operation of tribes people who have even made the bricks for the buildings. Volunteers have visited Tithandizane on a number of occasions in the past and we hope to establish further volunteer placements there in the future. Hawaii In 2006 Amida West will start to operate a centre at the North end of Big Island as part of the New Moon estate. In future we hope that we will be able to offer volunteer placements within this project, which is primarily concerned with ecology, but may also offer scope for community outreach. If you are interested in helping with the establishment of a project in Hawaii, do get in touch by email to find out the latest plans. Aims of the Voluntary Service Scheme • foster friendship, internationalism, and a spirit of working together for the benefit of all sentient beings. • support projects in disadvantaged countries that serve the needs of their most disadvantaged citizens; • support individuals who, through voluntary work, wish to put Buddhist principles of universal compassion into practical effect; • make humanitarian action an integral part of Buddhist practice; • encourage Buddhist organisations to become involved in the large scale social problems that beset the world; • help individuals to grow in faith and confidence, learn new skills and extend their understanding of the Dharma in a practical context; • foster good relations and co–operation between different schools of Buddhism;