Volunteering

Volunteering At Swallows Nest

Helpful Suggestions for Volunteers

Thank you for taking an interest in Swallow’s Nest Children’s Home. We appreciate your interest in helping the children of Henan. Below are some helpful suggestions which will ensure that things will run smoothly between our workers and our volunteers, in order to provide the best services for our children.

Vocabulary:

Visitor: person who comes to see the children for a limited short amount of time.

Volunteer: person who comes to see the children for an extended period of time with a specific purpose in mind. Example: take the kids to the park, to McDonalds to play, shopping for shoes or clothes or teaching activities (drawing, writing, coloring, dancing, etc).

Working Volunteer: person who is scheduled for an extended amount of time because we are short on staff and need your help.

Only visit the children with approved permission by the administrative staff and please give at least 3 days notice.
Only visit the children when you are healthy yourself, no fevers, no runny noses, no coughs, no diarrhea.
Volunteers and visitors are not allowed to visit between 1pm and 4 pm. This is the rest time for the children. If you are a “working volunteer” (scheduled to fill-in for an absent employee, you are exempt).
Upon arrival please remove your shoes and wash your hands before touching any of the children.
You may be asked by the staff to do certain tasks, watch them, learn from them and you will become more and more helpful.
If you see something that needs to be done, volunteer to do it. Example: taking down the dirty diapers, folding laundry, picking up toys, making beds, dressing the kids, combing their hair. The workers have been instructed to let you help.
Please treat all staff with respect.
If you are concerned about anything that you see, please advise the Director immediately. We certainly appreciate your comments and suggestions that could improve the way we run our organization but please do not try to correct the local staff yourselves as this may cause confusion. They have been trained to care for the children according to our policies and there may be cultural issues that may not be clear to you.
Volunteer work here cannot be seen as a “mentorship” program, community service hours, or in any way to assist you towards higher academic goals. We are looking for people who have the children’s welfare as their top priority, those who are willing to “give” to the children with no expectations of reward other than the valuable life lessons they take with them from being with the children.
If you have your own children, they are certainly welcome as long as they don’t disrupt the babies’ routine. Please limit the number of children you bring to only 1 if you are working in the home as a “working volunteer”.
Have fun, and once again, many thanks for taking the time to share.