Volunteers & Internships  |
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Volunteering and Internships
The Mountain Trust recruits Volunteers and Interns to contribute to its work in the UK and or in Nepal. It tailors assignments to make the most of candidates' strengths, skills and interests for the benefit of those at the sharp end in Nepal. It is flexible on the timing and length of assignments. For people working in Nepal with the Trust there is an administrative fee of 200 Pounds (as at October 2011). Application is simple. Use the Contact Us page to register an initial interest and provide your email address. We will then ask to see a copy of your CV (Resume) and make suggestions based on whether you propose to work in the UK or Nepal which take greatest advantage of your abilities. It is at this stage that we often get good ideas from the candidates as well. The next stage is an informal interview in Great Shelford, Cambridge. Assuming you are interested and we can find a useful assignment for you, you will be offered a role as a Volunteer. When you have successfully carried out the assignment, you will become a Mountain Trust Intern. Exceptionally, Interns at post-graduate level or equivalent and who have done outstanding work with the Trust are invited to become a Fellow of The Mountain Trust.
We are collaborating with University College, London, Oxford University, The Royal College of Irish Surgeons and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (under the aegis of the High Altitude Genetics Consortium). We advise on cultural, ethnic, regulatory and logistical issues as well as act as a gate keeper by recruiting suitable candidates to participate. Consequently Volunteers working on this study will become joint UCL & MT Interns. We are hoping to develop along similar lines with our latest partner, the Institute for Democracy & Conflict Resolution which focuses on human and civil rights in Nepal and elsewhere. We have produced an Internship Information Pack which gives considerably more detail and a list of recent Interns and their assignments. You will see that the assignments are as wide ranging as the people carrying them out. It is mainly (though not exclusively) written for Interns working in Nepal. The Trust is unable to pay a stipend or cover travel, accommodation costs etc. although many of its Interns have succeeded in applying for small grants to cover their costs and usually a letter from the Trust in support of such applications strengthens the argument by pointing out the benefits to Nepalis and to the applicant. Volunteering with the Trust in the UK will link you with a network of able, committed and interesting people. Volunteering in Nepal will additionally give you a sense of the true culture - not the 'candy floss' culture experienced by most tourists. Working there with the Trust you will see Nepali people treat you as an insider rather than outsider. Successful Interns may be asked to submit a 500 word article and pictures outlining their experiences for publication in the Trust's regular 4 pages on Volunteering in Himalayas Nepal magazine. For a broad outline of the Trust's approach to recruiting, see page 50 in our first contribution to Himalayas Nepal. If travelling to Nepal, we do insist that you have full medical and travel insurance cover since whilst we are here to assist as far as we reasonably can, we cannot accept liability for anyone neglecting to take out their own insurance cover prior to travelling. We aim to ensure that any Volunteers in the field, Interns in the UK or elsewhere have an enriching experience as a result of their joining with the Trust to reduce global inequalities. Volunteering is not all work, rewarding as that is - or about seeing a culture unseen by tourists. It's about meeting other volunteers who are similarly self-selecting as well as enjoying time off swimming, rafting, trekking (and for some, shopping). As explained above, we tailor assignments to people. However, we also have identified the need for Volunteers to help in the following fields. We need an able statastician familiar with SPSS software to design and run an analysis of School Leaving Certificate pass rates in Nepal and or to assist with a secondary tier of data collection and analysis within Nepal. We are looking for someone able to research (remotely - but preferably in-field) the geographical distributions of various diseases in the Mid-Western Region of Nepal. Once we have a map showing the spatial distribution of various types of illnesses, we can send our Land Rover Ambulance and suitably trained and equipped staff to the worst hit areas and focus the usefulness of each health camp. Having recently partnered with the Institute for Democracy & Conflict Resolution, we are aiming to strengthen our support for civil and human rights in Nepal - and to put our contact networks at the IDCR's disposal. We are in the early stages of collaborating so if you may have a special interest in this field, please ask us for more up to date guidance. We are looking to extend a high profile genetics study to countries outside Nepal and specifically to communities living above 3-3,500 metres above sea level. For this we are seeking registered charities / NGOs based in each territory which have strong links to the indigenous medical communities and can offer a proficient logistical infrastructure on the ground. So we are looking for someone who knows who and where to ask to identify a shortlist of kindred organisations we can approach to roll this Hypoxia Study out. Even a cursory glace of this web site should establish that the Trust has some great stories to share with a wider audience. It has grown largely by word of mouth to date but has reached the stage whereby broader publicity in the UK about some path-breaking work deserves to be heard. The Trust is looking for an able Volunteer / Intern to take some of these accounts and publicise them. Publications may reach wide audiences, depending on the story, but it can often take a single reader to be moved to make a significant difference personally. Fundraising Internships: From small scale through commercial to Department for International Development / other larger funding agency applications / speculative approaches to major funding agencies. This offers an opportunity to creative thinkers. For example, we were approached by an entrepreneur who had been a friend of former King Birendra of Nepal who donated a huge venue for a fund raising event. We then set about devising an event which ended up raising 5,506 Pounds on the night. For further details, see the Mountain Trust Ball. FM Radio Internships: One or more satellite FM radio specialists are needed to go to Nepal to draw up a technical specification and costing for establishing & running a national FM educational station in Nepal. We can introduce the person to technical people in existing national FM stations there and have a contact in China who can help source the most cost effective equipment. Medical Internships: Consultants, Surgeons, GPs, Nursing Consultants, Electives, Administrators, ICT specialists & medical undergraduates (to Nepal) for knowledge transfer. Please also see the note on the joint Mountain Trust & UCL Internships, above. Further details are available on request. |
The Trust has various partner organisations and sometimes offers joint Internships. For example, we are looking to recruit medical students to assist in a high altitude genetics study in Nepal.