My name is Philipp...

Name: Philipp Eich

Nationality: German 

Email: Philipp.eich@hotmail.de        

Job Title: Long-Term teaching volunteer

Job Description: Teaching English, Mathematics, music and sports to children at Ummeed Aman Ghar

Introduction: I’m from Germany, and as part of the government’s “Weltwaerts” program, I’m volunteering with Aman Biradari for a period of a year. I started in September 2011 and will be leaving at the end of August 2012. 

Hello my name is Philipp – I’m from Germany. I’m spending a year in India before I go to university, hoping to learn from this experience and maybe even help teach something to the children here.

I’ve been volunteering at ummeed since September 2011, teaching English and mathematics to the Aryans class with Shashank, Shalin and Harry. The rest of the day I spend time with the kids playing sport and practicing music. Teaching is great, but music and sports were and still are so much fun - interacting with the kids, doing something creative with them and generally just enjoying time around them has really been the highlight of my time at Ummeed.

When I had the idea of a social gap year, including volunteering, I mainly thought that I would be the one giving something to the kids. But by now I have realized that they give me so much more than I could ever give to them. I’ve learnt more than one could possible imagine – coming from a relatively privileged western background, I’ve had a comparatively sheltered upbringing. I had never really come into contact with any of the experiences that most of the boys at Ummeed have had to struggle with. And while, of course, I am still unable to truly understand what they’ve been through, I believe the experience has been both necessary and incredibly helpful.  

But If Not - Martin Luther King, Jr

But If Not - Martin Luther King, Jr

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so
dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit
to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great
opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some
great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to
do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid
that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be
criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid
that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to
take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as
dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated
announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice." Martin Luther
King, Jr November 5, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church.