iVolunteer Blog - everything about volunteering

For the longest time, I believed gender was something stable. Something you are given, like a name, and then expected to carry without question. It lived quietly in everyday instructions. Sit like this. Speak like that. Don’t laugh too loudly. Don’t take up too much space. Dream, but not too far. Fear, but silently. I […]

At the start of this fellowship, I had many mixed emotions and thoughts. I kept thinking about how it would be, what it would look like, and how everything would work, the community, the project, the implementation, and the impact. But after almost completing one year, I have realized that many outcomes did not match […]

Almora, a town that is both a hill settlement and an urban center, has many unique aspects worth noticing. Among them, one is the system of “MATE.” MATEs are individuals who carry luggage, goods, and various items from the market to designated delivery points in exchange for a fee. In a landscape defined by steep […]

Introduction The life of a Pahadi farmer, especially a woman engaged in millet cultivation, is defined by continuous labour — from household responsibilities, to farming tasks, to post-harvest processing. In the hills of Uttarakhand, farming is not just an occupation. It is a routine that shapes the entire day — often beginning before sunrise and […]

In one of the GramUrja advocacy programs, governance is more decentralised than you read in books. Now the power doesn’t lies only in Sarpanch, but in all the residents of the village. The goal of the program is to strengthen local governance by bringing accessibility and awareness of various government schemes like insurance, health, subsidies, […]

I used to think love had to look a certain way, something obvious, something we could easily name. Big words, clear expressions, moments that feel like what we see in movies. But slowly, that idea has been changing. Love is not always romantic. Sometimes, it is very quiet. It looks like someone checking if you […]

Sometimes a simple conversation stays with you longer than you expect. During one of my field interactions, a group discussion was happening around marriage and traditions. At one point, the girls in the room very confidently said something that felt hopeful. They said they do not believe in dowry and that this practice should not […]

In the hills, time does not always move according to a fixed schedule. It stretches, pauses, and often depends on factors that are beyond immediate control – the arrival of a vehicle, the completion of daily chores, or the availability of people. What might be considered a “delay” elsewhere is often a normal part of […]

We live in a world that constantly asks for explanations. Why do you like this, or what do you gain from it? How is this productive?Somewhere between growing up and fitting in, we start believing that even our happiness needs to justify itself. That joy must be logical. Useful. Impressive. But the truth is that […]

Almora is a very beautiful, peaceful, and soulful city situated in the middle Himalayas of Uttarakhand. It owns a rich history and glorious stories, and in that history live its old temples. The temple, whose walls protect its marvelous architecture and mythological stories that have kept alive the centuries-old identity of the region, the king, […]