Chinese Australian volunteer chooses to Volunteer in France

Posted on January 11, 2019 by La Giraudiere

Born in Taiwan lives in Australia volunteers France

Shiao-Ping came from Brisbane in Australia to volunteer at La Giraudière after spending her working life in banking. She has been learning French at the Alliance Française in Brisbane and it was a dream for her to come to France to learn and improve her knowledge of the French language. Shia-Ping volunteered at La Giraudiere for a 5 weeks arriving in August 2018.

Shiao-Ping was born in Taiwan but lives in Australia with her Aussie husband of 32 years. Her mother tongue is Mandarin. She has a bread blog which you can find at www.thefreshloaf.com/blog/shiaoping! She is also a keen photographer and she has used all her own photos on her bread blog and on her Instagram account (shiaopinghu)

Chinese Volunteers in France

Whilst volunteering at La Giraudière, she worked in the office for a few weeks dealing with reservations and the logistics of bookings she also helped with translation and website creation with the Chinese volunteers.

Shiao-Ping is an excellent cook and the group profited with the superb curries and other spicy dishes she would turn out but her specialty as to be baking and she became known for her yummy cakes!

In Shiao-Ping’s exit evaluation she notes,

She found La Giraudiere a welcoming place in the French countryside. She also encourages you to get out there and use your time off to improve your French and immerse yourself. The best part for her was the interaction with the fellow volunteers, the group excursions and communicating with the local villagers. She rated the program 18/20 and feels the program is good value for money. She also wished the volunteers had spoken more French although she realized her own knowledge of French was only basic.

“Thank you Shiao-Ping for choosing La Giraudiere for your volunteering holiday you were a pleasure to live and work with and make a splendid group or team member and I hope some day you return”. – Paul

Apprendre l’anglaise en France faire bénévole à La Giraudière

Posted on January 9, 2019 by La Giraudiere

Séjour linguistique bénévole pour apprendre l’anglais en France

17 year old Antoine Lang lives in Achères in France and had considered going to England for a linguistic “séjour” so as to improve his English, but then he stumbled on the La Giraudière website offering volunteering opportunities and decided that it would be far easier and cheaper to volunteer in his native France than to go to some unknown part of England.

He was delighted with his three week stay where he was able to meet other volunteers from China, England, Scotland and Australia and get plenty of practice in speaking English.

Whilst staying at La Giraudière, Antoine took advantage of the nearby lake and was able to go swimming in the lake, cycling as well as playing his guitar. He volunteered by doing some gardening, some building maintenance and updating web pages about La Giraudiere program for French speakers titled “bénévole pour apprendre l’anglais en France”

you can see the web pages at;

Séjour linguistique dans le sud ouest de la France

You can also see Antoine learning Scottish dancing during his stay on the video at You Tube Videos

Antoine later wrote to us with this testimonial of his stay at La Giraudiere

Je m’appelle Antoine et j’ai 17 ans. J’ai était bénévole pour La Giraudière durant 2 semaines. C’était super bien, j’ai rencontré des personnes de plein de pays différents : Chine, Angleterre, Écosse, Australie…

Ces 2 semaines sont passés très vite et ont était très enrichissante. J’étais le seul Français durant cette période et cela ma permis d’être vraiment plongé dans la langue Anglaise. Être bénévole à La Giraudière est awesome si tu es français car tu progresse énormément. Du coup, mon niveau en Anglais est monté en flèche. On pense Anglais 24h/24 comme si on était en UK ou aux USA. J’ai appris aussi beaucoup de choses durant mon séjour lors de mes différents travaux en faisant des Constructions et Pages Web. Il y a de super dinners de tout les pays qui nous attendent chaque soir. Une super ambiance, très conviviale, j’ai fais de très bonne rencontre. J’ai aussi pu aller souvent me baigner au Lac, faire du vélo et sortir avec le reste du groupe lors des moments de temps libre. De plus, faire ce séjour est beaucoup moins cher ici. En effet, 1 semaine à l’étranger est équivalent à plus de 6 semaines à La Giraudière. Je pense que c’est le meilleur moyen pour améliorer son Anglais, apprendre des choses en travaillant tout en restant en France et en aidant les autres.

Antoine

Thank you Antoine and maybe see you again at La Giraudiere

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Volunteer from Essex

Posted on January 8, 2019 by La Giraudiere

Janis Moore volunteer office manager

Janis heard about La Giraudière through an internet search and came to the program for three weeks. She worked as an office manager in London until her retirement. She wasn’t sure what to expect when she arrived but began to enjoy it more and more with every passing day. What she enjoyed most was working in the office and the camaraderie of being part of a community. She marked the excursions with a 9 and gave top marks for the French teaching.

Jan volunteering

Janis felt that although slightly less basic accommodation would be nice, it didn’t really matter as the program overall was good value for money.

Janet quoted in her evaluation form at first she just was not sure as not use to sharing a bathroom but each day she enjoyed it more and more. She further said Wonderful program to get to know other people from all points of the globe and a great way to be introduced into the community she gave us 10/10 for the French lessons and 9/10 for the planned excursions.

Thank you Janet for choosing La Giraudiere’s volunteer holiday and being such a good team member of the group and hopefully see you back here again one day.

Posted in France, volunteer, Volunteering, Volunteering Holidays Abroad, Volunteering in France, Volunteers Holiday Abroad | Tagged France, volunteer, volunteer in France, volunteering abroad, volunteering holiday | Comments Off

Tasmanian Volunteers Colin and Janet volunteers holiday in France

Posted on January 7, 2019 by La Giraudiere

Husband and Wife Volunteers from Tasmania

Colin and Janet came to La Giraudière as part of a nine week stay in Europe. Colin still

Tasmanian volunteer

works full-time as a government geologist-scientist and Janet works as a clerk for the Tasmania Police. They live in Geilston Bay in Tasmania.Colin was skilled in the use of computers but also enjoyed gardening and maintenance whilst Janet described herself as a passionate gardener.

Both helped the project in a variety of ways. They heard about La Giraudière through a friend and spent ten days here finding it very good value for money. Colin said he found the programme very flexible and both enjoyed the group outings, the shared tasks and eating together. It was suggested that sending the orientation manual out in advance would be useful!

Tasmanian volunteer

Colin remarked in a video how he and Janet had the opportunity to interact with the local community, which they did not expect.

You can see them in the videos at You Tube videos or on our website videos.

A big thank you to Colin and Janet for choosing La Giraudiere and hopefully see you back here again soon.

Posted in France, Holiday with a difference, volunteer, Volunteering, Volunteering Holidays Abroad, Volunteering in France, Volunteers Holiday Abroad | Tagged France, tasmanian, volunteer abroad, volunteering, volunteers, volunteers holiday | Comments Off

Volunteer Abroad France Website is Live

Posted on January 7, 2019 by La Giraudiere

Volunteers website is revamped & mobile friendly

Every page of the volunteers website as been redesigned and revamped so as to make the website friendly for mobile telephones and tablets but at the same time computer friendly.

Today more and more internet users are using a mobile telephone or tablet so the need is there and Google are penalizing those websites that do not subscribe to the new rules. You can check out the main page at Volunteer Abroad France.

This revamp gave us the chance to also add more content to the websites. There is now a videos page giving links to videos on YouTube going back to 2008 yes 10 years ago if not more. You can check out the videos at Volunteers Videos.

The articles page as also under gone a revamp and many more articles have been added from some accomplished authors and writers from around the globe which includes Canada, Australia, USA and the UK. Most of the articles are related to their volunteers stay or holiday so well worth a read if you are thinking of applying to join our group. The articles are at Volunteers Articles.

Over the years many Press articles have been published and so another new page is added giving links to those articles, keep checking back on this one as each week we find another article on the internet or in our archives. For now see what been done to dat at What the press says about La Giraudiere

New for 2018 was the introduction of an evaluation form whereby each volunteer was asked to complete a questionnaire and give their evaluation of the program. From this information more improvements are being made to the program such as the introduction of an additional excursion so, now there is an arranged group excursion every two weeks as apposed to every three weeks. There is also hopes of an additional French/English lesson each week presently the lessons are on Friday morning the plan is to also add another to Monday afternoon, confirmation from the language teachers is still awaited.

Those that have volunteered will know that when you depart we do a thank you post on this blog for each volunteer or intern well the final part of each volunteers evaluation will now be included in the post so visitors to this blog can see how you evaluated the program. so Volunteers appraisal are here on this blog at the end of each thank you post.

Still to come on the new website is the new Chinese Alliance section and pages about our Eramus project for 2019 so please keep visiting the website and why not bookmark us.

Posted in about La Giraudiere, Volunteering, Volunteering Holidays Abroad, Volunteering in France, Volunteers Gap Year, Volunteers Holiday Abroad | Tagged appraisals, articles, France, press page, videos, volunteer abroad, volunteer in France, volunteering, volunteering holiday, volunteers, volunteers holiday | Comments Off

Volunteering In France | Interning in France