‘Auntie Sharon’ was only 53.

“Auntie Sharon used to look after me, so I wanted to help stop AIDS,” says Sydney.

With the help of Louisiana-based non-profit Kids Wanna Help, the two Calgary youth set up a lemonade stand in the lobby of oil company Nexen. In one day, selling glasses at $3 a squeeze – “but they were big glasses,” notes Sydney – they raised $541. Nexen, where their mother Taryn Seckam works, matched the donation.

“People asked why we were doing this,” says Sydney, “and they were sad to hear about Auntie Sharon. But they were really happy to hear that we were trying to help other people in Africa with AIDS.”

Sending people, not money

They decided to donate the money to CUSO-VSO because the North American development agency works on HIV and AIDS issues in Africa, and Sydney thought that “what CUSO-VSO does is just good.” Taryn supported their choice, adding that “we liked that CUSO-VSO doesn’t send money to solve the problem, because you don’t always know what happens to the money and it’s short-term anyway. Sending people helps build skills and knowledge.”

“And we have that personal connection. When I left Zimbabwe, the statistics were terrible – 1 in 4 people had HIV. But Auntie Sharon wasn’t a statistic, she was family.”

When the cheque for Cdn$1,082 arrived at CUSO-VSO along with the story of how the money was raised, “the whole team was very, very touched,” says Peter Jones, manager of revenue generation. “It’s a wonderful thing those kids did.”

Taryn came to Canada from Zimbabwe 10 years ago for work and a different life for her children. Sydney was born in Africa, and Auntie Sharon used to babysit her on occasion. Dante was born in Canada. Tayrn’s parents and brother still live in the southern African nation, ruled by Robert Mugabe since independence in 1980.

“We’ve built a good life here in Canada, but I want the kids to know about the world, and I want to teach them the importance of giving.” Through work connections, Taryn met Stacey Brown, the mother of two remarkable Louisiana kids – Mary-Brent, age 14, and Beverly, age 11. In 2007, they founded a non-profit organization called Kids Wanna Help.

Kids Wanna Help

“We got the idea because kids were raising money for charities through school and community events, but they didn’t get to decide how to raise the money or where it should go,” says Mary-Brent Brown. “Children helped fundraise, but adults made the decisions. So we started Kids Wanna Help.”

It’s an all-volunteer-run, non-profit organization that gives children the opportunity to raise money for charities through fun activities that also build confidence and self esteem. Mary-Brent hopes the experience encourages a lifetime of social and community responsibility.

Their first fundraiser was a fashion workshop followed by a show that raised over US$11,000 to help families of leukemia patients. The success of the event – not just the money, but also the positive involvement of the kids – spurred the Brown sisters on.

“We then had a lemonade stand for a friend who had cancer and was on chemo. We wanted to raise money for a wig.”

Next on their plate, or more accurately in their glass, was to expand their ‘Lemonade Brigades.’ The idea is that kids could run lemonade stands for charity, while learning important business skills. The participating children are offered a young business owner workshop that teaches them how to start and run their own small business. After that, the kids get advice on choosing a charity that matches their interests.

And then they are open for business. Kids Wanna Help – which receives donations itself for its work – provides all the supplies. Banners, t-shirts, hats, aprons, tablecloths and cups (“reusable,” says Mary-Brent) make this a particularly professional-looking lemonade stand.

The idea has spread across Louisiana, and over US$53,000 has been raised for 15 registered charities in the state.

“But I didn’t think the idea would spread beyond Louisiana,” says Mary-Brent. Calgary is the first Lemonade Brigade outside of the Southern state. Sydney and Dante were sent training materials and supplies, and participated in a training session by phone.

“We’re really proud of Sydney and Dante,” says Mary-Brent. “At our end-of-year award ceremony, they received the award for most money raised at one lemonade stand.”

“And,” says Taryn, “I know that Auntie Sharon would be very proud of Sydney and Dante too.”

It’s clear Simon Brown is relishing his time in Nepal. He talks of the natural and cultural beauty of the Himalayan land, and of the joys and frustrations of working in Asia’s poorest country as an overseas volunteer.

“For me, Nepal is a totally compelling place to work and live in,” he says. One of the things that makes his life there interesting is that he is able to see the impact of his work.

Brown, who has an IT and a business background, works in Kathmandu with the Dalit Welfare Organisation (DWO). It’s an NGO working to eliminate discrimination based on social rank, or caste, in Nepal. He’s been working with them to determine where and how their efforts are succeeding.

There are at least two reasons why it’s critical for organizations like DWO to be able to measure the effectiveness of their work. First of all, for the people being served: DWO wants to know if they’re addressing their needs as effectively as they can. Secondly, for future donors: it is much easier for organizations like DWO to approach potential donors if they can already demonstrate they’re working efficiently and effectively.

Addressing needs

Brown says that he and his partners in DWO have successfully increased the organization’s capacity to monitor its activities, to understand the effectiveness of their programs and to listen to the people they serve.

This has produced what Brown calls “amazing results”, two DWO economic empowerment programs that were struggling two years ago were able to do a complete turnaround. As a result, they were rated as among the most successful in the country by the program funder, the European Community. That means their funding is more secure, and their important work can continue.

There’s no one skill set required of people working in monitoring and evaluation (M&E), says Christine Mylks, a program development specialist based at CUSO-VSO. That’s because the work is varied.

Supporting our partners

Volunteers could be placed with local community workers, helping them learn how to conduct interviews with people in high-risk health groups. Or a volunteer might work with a national-level body, helping analyze statistics or build databases to store results.

In any case, Mylks says it’s important to understand that monitoring and evaluation is not about volunteers going out to assess the work of local partners. It’s about strengthening the capacity of partners to do that assessment work themselves.

“What we’re trying to do is support our partners,” says Mylks. “That means learning what works by talking to people whose lives are changing because of our work, so we can build on positive lessons.”

As they get better at doing those assessments, says Mylks, local partners get better at telling their own stories about the results their work is having. And that, she says, is a crucial asset when those organizations look for funding or other support. They are able to say – and prove – to the world: “The work we are doing is having an impact. Do you want to help us?”

Although climate change is a global issue, developing countries are suffering the most from all that hot air. Extreme weather patterns such as drought and floods can devastate communities in many tropical countries, impacting farming and making people vulnerable to famine. Increased sea levels could jeopardize the very future of some small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean.

The problem is that the world’s poorest countries, which must bear the brunt of global warming, have the fewest resources to prevent climate change – and to mitigate the damage.

This unforgiving irony is felt most sharply in Africa. Although it’s the continent least responsible for climate change, it is particularly vulnerable to its effects because of a dependence on rain-fed agriculture, compounded by widespread poverty.

Slowing the rate of global warming – mitigation – is the focus of international negotiations such as the Kyoto Protocol. But even if we reduce greenhouse gases today, climate change and its impact will be with us for decades to come. There is no quick fix. Africa must adapt to the harsh realities of climate change.

If you can’t beat it, adapt to it

Nigeria, home to over 150 million people – 20 per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa – spans several ecosystems, from coastal regions to tropical rainforest to the Sahel desert. Like much of Africa, it is vulnerable to global warming.

So in February 2007, CUSO-VSO and Marbek Resource Consultants signed a five-year, CAD$4.75 million agreement with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to help develop a national adaptation strategy for Nigeria. The project is jointly implemented with the Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST), based in Ibadan, Nigeria.

The project will increase the capacity of the Nigerian government and civil society stakeholders to take informed, equitable and gender-sensitive action on climate change. The focus is on improved livelihood options, sustainable natural resource use, and governance.

In collaboration with many Nigerian stakeholders, the project team is researching the climate change impacts on the country, identifying possible adaptation actions, and piloting these actions in some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. The project is also developing a comprehensive national strategy for climate change adaptation, and will work with the government to turn ideas into policy. This strategy is being built from the ground up, from scientific sources as well as the experience and knowledge of Nigerians.

Volunteers keep their cool

A number of volunteers are currently supporting the project. One of them is Ellen Woodley, the pilot project advisor. For Ellen, the Nigerian placement is her third overseas posting. Involvement in this project is, she says, “an opportunity to work on the cutting edge of climate change issues and to help vulnerable communities adapt.”

Three years into the initiative, the pilot projects have so far involved five partner organizations in four different eco-zones in Nigeria. “Many communities are involved,” says Woodley, “with locations ranging from the Sahel desert in the north near the Niger border, to the Sudan savannah, from the Guinea savannah to coastal rainforest communities in the south.”

Ellen has visited most of the pilot projects, which feature activities including the production of fuel efficient stoves to reduce wood fuel burning, alternative livelihood options such as beekeeping and snail farming cultivating drought-resistant plans to control erosion, constructing rain water collection tanks, and training on soil and water conservation techniques.

Livelihoods severely affected

One trip to the Sahel desert highlighted why adaptation strategies are needed at the grassroots of climate change. “In the Sahel, communities are being severely affected by desertification,” says Woodley. “Sand dunes are encroaching on the villages of Toshia and Sansan, the two villages that are being assisted by our partner organization based at the University of Maiduguri.”

“Toshia once depended on 13 oases in the area and had livelihoods based on agriculture and livestock grazing.  Now, there are only seven oases left so their livelihoods are under severe threat. Water scarcity and dune encroachment are the two main issues that the community is facing. 

“On the other end of the spectrum, communities in the south are feeling the impacts of irregular rainfall, variation in the timing of rainfall, increased heat, and are seeing reduced crop yields year after year.”

The Building Nigeria's Response to Climate Change project is learning what works and what doesn’t, and will promote these solutions across the country.

Tammie Brooks, a CUSO-VSO volunteer from Kelowna, B.C., pushed her personal boundaries the first time she tried ‘bush meat’ – a term used in Nigeria for wild game or road kill. While digging through the stew, “in an effort to be open-minded and try it,” she pulled out what she thought looked like a cat’s leg. She was still a bit hesitant when told it was not cat but antelope – but she tasted it anyway.

From tasting ‘bush meat’ to dealing with frequent power outages, life for CUSO-VSO volunteers in Nigeria brings a range of intense new experiences. The country’s huge population, many languages, diverse ethnic groups and multiple social problems make Nigeria both exciting and challenging. But despite those challenges, in 2009 about 55 overseas volunteers were on placements in various parts of Nigeria, working with local partners to respond to their needs.

VSO Nigeria staff meet new arrivals, help them get oriented and support them throughout their time in the country. From years of experience, they know what to expect. Food is a big issue, says Kayode Akintola, a VSO Program Manager in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. A quick scan online confirms this: The volunteer blogs from Nigeria are full of food-related stories.

Tammie says there’s always plenty to eat: Coffee or tea and fruit for breakfast, and then noontime and evening meals that often include yam – “chopped, boiled, then pounded into what is similar to a mashed potato” – and beef stew.

“I can usually get some good pieces of beef, and escape the liver, heart, intestines and occasionally skin – all of which are considered the favoured pieces,” she writes, adding that the food can be quite spicy.

Kayode says new arrivals soon discover which Nigerian dishes they like – and which they don’t. He says plantain (a type of banana) is generally popular, and okro soup, usually made with fish, okra pods and palm oil, is not. (“Slimy!” is Tammie’s description of okra.)

Kayode says people just arriving also ask about their work, their living quarters and the support they can expect to receive. And he says they are also often concerned about security. With over 150 million people, Nigeria is by far Africa’s most populous nation. About half of Nigerians live on less than one dollar a day.

The country’s economy is fuelled by petroleum exports, but the petro boom has also led to massive migration to cities and put a terrific strain on the country’s infrastructure and social services. A reputation for lawlessness feeds security concerns among people travelling to Nigeria for the first time.

“Though I did my best to assure myself that I would not be robbed or kidnapped the moment I stepped off the plane, there remained a part of me that was prepared for the worst,” writes Glenn Dodge, a CUSO-VSO volunteer, in his blog. “With the year now complete, I’m happy to say that all of those fears were unfounded.”

Glenn says his year in the country changed him, as he discovered that Nigerians and Canadians are not that different. There are those who try to cheat or rob, and those who are honest. And underneath the cultural differences, “the people here have the same hopes and fears that we all experience.

“Treating the people here as something different does them a tremendous disservice and gets in the way of working with them effectively,” he says.

“I’ve been driven to insanity by the infrastructure limitations that exist here. But I’ve also experienced the high that comes with finally connecting with my counterparts and seeing them develop new skills.”

It’s a long way from Gatineau, Quebec, to Maroua, a dusty city in Cameroon’s Far North Province. Gatineau is a quiet city in Canada’s capital region; Maroua is a provincial capital in an African country on the edge of the Sahel, a market town whose population is about evenly divided between Muslims and Christians.

Yet Hugo Pellerin found his work as a federal public servant was perfect training for his volunteer placement with CUSO-VSO in Cameroon. For two years, Hugo has been partnered with a local community association called RESAEC (Réseau des Animateurs pour l'Éducation de Communautés) that deals with health and education issues. The group works to increase awareness of major health issues – like HIV and AIDS and malaria – in different community groups. They also build awareness of the need for education for both boys and girls.

In Cameroon, there is critical work to be done. The average life expectancy is just 46 years, compared to 80 in Canada, and one-third of the population is illiterate. Hugo works as an organizational development advisor, helping the association build its business and management skills through VSO’s participation and governance program.

Speaking out

The underlying assumption behind this work is that disadvantaged people lack knowledge and power. In order to access the basic services to which they are entitled, they have to be able to participate in decision-making processes. Their voices have to be heard. Once they are able to speak for themselves – and be heard – they can advocate for changes to improve their own lives.

“My work is to build the capacity of the association, of its members, its staff and its beneficiaries,” says Hugo.

He explains that many of the people he works with don’t have the training to do some of the things considered basic in North America – for example, write reports or give an account of how donor money has been spent.

“What I try to do is help them to organize themselves and manage their program in an efficient, sustainable and transparent fashion.”

Hugo was surprised when he arrived in Cameroon to see how basic his own working conditions were.

“When they showed me my office, I was shocked,” he recalls. “The desk was empty. There was no computer – just a pad and a pencil, that’s all.”

That’s when it hit me how extremely limited their resources are: Even a ballpoint pen is a big deal. You have to make do with what’s available.”

The people I work with are mostly volunteers,” he explains. “They don’t have a lot of money, and since phone calls cost a fortune, it’s impossible for them to call. In fact, I’m just about the only person here to use a phone.”

In fact, he said he will often organize meetings – particularly in far-off villages – by having a public service announcement broadcast over the radio. By helping them structure their organization, Hugo has helped RESAEC’s volunteers be more effective. They are the ones telling Hugo what they need.

Sharing knowledge

“We don’t send volunteers out to tell people how to do things,” explains Nefertiti Saleh, CUSO-VSO’s International placement manager for participation and governance. Instead, she says, local people tell CUSO-VSO what they want to achieve, and CUSO-VSO tries to match their needs to the skill sets of volunteers like Hugo.

“There’s a lot of sharing of knowledge both ways,” says Nefertiti, explaining that volunteers share their knowledge with locals – and learn from them along the way.

Hugo speaks proudly of his achievements, and of the organization with which he works. The association started with a self-evaluation exercise of the structure, which led to the launch of a one-year action plan. When completed, says Hugo, the plan should put the association on a solid footing and allow it to run efficiently and effectively in the future. Hugo says the people he works with are largely responsible for that success.

“I am proud to work with such bright and dedicated people,” he says.

It’s 4.00pm in Tanzania and school has finished for the day. But all over the country, groups of teenagers are still sitting in their classrooms. It’s not detention. It’s not extra maths. What these teenagers are talking about is far more interesting.

“We talk about puberty, sexuality, different lifestyles, emotions and problems we face in every day life,” says Rebeca Gyumi, who lives in Dar es Salaam. “You find in the club you can discuss most things comfortably, things that you wouldn’t discuss with your parents.”

Rebeca is referring to the Fema Club, where students get together to discuss the latest edition of Fema, an innovative magazine produced by Femina Health Information Project (HIP). Femina HIP is a non-governmental organisation promoting healthy lifestyles among young people in Tanzania through magazines like Fema, a TV talk show, a radio programme and the Internet.

HIV and AIDS prevention messages play a key role in all of Femina HIP’s initiatives. And these messages are getting through. “Before I joined the Fema group, I thought HIV education was something that I didn’t need to know about. I thought I was too young,” says Rebeca. “But through the club I have seen that HIV involves young people as well – we are part and parcel of it. It’s not only you that can get HIV, but also us.”

Femina HIP staff member Bahati Mdtele says: “We know from feedback from our readers that we are changing a lot of Tanzanian young people. They say ‘through Fema I’ve changed, I was going with so many girls but because of Fema I use condoms, I protect myself.’’’

Much of Femina HIP’s success in changing young people’s attitudes is attributable to its participatory, ‘edutainment’ approach.

“It’s not about telling people how to live their lives,” explains CUSO-VSO volunteer Lynn O’Rourke, who has spent the last two years sharing her expertise in graphic design and production with her colleagues at Femina HIP. “The content of our magazines and shows comes from our journalists going out into communities, listening to what real people say and reporting back, using real case studies and testimonials and stories, featuring role models and allowing people to talk about their realities and find their own solutions.”

The resulting material is lively, honest and informative. It’s unsurprising that Femina HIP has become a popular lifestyle brand for young people throughout the country. And with Fema magazine being distributed in 1,500 schools and discussed and debated by 450 Fema clubs, some of which number up to 100 students, Femina HIP is undoubtedly playing a crucial role in slowing the spread of HIV and AIDS in Tanzania.

If all you’ve ever known since birth is that conflict and violence are a part of life, it’s hard to even imagine you could live in peace and with justice. That’s the uphill struggle faced by the Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF), a CUSO-VSO partner group celebrating its 15th year of reducing conflict and violence in Jamaica through peaceful alternatives such as mediation.

“DRF was founded by a group of lawyers, judges and other concerned people who said, ‘There’s got to be a better way! Too many conflicts are escalating to court, and people become so hurt and angry that it’s not good for them or for our entire society,’” explains Elizabeth Chen, a CUSO-VSO overseas volunteer who worked with DRF for 15 months.

After studying similar systems in countries like Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., DRF brought the concept of mediation to Jamaica, where two parties in conflict are brought together with a neutral third party – the mediator – in a highly structured process.

“The mediator works to help them find common ground, to achieve a solution where both parties win, as opposed to the court system, in which one loses and even the winner often doesn’t feel like they’ve won,” explains Elizabeth. DRF successfully lobbied for changes to legislation that mandated all Supreme Court civil cases must be mediated and only tried in court if the mediation is unsuccessful.

Giving young people alternative resolutions

But even with their successes, the leaders of DRF felt they needed to be even more proactive in building a peaceful society. So they created a youth program in Jamaican schools, teaching children from ages 10-18 how to identify conflict, why it happens, how to help themselves resolve conflicts, and how to prevent conflict with others.

“DRF also trains Youth Peace Facilitators, usually in their 20s, who have come from the inner cities where a lot of conflict happens. They can speak to the kids in their own language, because they’ve been there,” says Elizabeth. “One of our more successful facilitators, Leon, is a former gang member who can give them true life examples that really hit home to them. He shares his past struggles and mistakes, and gives them alternative resolutions to consider. They all admire and respect him.”

Three years ago, DRF established a pilot project for students who have been suspended from school, funded by UNICEF. “Often there are 50 students to one teacher in a class and nobody’s getting a quality education. The kids aren’t being engaged, they get frustrated and start to fight with each other and the teacher,” explains Elizabeth.

“Principals don’t know what to do, except suspend them for three to five days. But the kids started acting up on purpose to get a holiday at home.” So the organization proposed a pilot school suspension program, where students would be sent to one of DRF’s Peace and Justice Centres in five of the more “at risk” areas of Jamaica.

“They discuss why they were suspended, their responsibility for how they interact with other people and how they could have done better. They’re taught about conflict resolution as well as anger management,” she says. “By the end of their suspension, they have to write a minimum of three letters of apology, to the teacher and principal and others involved in the conflict. Those letters have to include a plan for how they will avoid conflict in the future.”

Program success

Of the 200 students who went through the first year of the suspension program, only one was suspended again. Fuelled by the success of this innovative program, DRF is seeking funding from the Ministry of Education to expand it across the country. Elizabeth’s main contribution to DRF, along with Anne-Marie D’Araujo, another CUSO-VSO volunteer, was to transfer the collection of data on cases from a manual paper system to a computer-based one.

“The software enables them to provide better information to the courts on adult mediation outcomes and to funders on how children are being helped,” she says. “Our systems opened their eyes to how they can improve their process and have a larger scope of clients.”

Elizabeth also helped DRF mark its milestone anniversary with awareness-raising media coverage including a 22-minute video funded by CUSO-VSO. The video is designed to raise DRF’s profile and take the message of alternative mediation to a wider segment of Jamaican society. DRF’s Chief Executive Officer, Donna Parchment Brown, is grateful for the assistance and knowledge that the volunteers bring to the Jamaican staff of the growing non-profit organization.

“The DRF is so appreciative of CUSO-VSO and we’re overwhelmed by the value, not just of the material things like computers, but much more so the value of the volunteers,” she says. “Their skills and positive attitudes go a long way toward strengthening our organization. We have a vision of a peaceful society and we know what needs to be done. We just need help with how best to get there, and CUSO-VSO has been an answer to our prayers.”

Have you ever noticed how things never seem to go according to plan? I’m sure CUSO-VSO staff Marian White didn’t plan on missing her bus by mere minutes one cold winter day. I didn’t plan to encounter this stranger, throw her into my car and wildly chase her bus for half-an-hour across the Canadian Prairies until we caught it. And I certainly didn’t plan on this fortuitous encounter leading to a six-month placement in the South Pacific.

As Marian and I raced along Highway 10, she convinced me of the importance of supporting developing countries’ efforts to expand their information and communication technologies.

I soon found myself in the Solomon Islands, a country of 1,000 tropical islands in the middle of the South Pacific. The vast majority of its Melanesian population lives in basic leaf houses in tribal villages without electricity or running water. They practice a subsistence lifestyle – food mainly comes from nearby fruit and coconut trees, vegetable gardens which the women tend every day, and fish that the men catch at sea.

Helping give women a voice

My volunteer placement was with Vois Blong Mere (“Women’s Voices”), a women’s organization working hard to empower women so they can contribute to national development.

As a Canadian woman I was surprised to learn that bride prices are still paid to acquire wives, women need their husbands’ written permission to do many things, and no women currently hold seats in parliament. I felt thankful to be working with a local organization that is committed to helping women find their collective voice. I quickly learned that despite their voices rarely being heard, women are undoubtedly the backbone of their country and are as strong as nails. 

My volunteer role was to teach information technology (IT) through daily computer training sessions for the women in my organization and partner NGOs. Some of these people had never even touched a computer before and I found it extremely rewarding to see the excitement and sense of accomplishment they experienced from actions as basic as typing their names.

It was even more empowering for them than I had anticipated, and my initial doubts about propagating IT in a country that didn’t even have a reliable source of water or electricity largely disappeared. There are many needs, and I was helping address but one of them.  Yet every woman who possesses computer skills has a better chance of getting a job (or promotion!) and can thus provide better for her family.

Besides computer training, I also helped with Vois Blong Mere’s newsletter, website and radio program, all of which aim to “link women of the Solomon Islands” (their motto).  I ran a literacy class and wrote several articles for their national newspaper which showcased positive local female role models.  Best of all, I had the honour of helping to deliver a perfect little baby into the world while helping out at a small hospital.  

Building respect across borders

I soon realized that I was not simply transferring my technical training to these women, and came to appreciate what the CUSO-VSO approach is about. We are not 'helping' them; rather, together, we are working to build a sustainable world based on mutual respect. Although we may be more privileged than these women in terms of income, education, and material acquisitions, this type of experience can reacquaint ourselves with who, not what, we are.

Yes, I missed my family, home, chocolate, electricity and running water, but no, I wouldn’t give up my time there for anything in the world. I will be eternally thankful to CUSO-VSO and Marian White for sending me on this experience of a lifetime. I feel so fortunate to have seen and lived a way of life that I would never have dreamed of from back home and trust that I have contributed in some small way to the people of the Solomon Islands.

I returned to Canada with renewed love and appreciation, along with a desire to build my career around pursuing social justice. To that end, I have furthered my education and am now a practicing social worker. This experience has definitely proved to me that we only think things never go according to plan – but they always do!

- Ashleigh returned from her placement in the Solomon Islands in 2006

More than one tree has fallen in Araucanía, Chile, a mountainous area that borders Argentina. But many people heard.

The Araucanía region is a culturally diverse slice of the Andes; indigenous Mapuche-Pehuenche people live here along with settlers of European ancestry. Farming, logging and livestock ranching are how most of the nearly 30,000 inhabitants make a living.

But it’s not an easy life – the geography is steep and rough, the climate harsh, and the soils and the forests have been weakened by bad farming and logging practices.

That’s why a different kind of natural resource management has taken root in the Araucanía region. The Alto Malleco Model Forest in Araucanía is spread over roughly 400,000 hectares of landscape. It covers not only native forests but also steppes (barren plains), watersheds, grasslands, scrublands, snow-capped mountains and even a few glaciers. The region is home to the native Araucaria tree (often called the monkey puzzle tree), a slow-growing, cedar-type conifer susceptible to over-logging. There are three national wildlife reserves and one national park in the area.

The model forest approach

This so-called model forest is a form of community stewardship that provides both a place and a process where best practices are developed, tested and improved. These models of sustainability are then shared with other communities. A model forest is a working landscape of protected areas, farms, woodlots, towns, watersheds and rivers.

At the heart of each independent model forest is a group of people who have different perspectives on the human and natural dynamics within their forest-based ecosystem – viewpoints that are all necessary to make informed, balanced and fair decisions about how to manage the forest and its resources.

It’s a Canadian idea being put into practice the world over, the methodology supported and promoted by the International Model Forest Network (IMFN). There are now model forests in existence or under development in 22 countries on five continents.

While environmental sustainability is a core philosophy, model forests are also about people. They provide a space where those who know and use an area’s natural resource base – from small-scale wood harvesters to forest companies, from government agencies to tourism operators – can develop a common plan to achieve social benefits, environmental conservation and economic opportunity.

“Model forests allow for innovation and experimentation, and the best ideas are shared with other communities and networks,” says Marie-Eve Landry, a CUSO-VSO volunteer who worked in Costa Rica with the Ibero-American Model Forest Network. “They also strengthen participatory governance of natural resources in a forest-based landscape.”

There is a growing understanding in the Araucanía region that sowing economic opportunity in the present can also yield environmental benefit in the future. Partners in the Alto Malleco Model Forest include the Chilean national government, municipal governments, farmers, indigenous people, community development groups, and representatives of the agricultural and forestry industries.

Results to date include the bringing together of different stakeholders – including small-scale and indigenous landowners – to develop a strategic plan, as well as the development of projects in sustainable forestry, soil recovery, inter-cultural communication and environmental education. There has also been a renewed emphasis on the harvesting of non-timber forest products; for example, an edible kernel that is gathered from the araucaria tree.

Volunteers help the method take root

The model forest method was successfully transplanted from Canada to Latin America, and North American volunteers have helped it take root. Since 2004, CUSO (and now CUSO-VSO), has been sending volunteers for two-year-long walks in those woods. So far, 26 volunteers have supported nine model forests throughout South and Central America, including the Alto Malleco Model Forest.

While most of these volunteers have come from Canada, some have been recruited from within the country in question, or from other nations of the Americas. The volunteers have also supported the creation of the Ibero-American Model Forest Network, a growing regional initiative that links 18 model forests in eight Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries.

“A model forest is a process and a journey as people plan, implement and participate in projects and activities to achieve their vision,” says Bob Sutton, a volunteer who worked with the Atántida Model Forest in Honduras. “I have been privileged to live, work and learn alongside my peers here in Honduras, and to join them for part of that journey.”

A longer version of this story is available here.

After the death of my husband in 1988, I was falsely accused of killing him and running away with his belongings," says Mrs. Betty Ayagiba. "It was such a difficult time, but I had few options." That’s why in 1999, she founded the Widows and Orphans Movement (WOM), a CUSO-VSO partner group in Northern Ghana.

The life of a widow in rural Ghana can be extremely harsh. The acute poverty a woman may find herself in due to the death of her husband is difficult enough, but she may also be subject to degrading customs and rituals. In some areas of Ghana, a widow is forced to strip naked and lay on the ground; if a certain type of ant bites her, it proves she was unfaithful and she loses rights to her dead husband’s property.

In other communities, a widow may be pressured to marry a member of the deceased’s family, often the brother. If she does not, she can be ostracized, accused of witchcraft, and even denied access to her children. Not all traditions are created equal.

The Widows and Orphans Movement

Betty Ayagiba understands the reality of widows all too well. She refused to participate in the denigrating customs, and so was falsely accused of killing her husband. For a time, she was not allowed to have any contact with her children.

"My husband died when my first daughter was only nine years old and my last child barely two," says Betty, who eventually went on to study midwifery and public health nursing to support her family. Madame Ayagiba's life’s story and the stories she heard from other widows led her to found WOM in 1999. The organization has grown tremendously since its beginning. In the originating Upper East Region of Ghana, there are over 7,000 members; the group has now expanded to five more regions of the country.

"The vision of a 'Widows and Orphans' movement came to me while I was working as a full-time nurse," Ayagiba says. "With my limited income, I looked after my children but also tried to help other widows too. The women began meeting to discuss common concerns, and we created an association against the wishes of local authorities. In 1999, the Church of Pentecost agreed to pay my salary for two years, and I was able to establish the movement."

CUSO-VSO's support

CUSO-VSO (the result of a merger between CUSO and VSO Canada) is one of the supporters of WOM and their efforts to curb violence against women, and offer training and income-generation support to widows and orphans. Activities of WOM include income generation (farming, crafts, animal husbandry, cloth weaving, bread-baking and shea butter production), counseling, assistance dealing with authorities, advocacy against the harmful practices widows endure, and support to victims of domestic violence.

And in 2008, WOM officially opened the Northern Women’s Shelter Home in Pusu-Namongo, near Bolgatanga. The shelter – the first if its kind in northern Ghana – will be a refuge for victims of domestic violence, but will also offer training in income-generating activities to widows and orphans.

The new centre was named 'CUSO House' in honour of the support the Canadian organization had offered WOM, in particular the stand-out efforts of volunteer Edith Conacher. Ms. Conacher is a Ghanaian-Canadian who calls both Saskatchewan and Ghana home. An experienced social worker, she took a leadership role in the planning of, and fundraising for, the shelter.

The shelter project has generated considerable interest among the public, government and civil society organizations. The US Embassy has announced that it is providing the funds necessary to build an additional six-room block as a second phase of the structure. The hope is that the shelter will eventually have 21 rooms along with training facilities.

UWAMWIMA is an association of smallholder fruit and vegetable farmers in the West of Unguja, and Omar Abdullah was one of its founder members in 2004: "We set up UWAMWIMA, because we didn't have a voice. We needed a voice, and we needed a market."

Each of the 700 or so farmers in the association owns approximately one hectare of land, and all of them combine subsistence farming with growing a limited number of cash-crops. Until recently, however, Omar says it has been difficult for them to make a significant income through selling their crops to the tourist sector. The island's hotels and restaurants are thriving, but most local farmers continue to live beneath the basic needs poverty line.

Accessing the tourist market is difficult for smallholder farmers because they are at the wrong end of a complicated supply chain. Prosperous hotels buy their fruit and vegetables from agents, who source them from Stone Town's markets; the Stone Town market traders in turn buy their stock from regional market auctioneers.

Eighty per cent of vegetables sold in Zanzibar are imported

It's these auctioneers who individual farmers deal with, and the farmers are in a very weak negotiating position. Auctioneers have no shortage of produce to choose from – a staggering 80 per cent of vegetables sold in Zanzibar are imported – and so prices for farmers are reduced. The farmers have little choice but to accept the prices on offer: they have no means of storing their vegetables, so if they don’t make a sale within a day of picking them, the vegetables simply rot.

In other words, if a tourist buys a salad in a Stone Town restaurant, they shouldn't expect many of their shillings to trickle down to hard-working local farmers like Omar.

UWAMWIMA has expanded rapidly since Omar and the other farmers established it in 2004 with almost 700 members. When the members decided that they needed training and funds for new seeds, Omar went from door to door in Stone Town in order to enlist support. Now they receive funding and training from a coalition of local and international NGOs. In particular, they are being assisted by the Zanzibar Enterprise and Sustainable Tourism (ZEST) Project.

ZEST, which is managed by VSO, aims to reduce poverty on Zanzibar by building better links between producers and the tourism sector.

Following a value chain analysis into the fruit and vegetable sub-sector in 2006, ZEST has been training UWAMWIMA's members in business skills and in agronomic techniques – especially in how to grow the cash crops that hotels and restaurants actually want to buy. Importantly, ZEST has also provided UWAMWIMA with a storage site in Stone Town. Farmers will now be able to transport their fruit and vegetables to the site in bulk, where they can be kept in a cold storage facility. From there, the association can sell directly to hotels, restaurants and individual customers.

A local initiative with national plans

For UWAMWIMA's members, the new storage site should make a world of difference. The cold storage facility will increase the shelf life of vegetables from under a day to over a week, and the money that flows through to individual farmers will be far higher because it cuts out the middle-men between the farmers and Stone Town's hotels.

Thanks to promotion by ZEST, UWAMWIMA is building excellent relationships with hotels and restaurants. Quality produce is ensured as Zanzibari famers use only organic pesticides, and local vegetables are picked later than imported ones, which means that they are fresher and contain retain more nutrients. High-end hotels are keen to stock local, naturally grown vegetables.

"The reason we think this is a good project," Daniel Sambai, general manager of Stone Town’s Zanzibar Serena Inn, said, "is that firstly it's creating employment for local farmers, and secondly we're getting fresh organic vegetables. We want to show that the ripple effect of tourism is helping farmers. Our guests are happy because it’s fresh produce. We're proud that it's from Zanzibar."

UWAMWIMA currently gets support from international donors: through ZEST, VSO volunteers provide expertise, while USAID and CORD-AID supply funding and training. Accenture's Making Markets Work for the Poor global program with VSO has given the initiative direction on Zanzibar. But the association remains very much a local initiative, and when Omar is asked where he hopes it will be in five years time, the first thing he says is: "I hope we will be independent of donors.”

“I want UWAMWIMA to be an umbrella organization. We want farmers to keep joining us until all the fruit and vegetables consumed on Zanzibar are locally grown,” he added.

She volunteered with a very large non-governmental organisation (NGO) with 30 years of experience in rural development in one of the poorest states of India.

Why I chose to become a VSO volunteer

I believe it is a privilege to have the opportunity to bring a positive change in the lives of disadvantaged people. It's not a sacrifice. You leave behind a lifestyle that you probably feel comfortable with, that it's familiar, for a new way of life that's unpredictable and strange, but it's not a sacrifice. You gain more than you can offer, both professionally and personally.

The selection process

I cannot say that it was tough, but it was an intense day and if, until that moment it was your professional experience that was assessed, in London the selectors look at your personal qualities and your motivation to volunteer in a developing country. It was an interesting experience, especially as you get to meet other people with the same interests and dreams.

Where I am now

I live in Mohuda, a rural area in the state of Orissa. The organisation’s compound is where its headquarters are and also where the families of the staff live as well. It’s in the middle of nature, several kilometres from the village of Mohuda. Mohuda is impressively beautiful and exotic, surrounded by hills mango tree and coconut tree forests, and very quiet.

The organisation that I work for

Gram Vikas is a very large non-governmental organisation (NGO) with 30 years of experience in rural development and has a presence in 700 villages in Orissa. Orissa is one of the poorest states of India. More than 70 per cent of its rural population live with less than $1 a day, and the morbidity rate is alarmingly high. The main problem is the contaminated water and the precarious salubrity, which contribute to the high mortality rate.

Gram Vikas approaches the water and sanitation issue by facilitating the access to potable water and bathrooms and toilets. But this is just a starting point and it’s carried out only with the full cooperation of the entire community. That means 100 per cent inclusion, with all the members of the community getting involved, overcoming social, gender or caste barriers – which are still very prevalent in India. The results are incredible, especially in the reduction of the disease and mortality rates and the general improvement in the population’s health condition.

My work as a VSO volunteer

My role is monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and documentation adviser. I work directly with the Planning and M&E department of Gram Vikas. I will be working on the development of a management information system for an integrated rural development programme. I will also work on the improvement of the organisation’s M&E system, various documentation activities, reports, and project proposals.

I am also involved in a coalition of NGOs from Orissa, as well as VSO India, for raising awareness in rural areas (especially in tribal villages) about a law that has been recently put into operation in India. The Right to Information Act is an instrument intended to eliminate corruption and promote transparency in public institutions. The project consists of raising awareness about the existence of this law and offering assistance to the tribal population in using this right.

The people I work with

Everybody is so friendly and they come to your help whenever you need something. There is an impressive community spirit. I was particularly impressed by the warmth of people from the tribal villages. Despite the shocking poverty, it is overwhelming to see them smile generously and share the good things in their lives, without complaining about the unfair lives they have to bear.

One advantage of being a VSO volunteer is that there is a strong and supportive volunteer network. There are more than 40 VSO volunteers in India and there are lots of occasions on which we interact.  It’s always uplifting and supportive to be able to share things with people who are going through the same experiences.

Future plans

My contract will end in March 2010. After that I will see what opportunities will arise. My wish is to continue my career in the field of international development, but in what form I don’t know. I have also considered the idea of continuing my collaboration with VSO and re-volunteer in India or another country, but there is still a long way to go until then. For now I am here and I am focusing on what I can do here and I hope to be able to bring even a small contribution to Gram Vikas’ work. 

Wilfred’s story

Wilfred Kasitomu has been growing tea for 33 years. He started with a plot of land less than half the size of a tennis court, and now farms the equivalent to two football pitches. He is also the chairman of the Msuwadzi Association, a group of small-holder tea farmers based on the side of Thyolo Mountain in Southern Malawi.

Forming the Msuwadzi Association

Wilfred and a group of other small-holder farmers formed Msuwadzi in 1999 because alone they were being mistreated by government and commercial tea estates. They felt that by working together they would have a stronger, louder voice. “We were waiting six months to be paid and we started to be treated as tenants by the government,” explains Wilfred.

“Sometimes no one would buy our leaf for a week after we had picked it and we would have to dump what we picked because it had perished,” says another Msuwdzi member, single mother of three Patricia Byson.

Today, Wilfred, Patricia and the other 330 members of Msuwadzi have an arrangement with the Satemwa Tea Estate, who buy their leaf for a good price. “Now we’re paid for the tea we pick seven days after the end of each month and we’re paid more because as a group we have power to negotiate on price,” says Patricia, who uses the money she makes to buy maize and to pay her children’s school fees.

Lack of skills make business a struggle

But while Msuwadzi has been a great success, it has faced serious challenges due to a lack of business and management skills. These problems doubled when it became Fairtrade in 2009, as Fairtrade funds need to be managed well, which means proper accounting and book-keeping systems – almost impossible for Msuwadzi, since 95 per cent of its members are illiterate.

VSO volunteer Matt shares his skills

Enter VSO volunteer Matt Strickland. With a background in management, Matt is now hard at work as an organisational development adviser for Msuwadzi. “My role is primarily capacity building – in just about every area you can think of! Accounting and book keeping, project management and development, business planning and people management, to name but a few.” He has also helped write the proposals, grant applications and strategic plans that are necessary as part of the Fairtrade certification process.

With Matt’s help, Msuwadzi’s future is bright. This year has been a record year in terms of leaf sales and the Fairtrade Premium has already enabled it to establish a seedling nursery and to buy subsidised fertiliser for each members. This is not only helping to improve the farmers’ lives, but the lives of people throughout the wider community.

The whole community benefits

“Now when we sell our tea there is premium money that is paid back to us for community development projects,” say Wilfred. “We have just over 300 members but many more people benefit from the association. These members reach about 1,800 people and then there’s the extended family benefit too.”

Matt is a prime example of one VSO volunteer having an impact on the lives of thousands of people. As Wilfred says, for him, Patricia and the other members of Msuwadzi, “tea is between life and death”. So by giving them the skills to keep the Msuwadzi going, Matt is helping them to farm a life, not just for themselves, but for their families, friends and future generations too. 

I hadn’t realised VSO would want people of my age. All my VSO contacts went overseas straight out of university, so I was a little tentative when I contacted VSO and said,  “I’m an old git, I have reasonable health and these talents, are you interested?” And I really did expect them to say no but was pleasantly surprised. So here I am and I think it’s the best decision I ever made.

Here at International Hospital Kampala I’m called “Doctor Richard”, which is quite nice in a way – all the doctors are called by their first name. It’s a private hospital but has a charity wing, Hope Ward, which is where I work. It’s for people who can’t afford healthcare. There are a lot of people in Uganda with no money. If you don’t have money, you can’t get transport to the hospital or clinic. And even if you do get there you don’t have money to pay for drugs to get you better. The Ugandan government does provide free drugs for HIV, TB and malaria but they often run out. Sad stories of patients selling their HIV drugs to buy food are all too true.

Making sustainable changes

A lot of patients, particularly those with HIV and TB, come to us quite late and we really think they’re going to die. We feed them up with this disgusting stuff called millet porridge and they get their drugs and within a fortnight they’re up and about. It’s remarkable. There are not always successes, but people often bounce back when you just don’t think they will. So it’s a really rewarding job, but we’re only scratching the surface.

The doctors here are very hard working and very bright, but they don’t get a lot of support and every day they’re seeing things they’ve never seen before. So it’s good to supervise them on the ward rounds, to say, “why did you do that? Had you thought of doing it this way?” I work with the nurses too. Before they just weren’t used to being asked for their opinion, but now they’re so forthcoming. It’s very satisfying for me to see them change and their standards improve. To make all this sustainable I’m about to start working alongside a Ugandan specialist physician who will take over my role. It’s really important to have a figurehead, a key person who will teach and work with nurses when I leave.

I think it’s absolutely key for health workers in the UK to have exposure to Africa. If you haven’t, you just can’t imagine what the difference in healthcare is. It has been a real eye opener. I think every doctor should experience it if they can.

See our gallery of Richard's work in Uganda.

Mr Mirzosulton's Correct dairy farm helps to reduce poverty in the region by working with local dairy producers. It employs more than 40 full-time workers and gets milk for processing from over 100 small-scale producers in neighbouring villages.

“We provide work for full-time workers who would otherwise migrate to Russia to work on building sites, leaving women behind to care for all the needs of their extended families. Our workers receive significantly more than workers in Dushanbe, despite the fact that here in Khojand the cost of living is less.”

The workers at the farm receive good benefits and even have access to a fund for family emergencies. Mirzosulton explains the farm’s ethics by explaining its unusual name: “I want us to be correct in quality, correct as a person, correct in every way.”

As well as processing milk, the farm also offers opportunities for local women to sell their milk products back to the farm at competitive rates.

Successful partnership

In early 2010, VSO partnered with Correct, by placing Latvian dairy processing expert, Viesturs Krilovs, on a short-term placement. Viesturs has ample experience in the industry including establishing a dairy-processing factory in Russia and helping Latvian dairy processors shift from Soviet to European standards. His role at Correct was a volunteer dairy-processing adviser.

With Viesturs help, Mr Mirzosulton, developed plans to expand his factory, improve processing management and increase his workforce to more than 60 full-time employees. His plan could potential provide contracts to hundreds of small-scale milk producers, securing more livelihoods in the region.

According to Mirzosulton, “Viesturs has provided a very high level of expertise to Correct. When I worked with consultants in the past they have only been able to answer six out of my ten questions. Viesturs has the experience and technical background to answer all my questions and always comes up with suggestions that are realistic for the context. He has helped with the management aspects of dairy processing, equipment, quality and he really considers everything”.

The partnership has been so successful that Mirzosulton is considering contracting Viesturs to advise him on his new factory. 

 Mirzosulton has also agreed to host a guided visit, organised by VSO, for members of the women’s co-operative, Zamzam. The women’s co-operative provides opportunities for rural women in the district to earn a livelihood.  This includes through wool production and dairy processing. The visit will enable the women to learn about Mirzosulton’s experience of transforming Correct – from kitchen production like theirs – to the successful business it is today.

VSO Tajikistan hopes to work with many other community-based businesses in the near future.

Child soldiers

The UN estimates that during Sierra Leone’s ten-year civil war some 10,000 children were recruited as soldiers: thousands more were exiled to neighbouring countries or fled their homes to other parts of Sierra Leone. Abass Koroma from Thonkoba is one of those who avoided recruitment but whose life and education was severely affected by the war.

“I was born in Thonkoba and have lived here all my life, except during the civil war when I was forced to leave my home. Although I was young, I am tall and strong and energetic so the rebels were trying to recruit me. At the time they were trying to train up a lot of children as soldiers, so I left my village and lived in the bush.

“For many years I was moving around and living on wild fruit and bush meat. At certain points I thought my life would end like that, but then I started to hear from others that peace was coming. When that happened I came back to my village.”

Post war

Although Abass managed to avoid capture, when he returned to his village there were few opportunities for him: “Although I completed my primary education many schools were forced to close during the war so I was unable to finish my schooling. When I returned to my village in 2002 I had no qualifications or source of income.”

For four years Abass relied on subsistence farming, growing food to meet his immediate needs, but lacking the skills to make the most of opportunities to profit from farming. All of that changed in 2006 when VSO partner CCYA (The Centre for Coordination Youth Activities) established a programme in Thonkoba, near Makeni in northern Sierra Leone.

New opportunities

CCYA began its existence in the early 1990s when a group of students began campaigning for changes in the government. During the war years they also acted as agents of peace, bringing together different groups in reconciliation activities. CCYA still actively campaigns, now focusing on the issues that affect young people in Sierra Leone today, but has also extended its reach to include skills training for young people who missed out on their education.

Abass is now benefiting from one of these skills training programmes. In March 2006 CCYA community development workers visited Thonkoba to tell residents about a beekeeping cooperative they planned to establish. Membership of the cooperative includes training in beekeeping and honey extraction techniques; help to set up a bank account; a kit including protective outfit; a beehive; and extraction equipment. Further support is offered through the packaging, marketing and selling of the honey. All profits from the sale of the honey go back to the cooperative.

Changed lives

In the first eighteen months the cooperative has produced 10 gallons of honey, with profits helping 25 members. A sister cooperative was established in neighbouring village, Mambamba, and other CCYA run initiatives include an agricultural farming and goat-breeding programme. So far almost 250 individuals and their families have benefited from this programme.

Abass is putting the finishing touches to a brick house he has built with his share of the profits. The project has given him the opportunity to move out of his childhood home and start an independent life. He says: “With the coming of CCYA we learnt new skills, but we also opened our minds about how if we work together as a community we can achieve more, which means better lives for all of us.”

VSO support

Although CCYA can draw on the skills of local community development workers to train and support the cooperatives, it lacked the organisational expertise to expand its work to reach more people like Abass. VSO Youth for Development volunteer Jayne Butler is now working with CCYA helping them with a research project to further identify the needs of young people in Sierra Leone and to support them to more effectively access donor funding so it can continue to fund initiatives like the beekeeping cooperative.

It’s a big change from being a guest services coordinator at Randstad headquarters to advising a small HIV and AIDS NGO in rural Namibia on their organisational structure and future strategies. Going from cold Amsterdam to scorching hot Namibia took some getting used to, but I must say it’s quite a thrill!

Gravel and sand

After my arrival in Namibia’s capital Windhoek, and receiving one-on-one and in-country training, I left for my final destination Rundu, on the Angolan border. Compared to ‘cultivated’ Windhoek, this provincial town is quite different. There are about four paved roads and most of them only reach the edge of town. All other roads are made up of compressed gravel and sand, and are populated by large numbers of stray dogs. They’re actually a great incentive to increase the speed on my morning runs!

Performing plays

I work for Y2Y, a young organisation fighting HIV and AIDS in the Kavango region. My colleagues are all young and very enthusiastic, and, as is common practice for many unemployed youngsters in Namibia, they work at Y2Y voluntarily. The professional experience gained serves as a stepping-stone to other, hopefully paid, jobs.

Y2Y’s objectives are to educate young people (12–25 years old) about HIV and AIDS and prevention and to raise awareness. We do this by visiting schools, hosting peer-to-peer sessions and going into communities to perform plays (a powerful tool due to the high rate of illiteracy). This is really needed as HIV and AIDS is a huge problem in Namibia: approximately 25 per cent of the population (40 per cent in the Kavango region) is infected and it has a debilitating effect on future progress. Although daily life is heavily affected by the disease, most people here live their life like they don’t have a care in the world.

A different perspective

So far it’s been a blast to be here. I love interacting with the locals as they are so friendly and laugh a lot. The standard of living is relatively high but at the same time can differ a lot: Namibia is the country with the biggest gap between highest and lowest incomes. I try not to concentrate on these difference too much as the locals don’t seem to mind a lot and live together amiably. There are still a lot of differences to overcome, and some, I believe, I will manage during my stay in Namibia. Some might never be overcome at all and this challenges me to see things from a different perspective.

African adventure

There’s a great group of international volunteers here: we meet up regularly and go camping, have dinner or organise movie nights. It’s interesting to see how easily you feel drawn to fellow strangers when coming into a new environment. We go through the same things and like sharing our experiences. My time here has only just begun but I recommend volunteering with VSO to everyone. It’s an unforgettable experience, everything I expected and has already changed my life.

Involving the community is crucial for education in Ghana

There’s a wealth of challenges that face the development of education in Ghana, and the Government doesn’t have the funds to deal with them all. For this reason it’s important that the community rally round and do what they can to support the development of their local schools. Communities have been known to develop school farms so they can provide meals so children are more energised towards learning. Parents and teachers come together and pool funds to buy extra school furniture or provide manpower to build quarters. Education becomes collaboration between the school and the community, so everyone feels responsible. Often, when children see their parents’ involvement, they become more motivated.

Cultural barriers to children going to school

We also have a lot of cultural challenges, which means girls are not always able to go to school because of requirements in the home and the community. We need parents to understand that girls have a right to be educated and if they are they can make a contribution to the development of the whole of Ghana. 

I network with a range of organisations and individuals – from district authorities to elected community leaders – who are in a position to help parents recognise the importance of education. We especially target mothers. Many mothers are illiterate because in their time they were not encouraged or expected to go to school, so before we can really get support for girls into education we need the mothers to recognise the importance of education so that they will then be the advocates within the home and within the wider community.

My impact

I have been working with the Nadowli Assembly Women’s Advocacy Group, a group of female leaders who have been elected by their community to represent them to the authorities. Because of their personal knowledge of the issues and the challenges that the girls face in education, we’re able to work together to design creative ways of tackling the issue of getting girls into school. They bring their cultural knowledge and experience of what’s appropriate in Ghana, while I develop their skills in networking and influencing, and effective proposal writing so that they can secure funding for their projects.

Recently I helped them secure funding from Barclays Africa for a project called GREAT, which stands for Girls Retention Enrolment and Transition Project. GREAT Project will enable the assembly women to address poor retention rates in school by providing the most deprived children with resources such as uniforms, books and bags, helping schools improve décor and resources, and improving the availability of mentoring and school club activities. For the most talented there will be an ambassador programme that will support girls to travel to Accra to see women role models, such as the president’s wife, and business and NGO leaders, who they can aspire to. 

How it fits with other VSO efforts

VSO volunteers work in a range of ways in Ghana. We have teacher support officers who help teachers learn new skills and find simple ways of working with limited resources, for example using bottle tops as counters for children in school. Meanwhile, management support officers who work with education authorities make improvements in areas such as monitoring and evaluation, teacher management and school planning. My role fits in because I’m helping the community to recognise the importance of education, so collectively you have a holistic approach coming from all different angles to ultimately improve the quality of education for children.

What did you do before volunteering with VSO?

I currently work as quality officer for Carmarthenshire County Council’s adult community learning service. Before that, I managed a service delivering part-time computer courses for adults in various locations within the county. I’d been a tutor myself for several years, and I’ve had quite an eclectic work background.  My original degree was in social studies and I’ve done social work and computer programming before I qualified in teaching.

What made you decide it was the right time to volunteer?

I’ve travelled on my own quite a bit and met retired professional people sharing their skills in different environments – doing the same has always seemed an exciting prospect to me. I’ve done voluntary work at home for a long time and I strongly believe that you gain as much as you give. When I heard about a secondment scheme from my employer, it was an ideal opportunity to do a short-term volunteer placement without giving up my job. My employers have been very supportive in letting me go for eight weeks, and I was delighted that VSO accepted me.

Explain a little about the organisation you worked with.

Santa Council, in the North West Province of Cameroon, covers a large geographical area with up to 200,000 people, in 10 main villages. The Council needs to collect more revenue so they can deliver public services such as education, health and improving infrastructure. I worked as an adviser, supporting two long-term VSO Volunteers and a National Youth Volunteer in their work with the Mayor and Executive Committee. They are trying to raise the Council’s profile to encourage people to pay their taxes and they are also seeking to work in partnership with NGOs to gain extra funding for projects such as waste management.

What do you feel were your achievements?

I reinforced tools like SMART planning, time management, monitoring and evaluation, which colleagues at the council had previously found hard to apply, and ran a series of workshops to introduce economic planning and communications techniques. I also helped ensure sustainability by training three of the council staff in more advanced spreadsheet skills, on the understanding that they would go on to teach their colleagues. Their enthusiastic response was a joy, and I was able to convince the Mayor to develop these young staff members further in future.

What was it like living in Cameroon?

Living in the community rather than in a hostel or hotel was a great opportunity to experience part of the realities of life there – water shortages, electricity cut-outs, overcrowded taxis travelling on dusty pot-holed roads. It also developed a much greater understanding of the different culture – I could see why people were late arriving at meetings when I’d had to wait ages for a taxi to fill up before it set off. 

What have you gained from your experience?

I’ve got a more informed, positive but realistic attitude towards international aid and I’m very much aware how lucky we are in the UK to have the things we take for granted like free healthcare and education. I also feel more self-confident knowing that my personal qualities stood the test of a very different environment, with far fewer resources or professional support. My leadership and management skills transferred well and I know I can make an effective impact in a wider arena.

Would you recommend volunteering to others?

Yes, definitely. The chance to be out of my comfort zone, take risks and try new ways of doing things, has given me a real boost of energy. I’ll certainly look at doing a longer placement in future.

What were you doing before volunteering with VSO?

I was working as a policy manager at the Cooperative Bank in UK, but I wanted a new challenge.  My career was going really well, and I had been promoted recently, but after eight years in banking I was looking for a new kind of challenge. My employer agreed to give me a one-year career break.

Why did you choose VSO over other charities?

I sat in the pub with my partner, Clare, and we wrote a list of the criteria we were looking for in our volunteering. We wanted to use our skills – if we weren’t using our skills, why not just employ a local for the same cost? We wanted to work with the most disadvantaged people in the world, as they probably needed help the most. We didn’t want to work in a war zone or somewhere we’d face extreme risks, and learning a new language would be a bonus. All those things considered, VSO stood out as the best organisation for us.

Explain a bit about the organisation you worked with.

Hope for the Village Child is a small charity employing 24 staff, run by a determined nun from Kansas, Sister Rita. It provides vital support to poor village communities – vaccinating children against polio and meningitis, providing medical care for children with rickets, and setting up and running schools to name but a few services.

What was your role and how effective do you think you were?

The organisation lacked the proper business structure and HR systems to run effectively.
So I worked as an organisational development adviser to help staff understand its strengths and areas for development. It was a tough challenge, but I loved it and I'm really proud of what the team achieved. We went from virtually a standing start to having objectives, work plans, policies and budgets. But most importantly for me, by the time I left the change was being lead and driven by the staff – we'd got some real momentum going and it was being sustained.

What professional skills did you develop?

Flexibility and resourcefulness. The company I was working for before had over 10,000 employees, while Hope for the Child only had 24, and very limited funding. So everyone chips in to help out, and has to be imaginative when it comes to solving problems. Working in an organisational leadership role – I guess you could say I’m a big cog in a small machine, rather than a small cog in a big machine back home. The work I did shaped the direction of the whole organisation, and I enjoyed that responsibility.

What do you think you have gained from the experience?

The VSO experience has helped me develop a truly global view of the world. The culture and the perspectives I have learnt about have helped me challenge my pre-conceptions. From my work in the UK, I’ve seen that staff who take on challenges like VSO, and continue to learn, are the ones who seem to prosper in adverse circumstances. They’ve experienced the highs and lows of a VSO placement and have learned how to adapt quickly. 

The Ministry is located in the Kavango region. This region is quite large and has the highest poverty rate as well as the highest percentage of people living with HIV. The ministry is characterised by a hierarchical structure, a lack of resources and a lot of paperwork. The HR department is responsible for the administration of 3,500 teachers and my 10 colleagues work hard to manage this. Do you remember how frustrating it can be to fill out tax forms? My colleagues do this type of work for retirement, resignation, cases of misconduct, new vacancies, promotions, transfers, etc for all teachers.

Saving time and increasing efficiency

Two Randstad volunteers had worked in the Ministry’s HR department before I did. They did a great job of coming up with ideas on how to work more effectively as planning and organising is a big challenge here. I continue the process they started and am working on the main plan they introduced – starting a digital HR database.

At the moment we have finished entering all the information from the employee files into the computer system. It was a lot of work but the impact is high; my colleagues no longer have to go through the paper files manually when headquarters asks for statistics. It saves a lot of time! I am now looking at how we can ensure the HR database stays up to date and is used in the daily work process.

Self-reflection

As an HR adviser I advise and coach my colleagues at the Ministry to help them find their own way in working more effectively. This means that I help them plan, evaluate and prioritise their tasks. It’s a real challenge to teach my colleagues to think on their own. My strategy is to ask a lot of questions; through reflection of their own work they will be more empowered. My placement is all about group dynamics, processes and motivating and coaching people. I’ve never done this before so I use common sense, creativity, political sensitivity and persistence. Every day is a new challenge as we have different cultural understandings so we’re often lost in translation. That’s why you have to be creative and look for solutions in different ways. If something is not working you’ll have to come up with plan B. This can be frustrating sometimes, but most of the time we have lots of fun.

Team spirit

My colleagues are very nice; they tell me a lot and share their lives with me. I can see that the work of VSO contributes towards a better team spirit among my HR colleagues and that really motivates me. Additionally I’ve learned a lot from the experiences of other VSO volunteers. Having ‘sundowners’ with a view over the Kavango river while discussing the cultural differences we’ve come across in our work – I really fit into this world! As a volunteer I also have the opportunity to travel; I’ve just come back from a trip across the country and have seen a lot of beautiful Namibia. It’s a country full of natural wonders and unbelievably nice people!”

Putting privilege to good use

A former marketing manager for Scottish Widows and more recently a self-employed marketing consultant, Ellen felt she had a “great lifestyle” but was “helping rich people get richer”. So, when her children left home, she made the life-changing decision to become a VSO volunteer. “I felt I had been very privileged in my upbringing and my education and had never really had to struggle,” she says. “For many people in the world life is much harder so I wanted to put my privilege to good use in the developing world.”

Now on placement in Johannesburg, Ellen is working as a co-ordinator at the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand (RHRU), an organisation that aims to improve HIV care and treatment services in South Africa, and provides research into prevention and best practice relating to HIV.

Helping sex workers find alternative income

Ellen’s work includes managing a project that helps sex workers find alternative sources of income so that they can exit the sex industry. Across Johannesburg there are thousands of women working in the sex industry, where a large proportion are living with HIV and AIDS, and many more live with the daily risk of contracting the disease.

The project runs training programmes including sewing, baking and catering skills, and beauty therapy, which create new opportunities of income generation. “It’s not easy for women to exit sex work when most alternative jobs they are qualified to do pay at best a quarter of what they can earn as sex workers,” says Ellen. “But for those who are committed to changing their lives we want to make sure they have as much support and guidance as possible.”

Providing support for those living with HIV and AIDS

Ellen is also responsible for the growth and development of RHRU’s Community Care Centre in Johannesburg, an inner city resource that provides psycho-social support to those infected or affected by HIV. A typical day may consist of organising workshops on health and rights-related issues, attending consultation meetings, drafting funding proposals or counselling community members. “Everyday is very different,” she explains. “In some senses it’s not unlike corporate life but the content is different and the empathy needed is different.”

Looking to her future

Ellen is now coming to the end of her placement, but plans to stay in South Africa to continue in similar work. “Two years have passed in a flash and I would be heartbroken to leave RHRU at this juncture. In the last year in particular I’ve planted a lot of seeds that are just starting to grow now and, while I may not stay in South Africa forever, I’m certainly not ready to leave.”

Alan Coyne is a VSO volunteer and indeed a “resource mobiliser extraordinaire”. That is how I would describe him as I witnessed on a recent tour of some of the VSO Jitolee programmes in the coast region of Kenya.

Alan has been with the Muslim Education and Welfare Association (MEWA)  in Mombasa for a year. In his official capacity as a resource mobiliser, Alan has been involved in numerous activities including: developing funding proposals, consulting on strategic planning and supervising research projects for some MEWA Board members. These activities are ways in which Coyne is sharing his skills and experiences to make a difference at MEWA and by extension, communities in Mombasa.

However, as my interview with Alan progressed, I realised that he has taken further steps to directly make a difference in the communities he interacts with in Mombasa.

“When I started working with MEWA just over a year ago, I knew that aside from my official VSO placement roles, I wanted to assist local people who were enthusiastic and dedicated about setting-up a community project to help them,” Alan said.

With help from friends

Alan’s opportunity presented itself in the Mshomoroni area of Mombasa. His friendship with local business woman Miriam Daniealla Ososo and local radio IT technician, Fred Mulama has led to the development of a project that allows 40 children  – aged between 4-13 years – to access informal schooling. This is the first time the children have had any form of schooling.

Alan, Mulama and Ososo’s story is simple yet speaks volumes for what individuals can spark toward development in their community. Fred Mulama, explains how the project started:

“Having completed an IT course in 2003, I found myself jobless and decided to use the veranda space directly outside my father’s house in Kadongo area as a soccer screening area. Here, I would charge a small fee to people in exchange for viewing of soccer matches and TV shows”, Mulama said.

At the same time Mulama was volunteering at a local orphanage helping with teaching the children and other activities. While he was travelling across town every week to help the children in the orphanage, Mulama realised the plight of very disadvantaged children in his own community of Kadongo. Mulama’s work experience in the orphanage gave him the confidence to help the children in Kadongo who idled around all day and did not go to school.

Getting the poorest children to school

Mulama learned that there were a number of reasons why the children did not go to school. This ranged from children who were carers for their elderly grandparents who would miss out on going to school or children who were from homes where the sole caretakers were alcoholics and/or drug users who ended up not enrolling their children in school. Another reason why the children did not go to school was because their parents could not afford the books, uniforms and transport.

“When I realised how desperately the children in my area needed a school, had a meeting with Alan and Ososo in September 2008. Here, Ososo and I discussed that we wanted to get the children off the streets of Kadongo, Mshomoroni, get the them some basic education and provide them with at least one meal a day. We asked Alan for his advice on how to set-up such a project and how to access funding,” Mulama explained.

Alan told them that they would first need to prove to that they were willing and able to start-up the project themselves. So in November 2008, Ososo and Mulama selected the poorest children from the area and set up a school project. Mulama converted his outdoor screening area (roughly 20x10 feet with an earth floor and patches of metal sheeting and plastic patches for a roof) into an informal classroom for the unschooled children. Soon Coyne got involved and started helping the teaching and financial contributions.

Keeping the children busy

Alan and team divided the area into two classrooms: the first for children ages 3-7 years and the other for children ages 8-13 years. There are two teachers (one trained) to teach the children from 8.00am to 12.30pm every day. The children are learning basic reading and writing skills as well as basic mathematics along with having the opportunity to interact and play in a safe environment. Best of all, the four hours at the school’ ensure that they are not subjected to child labour or time wasted idling.

After lessons, Mulama’s sister provides lunch (a porridge meal) for the children, which for some may be the only meal they have in a day. One member of staff, Josephine Thweba, is a former food kiosk waitress who now teaches the younger group of children at the school:

“I like to be with children and when Mulama approached me about teaching I jumped at the opportunity even though I knew it would be a challenge since not have formal training in teaching. I see a better future for the children and for myself and I find teaching the children very fulfilling,” said Thweba.

Josephine plans to save and go back to school to complete her high school education and train to be a professional teacher.

Coyne, Mulama and Ososo personally pay for the school meals as well as books, stationary and staff salaries. The school occasionally receives support from Alan’s relatives in Ireland and Mulama’s relatives in Belgium who have set up a group to fund the running costs of the project.

Hope Orphan School

The story does not end here; in fact, Coyne and his friends were only giving me a taste of better things in store for the children. The trio used their networks, persistence and sheer will to establish a proper school for the children of Kadongo. The team has registered their project as a youth organisation with the Department of Social and Gender Affairs with the official name, Hope Orphan School. (Some of the children from single parent families are even worse off than some of the orphans.)

With support of Alan’s friends in Ireland (Seamus Lynott and the National Irish Bank), the team have constructed a new school approximately two kilometres from the current school in Kadongo. The new facility has an office, a storage room, a large classroom (with room dividers that allows for the conversion into three classrooms) and toilet facilities. It cost Ksh 907, 000(US$12,220) to construct the school; Ksh 380,000 (US$5,120) to purchase the land Alan and the team plan to move the children to the new centre before December 2009.

On reflection

I’m learning that VSO volunteers are not only sharing their skills to make a difference at their ‘real’ placements but are going over and above the call of duty to bring about positive change in local communities via their wider interactions with needs and opportunities around them. 

Mulama and Ososo are an example of local, responsible citizens who are using their available yet meager resources and determination to better their communities – real community development in action.

I look forward to going back to Kadongo to witness the progress in what I believe will be a great change in the community and especially in the lives of our future Kenyan leaders.

A taste of Africa leads to a sabbatical with VSO

I went to Ghana a few summers back with Girlguiding Scotland. I loved every minute of it and decided that I wanted more. One of my friends had recently applied for VSO and told me all about it. I sent away for an application and eventually filled it in about three months later. My school and council were great; my head teacher told me to go for it. It was agreed that I could take 19 months’ leave and return to my school after my placement.

Adapting to life in Malawi

Upon arriving in Malawi we were given a week’s intensive training by VSO. This included language training, although I didn’t really need to learn the local language as I was mainly speaking in English. I stayed with another volunteer for my first few weeks, which was great as she had been in the country for nine months – she really showed me the ropes and helped me out with the culture. The people I worked with were also fab and helped me get into the swing of things.  

Malawi is a really beautiful place and the people are so warm and friendly. I loved the relaxed lifestyle and the fact that people and families come before work. So many people have such difficult lives and money and food are always constant challenges, yet they would have given me the food from their own plate (and often did). They really made me feel welcome.

Improving the quality of education

My job title in Malawi was Continuing Professional Development Facilitator. I was mainly working with primary education advisers (PEAs) – they’re in charge of the professional development of teachers in up to 18 schools in their area. I was helping the PEAs to improve their teacher development centres, which are purpose built buildings that demonstrate best practise. Teachers visit the centres to borrow books, attend training sessions and get inspiration for good teaching resources.

My role also involved designing and facilitating training sessions. These covered setting up school libraries, record keeping, producing and using teaching materials, management styles, special educational needs and subject based workshops for maths, science and language. For many attendees these participatory sessions were a totally new experience: they were used to just being talked at.

While I was there, Malawi was rolling out a new curriculum that aimed to change teaching methods, making them much more user friendly. There was a strong emphasis on participatory methods and for some teachers this was a real change, as ‘chalk and talk’ was the only method they’d ever experienced. I supported teachers and PEAs in using the new curriculum and adopting new ways of working – things like splitting children into small groups in order to make large classes more manageable. 

Challenges

I was based in Rumphi, with is in the north of Malawi and I was also covering the districts for Mzimba North and Mzimba South – a pretty big area! I was travelling long distances on my motorbike initially and then by car – not easy in the rainy season with mud, mud and more mud!

Dealing with time management could be very challenging. I’d turn up at a meeting and have to wait for two hours before others came along to join me. But I did learn pretty quickly to deal with it and even find it a bonus if the meeting started only 30 minutes late!

Caroline’s impact

I feel that I did make an impact, especially to the people that I worked more closely with. I worked hard to encourage the schools and advisers to learn from each other and to exchange ideas instead of going it alone. For some this was a really difficult thing to do and it took time to get them to share their ideas, but in the end they all saw the benefits of it. I think that modelling behaviour – or acting as I would do anyway – gave people a positive role model to follow. I received lots of little comments on my good time keeping skills, my ability to admit to being wrong and to ask for help when I needed it – all things that are rare among people in rural Malawi.

I’m sure that my own skills have developed more than those of the people I was working with and I’ve learnt more from the whole experience then they have from me. My skills in facilitating have improved with all of the training that I conducted and I have learnt to work more as a team player (which I actually found quite difficult before). 

Coming home

Since returning home I’ve been lucky enough to go back into my previous job. I’ve been busy linking our school with one in Malawi and have sent lots of letters and video clips back and forth. The school I’m working in is keen to develop our international global education, which the children have been really enjoying and benefiting from.

I would definitely recommend volunteering – you gain so much and get to meet so many diverse, wonderful people. It really is a life changing experience.

NomFundo's story  

At 15 NomFundo has already had to fight hard for her education. She says, “I was born in Durban; my mother was a prostitute and couldn’t afford to take me to school. She started bringing her clients home to work in the one room we had, where I would have to sleep”.  Luckily, one of her mothers friends decided this was no life for NomFundo and she was re-housed at children’s shelter, The House, Johannesburg at the age of 12. Here she could attend school and passed her national education exams in 2006.

Moving forward with SCORE

This fresh start was strengthened by the work of VSO volunteer, Clare Barrell and local partner SCORE. SCORE work across the whole of South Africa helping to change lives through sport. Their aim is to get everyone, especially women and girls, taking part in sport and having the opportunity to access counselling and care.

NomFundo explains, “Clare came and introduced SCORE to us, and bought along coach Mike, who began to teach us how to play football”. She explains further, “when I first arrived I didn’t like to join in, but thanks to SCORE and Mike, I made friends and most importantly could talk to someone about my past”. 

Coach Mike Soke, 52, is one for twenty ex-professional football players from SCORE’s Soccer Legends project who deliver football training three times a week to children from shelters and schools in the Johannesburg area. The football training is supported by care and counselling, delivered by volunteers such as Clare, which focuses on life and leadership skills. 

Football for life  

Mike, was a professional footballer since he was 20 years old, and played for South Africas Orlando Pirates. After retiring in 1990, he married had a family, and retrained as an estate agent. He was motivated to come out of retirement by the offer of retraining with SCORE. He explains, “I became a community coach after training with former Dutch coach Frank Rijkaart and SCORE, I am now a qualified community coach, working with children from the disadvantaged Hillbrow area. Its great to see them enjoy football and give them hope”.

NomFundos bright future

NomFundo is also looking to her own future as she is now a care worker at The House, taking girls just like her to school, helping them with homework and trying to reunite troubled families similar to hers to talk through their problems. 

She is proud that SCORE can help girls like her at The Shelter, “before the girls would just lie and lash out when asked about the past, but now we can discover the truth and help these girls”.

NomFundo is still trying to reconcile her own past, but insists on looking to the future and says that her wish is that, “I can move forward and be free, the past shouldn’t hold me back”.

What made you want to volunteer with VSO?

I got involved with VSO because I am deaf, and I have always felt lucky growing up as a deaf person in the UK. My parents and my teachers always had high expectations of me – they gave me support and told me that I could achieve anything I wanted. Then, in 2006, I heard the president of the World Federation of the Deaf give a presentation about how different life is for deaf people in developing countries. Less than 20 per cent of deaf children go to school and abuse is much more common. I was really shocked by that. So I had this strong desire to work with deaf people in another country and share my skills and knowledge.

What were you doing before?

I was working as a campaigns officer for RNID which is an organisation that works for deaf and hard of hearing people. We were campaigning to raise awareness of the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people, and we were also lobbying the government about the treatment of veterans who have lost their hearing as part of their time in service.

What has the situation been for deaf people in Indonesia?

There is a lot of discrimination. Hearing people barely have any expectations of them at all. If they are lucky enough to go to school they won’t learn very much, and they then don’t get choices in terms of what they can do for a living. I think I’m right in saying that over 90 per cent of disabled children don’t go to school, whereas over 90 per cent of non-disabled children do go to school, so there’s a huge gap there.

Tell us about the organisations you worked with?

I was working mainly with two deaf organisations, both of them on the island of Java. One was Matahariku, which means ‘My Sunshine’, and the other is called Gerkatin Solo, which was our local branch of the National Deaf Association. They were both small organisations that didn’t have an office.

What were the main objectives of your placement?

My role was to help make them stronger. This involved helping them to communicate with the hearing people they were working with. They both relied on a number of NGOs and INGOs, and I would meet with them and help to explain what their plans were. I would also give them a lot of information and materials from other countries to give them ideas and to help them work out where they wanted to be, and then help them make the steps to get there. On top of that there were lots of practical things like IT and how to make minutes for meetings. Or how to explain about discrimination to Deaf people who didn’t know what it was. I did all kinds of things!

What challenges did you face?

In the Indonesian culture things did not necessarily go as I would have expected them to! For example people would turn up to meetings two or three hours late, and once they had arrived trying to get everyone to focus and take part in the main activity could be hard, so I had to think of creative ways of getting people’s attention and explaining things in interesting ways.

What was your greatest achievement?

I think making my friends and colleagues aware that they didn’t have to just go along with what hearing people told them to do, and that they had the right to use their own sign language and to communicate in the way that they wanted to.

How has the experience changed you?

I’m still working out how it’s affected me, and I think that will continue for a while. The biggest thing is that now I’ve had that personal link with Indonesia I don’t want to let go of that. So in effect the direction of my life has changed now.

So what are you doing now?

I’ve decided I want to do something that will build upon the experiences and memories I have from Indonesia. I want to continue to aid the development of deaf people there, so I’m going to do a research degree which will look at the sign languages that I used in Indonesia. Hopefully that will increase the amount of information we have about the sign language that deaf people use there, and that will create a viable alternative that can be used for educating children in Java and maybe in other regions in Indonesia as well.

A typical Lagos traffic jam. Six lanes of traffic where there should be three. Chokingly thick exhaust fumes. Dozens of damfus – decrepit yellow VW buses – jostling for space, full to bursting with commuters. Hawkers weaving their way around the vehicles, selling anything from newspapers to phone cards to toilet seats. Armed SUV after armed SUV, sirens blaring, accompanying anonymous politicians to important meetings.

Amid the chaos of the daily jam sits an intriguing blue van. ‘I am proud to be a LADY MECHANIC’ is emblazoned on its side, accompanied by images of women in blue t-shirts bent over the bonnet of a truck. The van promises ‘FREE TRAINING WITH MONTHLY SALARY!’. Two phone numbers and an email address encourage people to find out more.

Madam Sandra had a dream…

This is the van of The Lady Mechanic Initiative, a ground breaking non-governmental organisation that is challenging gender stereotypes across Nigeria. Its founder – and driver of the van – is the charismatic Madam Sandra, who as a child was told in a dream that she should become a mechanic.

Undeterred by those who doubted her, Sandra started her training aged 14. Twenty years on she has inspired dozens of girls to follow in her footsteps and is famous all over the country. Another 40 Lady Mechanics are set to graduate this summer.

In the van’s passenger seat is Russell McKeown, a VSO volunteer who is spending two years sharing his skills and expertise with Madam Sandra and the Lady Mechanic Initiative.  Originally from Lancashire, Russell is drawing on over 25 years’ experience in engineering and business to train the girls and help develop the organisation further.  

The Lady Mechanics and VSO working together

Russell’s official job title is ‘Automobile Mechanical Trainer’ but he uses that loosely because his role encompasses so much more.

‘As well as lecturing in mechanics and taking the girls into the garages to reinforce what they’ve learnt on the academic side, I’m chief letter writer, I fundraise, I meet with government officials, I offer general support on running the business,’ explains Russell. ‘I’m a qualified mechanical engineer but I’ve also got a business degree, so it has been really fulfilling to use such a diverse range of skills.’ 

The most rewarding part of Russell’s work is seeing the girls in the garages, accepted by the men they’re working alongside. In a male dominated profession and in a country where there is great pressure for women to stay at home and have children, the Lady Mechanics are an inspiration.

Life-changing support for the most vulnerable

Many of Madam Sandra’s mechanics are – or were - among the most vulnerable girls and women in Nigeria: street children, ex convicts, widows, commercial sex workers.

‘Recruitment is done on the back of a truck going round Lagos with a loudspeaker so that we can reach a really diverse range of people,’ says Russell. ‘The training isn’t just about mechanics; it’s about life skills. The girls become so much more confident.’

Three years of free training and apprenticeships lead to good jobs and a much brighter future for these vulnerable girls and women. Society benefits too. ‘The Lady Mechanic Initiative is very successful in terms of how it’s giving back to society,’ says Russell. ‘Girls are earning a decent salary so of course that affects their families and the local community.’

The Lady Mechanic Initiative in demand

Back in the traffic jam, the intriguing blue van is attracting lots of attention. Hawkers, pedestrians and drivers who’ve abandoned their cars clamour round it, firing questions at Sandra and Russell. ‘I want my daughter to become a Lady Mechanic! How do I sign her up?’ 

Their queries answered, they return to their places in the traffic jam. Already futures are looking up for another generation of Nigerian girls.

Could you tell us about what SCORE does in South Africa?

SCORE works across the whole of South Africa helping to change lives through sport. We aim to get everyone in vulnerable communities, especially women and girls, taking part in sport. SCORE runs a huge range of activities, from the highly successful Soccer Legends programme, where retired coaches teach kids football at shelters, to volunteers like myself going into schools and providing counselling and care. I also manage SCORE’s other volunteers from around the world in the 44 communities we run programmes in.

What is an average day like for you as a VSO volunteer?

An average day is crazy; I don’t think my feet have touched the ground since I have been here! It’s hard work, but it is incredibly inspiring. One highlight has been our 2009 World Aids Day celebration in Johannesburg. I managed the event and over 800 disadvantaged kids from the Hillbrow district came together to play football and train with the South African national team coach, they also took part in performances, workshops and had a great day outside Hillbrow. 

How did you come to be involved with VSO?

I had known about VSO for years, but I always thought I was a bit young to do it. I was lucky because I came across the placement first. Because it dealt with sport it looked really up my street after I studied sport at University, plus I had been to South Africa before, working for a small NGO so it felt right. When I was accepted it was fantastic because I knew it was all leading up to this placement.

What do you love about South Africa and what were your first impressions of the country?

I have been here for around two years now, when I arrived my knowledge was a bit idealistic. I remember getting out of the taxi where I was staying and not knowing if I could even walk in the street. Then two days later I was in a rural community in the Limpopo Province, were chickens were being slaughtered in the yard and there was no running water – there was no time for a culture shock. Initially everything was crazy, the noises, the colour, but now it is very much part of my life, I don’t know what it will be like to go home to quiet Hertfordshire.

What advice would you give to other young people considering volunteering?

I think young people don’t just want to go travelling for the sake of travelling, and for me it was always about doing something that I felt was worthwhile. I did not want to be involved with anything where I was paying for the privilege of volunteering. VSO represents the proper way to go into communities; it has the right links in countries and works with people that are known for doing a good job. If you want to work for something that is really sustainable then VSO is the way to do it, if you just want to party all the time, then it is absolutely not. It is hard work, but you’re motivated by other people, that has been truly special, no one can take that away.

I enjoy teaching because you help people to discover life and things they can do. Society is about people who can be productive in the system so the opportunity to handle lives at the basic level and help them to discover their talents is rewarding for me. I am always trying to find new things and new skills that will help me in my teaching profession so that I can make an impact on the lives I handle.

Developing teaching skills

The presence of VSO volunteers has opened up a number of things to me. They have really helped me understand more about how to teach. If you are the teacher it is very important that you understand what you are teaching. If you don’t then how can you help your pupils? 

In Ghana it is compulsory to teach ICT, but schools are not provided with computers. Without the actual machine I may as well be talking in space. But three VSO volunteers had helped set up the Teacher Resource Centre in Lawra, which includes many resources, books and games a computer room. My school is very close to the Teacher Resource Centre, so I took the opportunity to talk to the VSO volunteers and learn about the computers. 

Now I bring students for their practical classes on the machines. I know that the more they interact with the machines the more they will discover things for themselves and then their learning will stay with them. When I have my pupils score high it makes me feel the work that I do has great impact and it excites me, and when I see pupils that are doing well I try to use that to motivate other children.

Developing leadership skills

Last year VSO volunteers organised leadership workshops. I learnt how, as a leader, you should interact with your colleagues and students and relate to them and bring out the best in them. This year the school decided to make me a form teacher. Immediately I told my students: ‘If you are ready to go with the ideas I have, I am more than willing to go beyond what is expected of me.’ 

So this year I started running after school clubs with them. Most days I sit back after school and wait for them to go home to do their chores and then come back again. Most of my form has joined this after school class. We come to the Teacher Resource Centre after school every Thursday and I prepare games and exercises for them. Because of this, we are having an open day and my pupils and I will be a model for other teachers that I coming so that they can see that the resource centre will be of great help in their teaching.

Motivating girls

With girls I have been designing a system that will help them with their studying. For many of them when they get home or to their villages they are engaged in household chores, but when they have finished their chores the light is gone and there is no electricity. So I help them design how to study, by recommending they talk to their parents to help them to understand the value of education and request that they schedule chores differently or share them with other siblings so that they have time to study. One of these girls has gone on to further study.

VSO volunteers have been very supportive in a number of areas, from policy to implementation. They act as a prompt for the people that are responsible and see that what needs to get done gets done. If VSO continues and all others involved in education also work hard there will be ripple effects that will positively affect our society.

What did you do before volunteering with VSO?

Most of my working life has been in the Third Sector, in community development and regeneration. About three and a half years ago I gave up my full-time job as director of a locally based regeneration organisation in Leeds because I wanted to do more hands-on work that interested me. Volunteering abroad was always at the back of my mind. I had worked in Ghana in my 20s, and I went back in 2006 to see if I could cope with life there and found that I still loved it. But you have to wait for the right moment!

What made you decide it was the right moment?

I knew that I was not ready to put my feet up – I still wanted a bit of adventure and challenge. I wanted to give back something to Africa because working in Ghana had given me so much – and at least now I had experience of developing projects and managing organisations to contribute. Filling in the VSO application forms and going to the assessment day felt like big steps, as I knew I would find it hard to leave my grandchildren if I was accepted.

What were your expectations of Ethiopia?

I did not have any very clear expectations of Ethiopia. Like anyone who watched TV in the mid-1980s, I had seen the shocking images of the famine, so I was surprised at how green Southern Ethiopia, where I work, can be. I am disturbed by the poverty – the number of children who sleep on the streets, who are hungry and have no one caring for them. I am also humbled by committed Ethiopians, particularly young people, who search for practical solutions to these problems.

Explain a little about the organisation you work with.

The SHAFON (Southern Nationalities Nations and People’s Region HIV and AIDS Forum of NGOs) is a small NGO with more than 75 member organisations, including associations of people living with HIV and AIDs, youth associations, faith-based and community-based organisations, development associations and international NGOs. SHAFON’s role is to help build capacity in member organisations, to aid communication among them and between NGOs and Government bodies, and to assist with networking and partnership formation.

What is your role?

My title is Fundraising Adviser and I have helped with developing funding proposals and lots of other things as well. I have visited member organisations in different parts of the region, helped develop a directory of member organisations, organised training, written guidelines on monitoring and evaluation, written and edited articles for the quarterly newsletter and website, taken part in experience-sharing trips, drafted and analysed questionnaires… and so it goes on! No two days are ever the same!
 

What do you feel is your greatest achievement?

I have helped the SHAFON to get resources for more staff to support member organisations – which is where the important work takes place. Some people tell me that just being interested in their work and supportive of them and their users makes a difference to their morale and motivation, and I have helped some small organisations access some additional funding. One example is Fiker Behiwot, which is the only association of orphaned young people and children in Ethiopia, and was set up by seven 17 years-olds – all orphans themselves. The founding members, now aged 22, form the management committee and undertake most of the work. Their participation in the SHAFON has given them a higher profile, introduced them to other organisations and possible funding sources, and helped them access training.

Would you recommend volunteering to others?

I recognise that volunteering in a developing country is not for everyone and it is important to acknowledge that there are challenges – we all miss family and friends, have to adjust to new ways of doing things and do not achieve all that we would like to! In spite of the challenges, it has definitely been an enriching experience for me. I have learned and am learning so much and feel very privileged to work alongside Ethiopian colleagues, and to have been welcomed into people’s lives and homes. It has also been stimulating to be part of the volunteer community, with people of different experiences, ages and countries of origin. I’m sure that some friendships made here with Ethiopians and with volunteers will last for the rest of my life.
 

Growing up in South Africa

Children growing up in informal settlements face challenges everyday, often without parents, food on the table and surrounded by the encroaching threat of crime, drugs, drink and unsolicited sex. It takes a lot for children to make it to school everyday, let alone to enjoy the experience. 

One young girl growing up in this world is Nonhlanhla Motjebela, aged 13 and her two siblings, Comfort, 6 and Matema, 11. They live with their mother and aunt in a one-bedroom shack in the heart of Atteridgeville, Pretoria. Their mother is HIV positive and battling with the dire impact of untreated TB, she cannot work and the family are struggling to survive on the good will of neighbours. 

Children on the Move

Local organisation Children on the Move was founded in 2000 to help children like Nonhlanhla. They run a successful drop-in centre in Atteridgeville, where around 300 children can grow as young people, feel cared for and make the most of a wealth of opportunities such as; free meals, informal lessons, help with homework, social service visits and health advice.

The success of Children on the Move has been supported by VSO volunteer Mary Njuguna. Mary has helped to strengthen the flourishing organisation to ensure more children can attend. Children on the Move director, Dan Lephoko said, “The help of VSO and Mary has been tremendous. She has raised funds, trained staff and assists with small grants in the community.” Mary’s work led to the funding of the centre’s very first container. A humble looking corrugated container, normally associated with haulage, is now a popular community centre for early childhood development always in use by the community.

A home from home

Nonhlanhla and her siblings were referred to the centre last year, and now they are finally able to be children again. At home she still cleans, cooks and looks after her siblings, but thanks to Mary and Children on the Move, negotiations with her school means that she now goes to school for free, and at the centre she looks forward to a nutritious packed lunch and a hot dinner. What she likes best about the centre are the lessons and she now plays the guitar. She explained, “I have lots of friends at the centre, I come here everyday, to get lunch and to have fun. When I come here I am livelier, happier and my school work is better because I can eat and get support, with the centre there is always somewhere to go”.

A summer of football

With such progress, Children on the Move director, Dan Lephoko, says he is concerned by the uninvited challenges the World Cup may bring. However, he explained steps are being taken to ensure children and guardians know of the potential dangers which may become more pervasive across the townships.

For Nonhlanhla, she is looking forward to the summer of football, but more importantly cannot wait to see where her education can take her. She enthuses, “my favourite subject is English, but I want to be a scientist, but I not sure what kind yet!” She is sure of one thing - finding out what kind of career she could have is going to be an exciting journey.  

“You will work for many years in your career – make two of them memorable.”

The career advice in the ad by the volunteer agency CUSO-VSO struck a chord with Dr. Ilona Hale, a family doctor from Kimberley, British Columbia. “I remember that ad convincing me. Just put that in perspective - when you think you are going to work for thirty or forty, what’s two years?” 

In 2007, along with her husband and two small children, she transplanted herself from a routine family practice in Canada to the busy Ntcheu District Hospital, two hours south of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. Following a “very steep learning curve in tropical medicine,” Dr. Hale found herself the only doctor at the 250 bed hospital (with 300 - 400 patients) that served a population of over half a million.

The routine became anything but, ranging from delivering a breeched baby to rushing to an accident scene to treat several trauma victims from the tragedy. “Every day could move from exhilarating to exasperating to exciting to exhausting,” says Hale.

Confronting an urgent need

She came face to face with heartbreaking statistics. “The number of children dying in Africa from malaria each day amounts to the equivalent of seven Boeing 747s packed with children crashing - every day,” emphasizes Hale, her voice conveying a sense of responsibility and urgency.  “Every single day that goes by that we sit here and don’t do anything, that’s a whole lot of kids that are lost.”

Hale despairs that completely treatable conditions such as diarrhea and malnutrition have wiped out so many young lives.  One million children die from malaria a year in Africa. According to the World Health Organization, acute diarrhea caused 16 percent of the deaths of children under the age of five in Africa between 2000 and 2003 and pneumonia was responsible for 21 per cent.

These staggering statistics just made her work harder.

“It just made me want to work more and encourage more people to learn about how these things… are really preventable in a lot of cases. There is a lot of good work happening in Malawi in the area of prevention and education, but it’s just not enough and it’s just not fast enough,” says Hale.

Preventative medicine saves lives

Besides working as a clinician, Hale focused on a number of prevention measures at the hospital that have resulted in saved lives. She worked with hospital staff to ensure all patients in the hospital were tested for HIV.

“If you know a pregnant woman is HIV positive, you can do something for her child,” says Hale.  Her hunch was right: five to ten percent of patients tested positive.

She focused on improving newborn care, having witnessed a number of preventable deaths. She realized that babies who were born not breathing were assumed to be already dead. She taught staff gentle resuscitation methods using gentle pumping and heart massage.

Ilona conducted workshops on “kangaroo care” - a method of keeping newborns warm and healthy in the absence of incubators.“ The nurses were all really keen, they all heard of it, but they didn’t know how to do it and they didn’t have access to the more up-to-date literature on how to implement it,” says Hale.

She collaborated with an American gynecologist working in Malawi to develop a cervical cancer clinic, an initiative the hospital had wanted to set up for many years. The screening program has detected a shocking a 10 percent occurrence rate and as a result, women are getting the early treatment they need to beat the odds.

She saw firsthand how sharing knowledge and encouraging access to information could make all the difference. She secured a number of books to start a resource library at the hospital, and encouraged clinical officers to use the reference guides.“ They have never had access to texts where they can look up questions or diagnosis or dosages.”

Just one volunteer can have an impact

VSO’s International Programs Director Richard Hawkes, visited Ntcheu Hospital during Hale’s work term and saw how her efforts created sustainable change.

“Ilona was without doubt one of the best volunteers I have ever met. She was passionate about her work and really thoughtful about what she could achieve and how she had been able to pass on skills and information.”

Hale has returned to Canada, and in retrospect, she says the ad promising a memorable two years summed up perfectly.

“You can plod along in your life in one place for so long,” says Hale. “But doing something different with your career brings so much richness and depth and meaning to your life. I often wonder why everybody isn’t doing it.”

You can also listen to a podcast interview with Dr. Hale.

Motivation to volunteer

I’m a doctor trained in paediatrics and was working in Bristol, in the UK, for a few years before volunteering in Malawi. One of my big motivations in applying to VSO was that there are 10 million children in the world die each year under five and many of those live in poor countries. 

I really wanted to be a part of helping some of those children and be involved in training people who are going to be involved in helping those children. When I was thinking about applying, my own skill development wasn’t really my primary motivation but it certainly is a fantastic positive impact and by-product of going to work. 

The volunteer experience

I was working and teaching at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, the only teaching hospital of the country. There were about 15 doctors in the paediatric department involved in clinical work and teaching and one or two nurses for every 100-150 patients.

The lack of human resources was the biggest challenge. When I was in situations where I was faced with a very sick child in the UK, I would call for help and suddenly a team of 20 people would appear but that didn’t happen in Malawi. But one of the big motivations for me was the fact that although we saw many sick children and many children dying, there were many children who got better and were transformed back into normal bubbly children. 

Training future doctors

I was involved in organising and running the fifth year medical students’ teaching. While I there we went from having 24 students in a year to 44, so there are big improvements. The training side of my role was challenging because I was in situations doing things that I didn’t have that much experience of doing in the UK. Being in charge of paediatric teaching is something I don’t expect I shall be doing in the UK for some years to come. 

I was in Malawi for just over a year, and there are already people that I am teaching working as doctors. There are another 40 students who I’ve been involved in teaching who are going to be doctors within six months, so even though I’ve left the country the impact of the work that I’ve been doing is going to continue.

Developing clinical skills

If someone said to me that my time out in Malawi had been a waste of time I’d say to them “that’s complete rubbish”.  There are so many of my existing skills that were called upon and developed whilst in Malawi and I think my experience will contribute enormously to my work in the future in the UK.

I’ve been involved in all the sorts of things that from a medical point of view here, can boost up my CV. I’ve been involved in an enormous amount of teaching, I’ve been involved in research, I’ve had a huge amount of clinical exposure which someone who just stayed in the UK would never hope to achieve.

Increased morale

I think there’s a lot of dissatisfaction in the UK with the NHS.  Having worked somewhere like Malawi you appreciate so much more the resources that are available in this country, and will make you want to use them efficiently and better for the patients here.

I’d say to a doctor who’s considering applying to ‘go for it’. You may be worried that it has a negative impact on your career but it won’t. If you’re involved in some of the things that I was, that’s only going to have a positive impact on your career in the future.

Impact

• Olly shared skills with over 60 trainee doctors

• Volunteering gave Olly the chance to take on more teaching responsibilities than he would in the UK – great for his CV

• Volunteering has changed Olly’s perspective of health care in the UK
  

Why VSO?

My dad was a VSO volunteer back in the 1960s when it first started and I've often thought about doing it myself, both to help others and for the personal experience. Then, after going along to a VSO health information day, I had one of those dawning moments. I was walking home from my job as a matron in the emergency department of a London hospital. It was cold and grey and I felt like I was walking on a hamsters’ wheel and if I didn't do something about it, this was going to be my life. It took another 18 months for me to get my mind in the right place to get on that plane.

And since you got on that plane?

For the majority of my time here I've really enjoyed it. Sierra Leone is a great place, the people are fantastic. But it's not been easy by any stretch of the imagination. Day to day living can be hard, there are issues with water and electricity. I had a rat living in my house. And I had typhoid, which isn't the most pleasant illness I've ever had. But getting to know a culture in more depth than a two-week holiday allows is a fantastic experience. Just walking down the street is like a sensory overload. Everything is so colourful, rich and vibrant.

So what about your placement?

I work at the Faculty of Nursing in central Freetown, which is part of the University of Sierra Leone. I've taken on a number of different tasks, from teaching BSc nursing students to helping administration staff set up filing systems. But my greatest achievement has been helping to establish a new course in nursing education.

Tell us more.

Before you can have qualified nurses, you need people who are qualified to train them.  When I arrived, all student nurse educators were sent to Nigeria to train but the NGO funding the training wanted the University to provide the course in Freetown. So we held a workshop to develop a curriculum pertinent to Sierra Leone. It took a lot of work, not only to write it, but also to get the course through the various committees, deans and university hierarchy for approval. We did it though. The course is up and running and Sierra Leoneans can now study for a diploma in nursing education in Freetown.

What difference will the new course make?

I hope it will make a huge difference in the long term. The university can now train more than 10 nurse educators in Freetown for the same price as sending four students to Nigeria, making it more cost effective. It will also improve nurse training. There can be as many as 120 students per tutor on nursing courses. With more trained tutors, class sizes will reduce giving students a better quality of teaching. It's a major achievement for the country.

What challenges have you faced?

It has been hard. Being a VSO volunteer is about capacity building and taking people with you. There have been moments when I have felt like saying 'give me that and I'll do it' but that doesn't achieve anything and you have to hold back. Instead, I've pushed and dragged and pulled people along with me, and as a team, we've accomplished something significant.

How has your experience changed you?

I come from a working environment that is very focussed on targets and time. But that doesn't work here, and if you try to work in that way you achieve less. Instead I've had to learn a lot about being flexible and staying calm, particularly in situations beyond my control. If you're not, you'll go crazy.

On a more practical side, I've been able to develop my skills in a way I would never have been able to at home. Working in a different culture forces you to adapt and find new ways to communicate and teach to enable understanding on both sides.

What advice would you offer anyone who is considering becoming a VSO volunteer?

Being a VSO volunteer is not just about you sharing your skills, it's also about you having an experience so you have to be totally honest about your reasons for doing it and what you want to get out of it. And lower your expectations on what you hope to achieve - don't think you are going to change the world, because you won't. As they say in Sierra Leone, 'small small'.

At Thmey Health Centre in Kratie District, Cambodia, Suzanna has a captive audience. She holds two photographs aloft: the first features a toddler in nappies, the second a university graduate in his mortarboard and gown. 

‘This is my son,’ Suzanna tells the crowd. ‘He was breastfed for six months – just like we tell you to do. Now he is a healthy 28-year-old man!’

The 25 women sitting in front of Suzanna laugh to each other and strain to see the pictures. The only male in attendance looks slightly bemused. Their wives do breastfeed, but they often start quite late and they often substitute breast milk for rice water.

The realities of rural Cambodia

Thmey Health Centre is some six kilometres from the nearest paved road. In the dry season the track to the centre is a dusty, bumpy ride. In the rainy season it’s practically impassable.   Susanna and her colleagues Leang and Sony have travelled there for one of a series of 12 health education meetings funded by VSO.

Many local people from this very rural part of Cambodia are fishers or farmers scraping together a living. They’re trying to get by on less than two dollars a day. They are poorly educated and aren’t equipped with the basic health knowledge that we in the UK take for granted. They haven’t been told that smoking is bad for you, that you should wash your hands after using the toilet, that you should go to see the doctor if you’re sick.

That’s why these health education meetings are so vital. They cover topics such as basic hygiene and healthy living practises, the importance of accessing health facilities during pregnancy and the effects of smoking.

Nutrition brought to life

Suzanna brings her breastfeeding talk to a close and turns to nutrition. She produces a cooking pot and passes photos of cheap, locally available meat and vegetables around the group.

‘Can you tell me which food I should use to cook a dinner that will help me get iron, folic acid and lots of other nutrients?’ Suzanna asks. The women compare photos and place them in Suzanna’s pot, ready for a nutritious fictitious dinner.

Bringing issues to life like this is the best way to engage people and to get the message across in a way that is interesting and memorable. Suzanna is a dab hand at this: back in the UK she was a doctor with many years of experience in medical education.

Sharing skills with Cambodian colleagues

Here in Cambodia, Suzanna’s job title is Behaviour Change Communication Adviser. She is training Leang and Sony in health education and participatory techniques so that they’ll be able to continue running the health education meetings when she returns to the UK. 

Leang is keen to adopt Suzanna’s style of teaching: ‘Suzanna has some good techniques for teaching people about health,’ she says. ‘Her methods show people what she means and help people to understand the subject better.’

Health education for hundreds

Thanks to meetings led by Leang, Sony and Suzanna, up to 350 women will receive basic health education. We may call it basic, but it has the potential to save lives. If a small boy washes his hands after going to the toilet, for example, he’s got a significantly reduced chance of getting diarrhoea, a disease that kills 1.5 million children every year.

Suzanna is realistic but upbeat about what she can achieve in her time in Cambodia: ‘If only two of the people we meet today go home and do something differently or say something to their families about what they’ve learnt, then we are achieving something.’

Susan on why the time was right to volunteer

Lots of things fell into place for me. There was a change of head teacher, I was divorced and both my sons had left home. Fortunately I was mortgage free, so I didn't have the worry of a mortgage commitment while I was out of the country. I lived in a four-bedroom house which I shared with two cats and I was starting to think "is this it?” I had always promised myself that I would like to try and work abroad between the ages of 50 and 55. So really I had nothing to stop me.

On life in Malawi

I shared a house in a rural town called Ntchisi. My housemate was a colleague and now friend Helen, another volunteer. So any adaptations or trials were shared, which was a great help. The local people were very friendly and were very interested in us. This was sometimes difficult to escape from, but it also gave me a welcome opportunity to reflect on what life is like as a minority.

My favourite things about Malawi were the people I worked with and the country itself. It has such vast landscapes. I can't describe the feelings of having to ride my motorbike (yes, I learnt to ride a motorbike!) over a rise and being faced with a breathtaking view.

On sharing skills

Helen and I were Ntchisi District’s first ever VSO volunteers. We were employed as Continuing Professional Development Facilitators – in-service teacher trainers. We started with a needs analysis for each of the schools in the nine zones of the district, and then put the subjects in order of priority. Amazingly the first subject the teachers asked for help with was Music.

We ran workshops that were based on discussing what the problems were when faced with teaching a particular subject and how we could solve them. We delivered each workshop nine times and the final workshop bore little resemblance to the original one because we gradually adapted to the needs of the teachers attending. Our workshops were always great fun and we shared lots of energisers and practical ideas on locally available resources and how to make them and how to use them. People here would laugh if I took a game into school made from old biscuit boxes, but this was a luxury in Malawi. I think I learned as much from my Malawian colleagues as they did from me.

On the challenges

Often nothing worked the way I expected it to, and until I adapted this could be very frustrating. My capacity for getting things done was limited by the lack of resources, lack of local knowledge, lack of fuel, lack of money and just the lack of infrastructure. I found the best way to deal with these problems was to smile and take a deep breath. What was important to me was not necessarily important or essential to local people. Some things I’d just have to accept, even though I didn’t like it. I could indicate that there may be a different way – but who can say that our way is right?

Looking back

I enjoyed the job I was sent out to do. I hope that sharing some of my classroom skills and ideas about different ways of teaching have helped. Even if only one teacher took something away from the experience, then that is how changes start.

I would always recommend volunteering to people. I really do think that we all take for granted the fact that we can read and write. I never realised that such a basic skill was such privilege in another country.

When my husband saw the advert for VSO in The Independent it was asking for people with exactly my experience.

We looked at each other and the seed was sown. Suddenly we thought how good it would be to use the end of our careers to do something to help other people, and after attending an inspiring road show in Brighton we made our decision. 

‘Education is the way out of poverty’ is an often-heard phrase in Ethiopia.

Parents will go without many things to ensure their children get a good education. Education is free but the uniform, exercise books and pens are not. Some children don’t attend school because they can’t afford them; others will work on the streets as shoe shiners or selling chewing gum to get enough money to pay for them.

The number of children being educated has grown hugely in the last five years.

This is great for the potential of the country but it creates many problems too. Lack of classrooms means very large classes. In many schools they have half of the children attending school in the morning and the other half in the afternoon in order to cope with the numbers.

More classes creates a need for more teachers.

The need for more teachers means the need for more training colleges and universities. The number of people needed at all levels - schools, colleges and universities - means that people are doing the jobs without the desired experience and qualifications. So the quantity of those being educated is growing, but the quality of the teaching is at best standing still.

I thought that my experience and skills would quickly be put to use.

Even though in VSO training we are told again and again to be patient and not to expect too much at first, when you are actually here it’s difficult not to immediately have things to do. It is so different from my experience of the pressure in UK schools. I was frustrated and annoyed that my skills were being wasted. But two years on, I have so much work to do that I can’t complain at all. My advice to everyone who comes to Ethiopia is ‘be patient’ or as Ethiopians say, ‘cas per cas’ (little by little).

My placement is with the Ministry of Education.

Teachers are now expected to do continuous professional development (CPD) to upgrade their teaching skills. Working alongside other VSO volunteers, my role is to develop a new strategy for CPD.

Daily work includes designing documents, running training workshops and going on field visits around the country to monitor progress in schools. It’s a really varied work life and one that gives lots of opportunities for meeting people and traveling. We drink buna (delicious Ethiopian coffee) and eat bombalinos (Ethiopian doughnuts) when we feel the need!

We’ve just run a five-day workshop to launch the new strategy.

Five people from each of the 11 regions in Ethiopia attended, so the whole country was represented.
We invited six Ethiopian colleagues to run the CPD training alongside us. We divided up the sessions each day so that everyone got a fair chance to be a trainer. It was the most wonderful experience for us as we sat and watched our Ethiopian colleagues leading the training on the new strategy. It was very powerful and overwhelmingly emotional after two years of development.

Of course, this isn’t the only programme in the country improving teaching skills. But it is one that should reach all teachers and therefore all children. Ultimately all children in the country will get a better education.

I’d recommend volunteering to others 100 per cent.

Volunteering is the most amazing and humbling experience. It’s a wonderful way to finish a career in education.

I spent just over two years in Nepal with VSO nearly ten years ago.

When I returned to the UK I always had the intention of applying again and going to a different country to expand on my previous experience. I’m now coming up for retirement and I think that my new placement will provide a fantastic transition between the end of my career and the start of retirement.

I had quite a lot of mixed feelings about my first VSO experience.

I’m not sure that the placement fulfilled its potential, and I feel like now I have much more to offer. I will be going with a very different attitude and with very different expectations, and I think it will be a better experience both for Sri Lanka and for me. I’m very curious about what will happen. 

One of the things I like most about VSO is its sustainable approach to development.

Its aim is to support and strengthen projects and systems that will have a longer-lasting impact. My placement will give me the opportunity to live with local people, understand their needs and build up long lasting relationships. That’s central to VSO’s philosophy, and that’s what appeals to me so much.

My employer, the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, has established a link with VSO.

It supports its employees in taking a career break and seeing international development work as part of their career with the Trust. My colleagues now have a great opportunity to spend a year working in developing countries but also return to their jobs – although I’ve decided I’ll probably retire when I get back.

I will be taking over from a VSO volunteer who has now returned to the UK.

She initiated phase one of the project and I will be carrying out phase two, working with a team of psychiatrists, occupational therapists and a psychiatric social worker. I am definitely looking forward to working with a group of people who are working towards the same aim and I think that will provide a great source of support.

Negotiation, flexibility and sensitivity are key skills I will put into practice.

The structure of the organisation is likely to be different to ones I’m used to, and I will make sure I take that into consideration along with the limited resources available. Part of my role will involve taking transferable training skills and knowledge, but I think I will also learn from people who are already working there. There is an awful lot that can be gained from looking at how the system already operates and exists.

One of my greatest fears is ‘Can I do it?’.

I’m also nervous at learning a new language as it isn’t my forte, but I hope I will be able to learn and communicate in a way that’s going to be effective.

I’d advise anyone thinking of volunteering to head to the VSO website for more information or have a chat with a returned volunteer.

People might feel that they couldn’t possibly volunteer, but when they understand the reality it becomes a bit easier and they realise that they can adapt to it and they most definitely have something to offer.

Simon, what made you decide to do VSO?

I remember seeing a film about the work of VSO when I was at school in rural Somerset in the late 1960s and the seed was sown. The seed then took forty years to grow! Looking back now, I realise that I’ve always wanted to work as a volunteer in a developing country. There comes a point in your life when the time is right. September 2007 was that time for me.

Can you paint a picture of education in Ethiopia for people back home in the UK?

The growth of the school and Higher Education population in Ethiopia has been staggering over recent years. Across Ethiopia at the beginning and end of the school day, students from kindergarten to high schools pour in and out of classrooms. They proudly wear their school uniforms and they are highly motivated, as education is seen as the best resource in the country.

If there are so many children in school and everyone is so keen to learn, where exactly do the problems lie?

The infrastructure of buildings, resources and teachers lags well behind the enthusiasm to learn. Many of the schools have no electricity, water, desks or text books. Teacher morale is low and students sometimes have to sit on rocks in the classroom. But the greatest gift that developed countries can give the Ethiopian education system is the chance to improve. The challenges are huge both in and out of the classroom, but I can honestly say that some of the Ethiopian teachers I have supported as a volunteer stand shoulder to shoulder with the most talented, dedicated and gifted people I have worked with in the UK over more years than I care to mention!

What kind of support have you been giving to Ethiopian teachers to boost their morale?

I’ve been working with another VSO volunteer and Ethiopian colleagues at the Ministry of Education, producing the new National Framework for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for teachers. We’ve also been writing the CPD ‘Toolkit’ which is a document that gives practical guidance about how the CPD policy can be implemented in schools. I’ve been facilitating national training workshops in CPD that are attended by representatives from the eleven regions of Ethiopia. They then return to their respective regions to train other staff, who then train the head teachers. Sixty-five people attended a recent five-day workshop and left with real enthusiasm to implement CPD in their regions.

So how will that result in a better education for children in Ethiopia?

Once the new style of CPD is implemented at school level, it is hoped that Ethiopian children across the country will benefit from more skilful teachers. Hopefully, the work I have been doing will, in a small way, contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning in Ethiopian schools and ultimately raise standards of achievement.

It sounds like UK teachers can make an enormous difference to the education system in Ethiopia. Is volunteering really as rewarding as it sounds?

Volunteering has had a profound effect on the way I view education. I have a deeper appreciation of what it really means to say that the greatest gift you can give to someone is the chance to develop.  I would say to other education professionals, ‘take the risk’ and ‘go for it’! Take the opportunity to benefit from the long experience of VSO because you will be in safe and supportive hands. You will have opportunities to change the lives of other people and probably change your own life in the process. You will meet other people who share the same values as you do. It will not always be easy or straightforward or comfortable, but the ‘volunteering journey’ is well worth taking.

Why is the Cambodian health system in such a bad way?

Primarily health messages just aren’t getting through to communities, and as a result the Cambodian people’s knowledge and understanding of preventative health care is minimal. Health Centres are often built miles from the rural communities they serve, so there is a real access issue, which makes it difficult to pass on information. There is also a great problem with unlicensed pharmaceuticals being sold by untrained members of the community, and because of the shortage of staff after the war, some health centres are filled with nurses and midwives who are not sufficiently trained.

What are Cambodians’ attitudes towards healthcare?

People here are very wary of health centres. In the past they had to pay, sometimes quite a lot of money, to get help and consequently they only turn to them as a last resort. As a result, maternal and neonatal death rates are severely high. There’s a significant threat posed by television and powdered milk companies. They are encouraging mothers to abandon breastfeeding and waste what little money they have on formula milk.  I’m trying to combat these problems, and things are slowly changing. It’s vital to let Cambodians know about the services and support available to them.

Can you give any examples of the improvements you’ve made so far?

Well, I’ve worked hard to improve the use of partographs in health centres. They are really important in helping midwives monitor a woman’s labour so they can decide when it is necessary to refer women on to the hospital. I’ve also focused on setting up mothers’ classes in a few health centres around Kratie province. They help to educate mothers about breastfeeding, but also encourage patients to come back for routine care rather than simply using the centres in an emergency. 

Tell me more about how and why you’re encouraging mothers to breastfeed.

Breastfeeding at birth is an incredibly important practice as it helps keep newborn babies warm, is a source of great nutritional value, and increases the likelihood of breastfeeding later on. Unfortunately it isn’t talked about by midwives or female family members so new mums know nothing about it. However, thanks to a grant from a VSO donor, we’ve been able to buy a DVD player and DVD, which advises women of the benefits of breastfeeding and the best and most comfortable way to do so. New mothers are learning things they never knew and are putting it into practice.

Do you think that your placement has helped you develop personally?

I’ve made fantastic friends and built up really good relationships with the people I’m working with! That may not sound a lot, but I’ve come to realise that everything is dependent on relationships – if you are not trusted then your advice means nothing. I now have a whole different perspective of life and my perception of society has changed.

What do you think of VSO’s approach to tackling poverty?

I really like VSO and the fact that we’re on the ground rather than just throwing money at issues. Thanks to my placement I have a bigger idea of how things work and a better understanding of the flaws in development work! VSO remembers that money alone is not a solution to poverty, and I think that sharing skills is integral to sustainable development. As long as there are skilled people who are willing to share their experience, I believe that VSO can be extremely powerful.

“I want to help youth know that they can have dreams,” says Stephanie Stoker of St. John’s, Newfoundland, a visual artist with over ten years experience in theatre and arts education. She is volunteering with CUSO-VSO in Iquitos, a city carved out of the verdant Peruvian jungle. To get there, you must travel by plane or by boat up wild, ambling rivers.

Since she arrived, Stephanie has worked with youth in El Porvenir, one of the city’s barrios. In collaboration with the local development organization Asociación Kallpa, the 32-year-old uses art and theatre to help young adults develop life skills and get involved in the betterment of their community. Her workshop topics have included life planning, sexual health and the environment. To explore these issues, the youth have embraced performance, filmmaking and painting.

Youth ready for change

Over a third of the 700 people in the community are between the ages of 12 and 24, and many are grappling with issues of poverty and limited education. “But they’re ready for change. They want healthy communities. They want a healthy future.”

Iquitos is the largest city in Peru’s slice of the Amazon rainforest, its asphalt streets running counter to the ever-present Amazon River. The contrast between the lush jungle and the built colonial environment parallels the economic contrast of the modern city. The urban Iquiteño culture differs dramatically from the rural ribereño and indigenous cultures. “Iquitos is a gem,” says Stephanie, “filled with unique ceramics, textiles, and elegant old buildings. Yet, on the outskirts, poverty is rampant. People eke out a living in any way they can. Running water, sewage and electricity are luxuries in many barrios.”

A creative development

Through cultural workshops, art and theatre productions, Stephanie and the Asociación Kallpa are working with youth to raise awareness of their community’s needs while fostering leadership in environmental awareness.

One recent project picked up on the messy problem of garbage – there was no collection in El Porvenir. The youth united with the community planning committee and succeeded in arranging garbage collection in the barrio. They also put 10 large and beautifully painted garbage cans on the street, aiming to end the tradition of throwing trash on the ground.

“Now,” reports Stephanie, “it isn’t a rare site to see young children, youth and parents taking time to sweep up the street and deposit the garbage into cans. There are even bags for garbage to be found hanging in trees where people don’t have a trash can handy. But if you cross the thin line where another barrio starts, it would seem that the road was paved with trash.”

While this clean-up project does improve individual and broader communal health – both important ends in themselves – it is also about youth empowerment and civic spirit. In short, it is about possibility.

Art of the possible

From small projects, like painting public murals and beautifying the neighbourhood, to bigger ones, like the creation of a community centre and health education workshops, the kids involved take pride in their accomplishments. “They learn to aspire to great things,” says Stephanie. Some want to become advocates for their community…others dream big, despite their impoverished upbringing.”

“There’s one girl who has been involved for six months now. Her family is poor. They have no electricity. And she tells me she wants to be a doctor.”

That pride is leading the way in the construction of a cultural centre. “It will be a two-story building with space for workshops, dances, what have you. There will also be a library and an area for studying and doing homework. It will be used by youth and adults.”

“Every day people thank us… not for doing the work for them, but for giving them the opportunity to work themselves. But it goes both ways I’m incredibly grateful for the chance to share my skills here and to learn.”

Story update: Stephy Stoker has returned from her placement in Peru and is living in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Your first big achievement was organising a National Disability Day celebration.  Was it a success?

National Disability Day had always been really low key because my colleagues didn’t think people were interested in disability, but they wanted to raise awareness so I asked them, “why not try?”. At first they didn’t believe that they could do it but in the end, the day was bigger than we’d ever expected. 

We got 21 disability organisations involved; we had a bamboo band with hearing impaired students singing a song they’d written about promoting disability. We had five sing-sing groups (traditional dancing and drumming) and the local church choir. Even a local super-star called Kanege wanted to get involved. It was fantastic. 

How did your work change attitudes in Papua New Guinea?

People with disabilities are wrapped up in cotton wool - “we’ll do everything for you, I’ll do your shopping, you can’t possibly carry that bag.”  And that means they forget what they can do for themselves.
I wanted to get two girls who were hearing impaired on the radio, but their teachers told me, “they can’t talk on the radio - they’re deaf”. But by the end of the year the girls were on the radio - they had signed and their teachers had interpreted for them. The radio interviewer couldn’t believe it and she actually came to the conclusion herself that it’s society that makes people disabled. She realised that it’s not that the girls can’t talk on the radio, it’s a case of society not catering for them to talk on the radio. That was really powerful.

Were you also involved in work around more practical issues, such as accessibility?

Ten disabled service users and I undertook a research project, looking at the level of accessibility at 20 local organisations.  We came up with questions such as, what’s the floor like?  What’s the entrance like?  What’s the exit like? To start with people were pointing and whispering because they’d never seen people with white canes or in wheelchairs, but by the end of the project it was like “oh hi!”. One immediate outcome of the research was that Madang market had wheelchair ramps fitted.

What a great result.  Do you think the research will be used more widely?

I presented the research at the national disability conference, and the Department Of Community Development asked if they could take it to the Asia Pacific community development conference in Bangkok to demonstrate what steps Papua New Guinea are taking for people with disabilities. The research is now being taken to all the other provinces in Papua New Guinea to encourage them to make the changes that Madang province has.

Teaching is a tough job wherever you are. In Ireland we have excellent training for our student teachers and good school facilities to assist us in our daily work, but this is not necessarily the case in many countries. Kids, wherever they are, need skilled and motivated teachers to give them any chance of a good future. For those who wish to become involved in teaching or training teachers in developing countries, the change can be refreshing and encourages us to look critically at ourselves as teachers.

Beautiful Eritrea

After teaching science and chemistry in Britain and then in Coolmine Community School in Dublin, I signed up with VSO to work in Eritrea, a country in north east Africa about the same size and population of Ireland, for two years. Like most people I knew little about this country before my departure. At only 13 years of age, Eritrea is younger than most of my students, born from 30 years of civil war, breaking away from its large neighbour, Ethiopia in 1991.

My home was the 'servants' quarters' of a large house in the capital, Asmara. At 2,500 metres above sea level we had a climate described as one of the best in the world with almost constant blue skies and sunshine, and temperatures in the mid 20s to low 30s - hence settling back to Ireland this summer could be a challenge. The city has the feel of a sleepy Mediterranean town from decades of occupation from the Italians at the start of the last century, with pasta and cappuccino as common as local foods.

Involving students more in lessons

My job was to work with the science teachers in 35 junior schools in and around Asmara to augment their limited training and to assist them in moving away from 'chalk and talk' teaching, to making lessons more involving for their students. With about 150 science teachers and an area the size of greater Dublin, it was a challenge. With the help of a motorbike, I would arrive at some of the village schools in clouds of dust and local children, to observe lessons, give feedback and then to teach demonstration lessons. I particularly enjoyed the latter part even though it was tough trying to be understood and often there were 60-90 blank faces staring back at me in bewilderment or disbelief at what this grown adult was doing.

The teachers were always appreciative and enjoyed the visits, even if they didn't necessarily take on my comments or suggestions. Over the two years, I ran a series of workshops for regional staff, directors and teachers, dealing with common issues. Up-skilling teachers is a slow process which will continue through other volunteers in the future.

Working with other organisations

Many of the volunteers in Eritrea also enjoyed working outside their main role. I worked with UNICEF on the production of two 'Big Books' to be used in all primary schools next year, and on a report to assess and suggest ways of improving in-service teacher supports at Teacher Resource Centres. I also worked with UN peacekeepers in improving sports facilities at one of the schools in my area. There's always a new challenge or interest, often in areas we wouldn't be able to get involved in at home in our regular teaching jobs.

During the two years I met and worked with some great people many of whom I now think of as friends. I learnt new skills such as entertaining classes of close to 100 students, riding a motorbike over areas loosely described as roads, eating with three fingers of my right hand, and a lot of patience. I also got a great tan! The image I will be left with is the amazing warmth and generosity of the people, both colleagues and complete strangers that I met over the two years.

What did your role involve?

I was the Wheelchair Services Supervisor with the government’s National Orthotic and Prosthetic Department. That meant helping set up five centres in various areas of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and making sure they’d stay running after I returned to the UK. I identified and assessed clients and made prescriptions, providing suitable client-specific wheelchairs and ongoing service to enable clients to maintain their mobility. It was also my job to increase awareness of the service.

That sounds like quite a responsibility. What were you doing beforehand?

I was working as a physiotherapist at a Senior 2 level at University Hospital of Hartlepool, treating musculoskeletal conditions like bad backs and bad necks. Before I went to PNG, I received training in the new skills I’d need for the job. I learnt how to assess and train clinicians and wheelchair technicians to provide a safe service.

Previous volunteers based in PNG have mentioned the tendency for people with disabilities to be “wrapped in cotton wool”. What difficulties did you encounter?

Awareness is a problem. People simply don’t know about the services that exist for those with disabilities, including the provision of wheelchairs. In part, that’s down to the difficulty of getting around in PNG. An estimated 80 per cent of people with disabilities live in the remote villages. We tried radio messages, word of mouth, linking with the physiotherapy and orthotic outreach teams and organised excursions to various more remote towns to provide services and awareness.

What about on a personal level?

It took me a while to adjust to the laid-back approach to getting things done. In the UK, everything is pushed into tight time frames. In Papua New Guinea tasks are simply done when people are ready. It was also tough to get to grips with the corruption. You see it at all levels, from government through to grass roots. Sometimes I had to refuse to provide a service to people who would constantly abuse it - one client kept selling his wheelchairs and claiming they had been stolen!

What impact did you have?

Of the five satellite centres we set out to create, four were up and running by the end of the year. Although we only scratched the surface in raising awareness and improving accessibility, our clinical assessments led to over 300 wheelchairs being provided. PNG’s rough terrain isn’t easy going for wheelchairs. In the past many of the chairs donated were poorly suited. We helped introduce special rough terrain three-wheeled chair, which proved a great asset within villages and cities alike.

Are there any particular success stories that stick in your mind?

One young boy was confined to his home after losing the use of his legs. He remained on the floor of his home, cared for by his mother. We managed to get to his village, which was in a remote area, then assess, build and provided the prescribed three-wheeled wheelchair and teach him how to use it safely. He became independently mobile in and outside his home, having spent over a year confined to their hut.

Do you feel you’ve grown as a result of your experiences?

I definitely feel my organisational skills improved, as have my listening, communication and motivation skills. I also have a lot more confidence in my own professional and personal skills thanks to the challenges I faced and the things I achieved.

How far would you recommend volunteering to other people?

I loved it, and I’d absolutely recommend it to anyone who has thought about volunteering but doubted their capacity. There were many times before I left the UK when I sharply questioned my ability to take on the responsibilities of a national supervisor. On reflection I can see just how developed my skills already were.

Starting out in a new job can be difficult, let alone starting one in a new country and a completely different culture. How prepared did you feel?

VSO’s pre-departure training prepared us pretty well. We were told to expect to feel quite a few highs and lows – to love it at first, and then to get annoyed by everything. I do think when you arrive everything is new, and exiting, and different; and then as time goes on the things that were new and exciting start to really get on your nerves. Eventually you move through to more of an acceptance and it all starts to feel like home.

What did you find hardest to get used to in Uganda?

Uganda is really noisy - if it’s not the ‘boom boom’ of the music, it’s the generators or the dogs at night. It was quite a challenge to go to sleep at night. And the bugs! I really hated the bugs.

Any particularly unwelcome six-legged guests?

The number of times I’d come home and find a cockroach sitting on my toothbrush was a bit too much to bear at first!

How has living in Uganda been different to living in the UK?

Definitely the way animals are so integrated into daily life. Back home, you rarely see chickens and goats and cows wandering the streets, but for me it’s now normal - goats wander through my office on a daily basis! Certainly one of the highlights here are the children on my street. I live on a really small street, which is overcrowded with little shops selling charcoal and washing powder and is littered with literally hundreds of children. When they see me everyday, they say the same thing, they say ‘Muzungu! Bye, bye! Muzungu!’ and I never tire of it, I just love it and I say it back.

Has everything gone as you expected on your placement?

At the beginning I would get quite frustrated by what I saw as a lack of motivation. Nine months into my placement I have reached a level of acceptance - now I see more positives, and I’m happy when I see that the team is working together. I’ve accepted that I’m a small cog in the grand scheme of things, so although I’m not going to make big changes like I had initially hoped, if I can make just a small change then great.

What have you learned about international development through VSO?

I think it’s important to realise that development is not just about bringing money in from overseas, it’s about building local staff capacity so that organisations can raise money for themselves, both locally and internationally.

Are there any skills that you have picked up that will be useful in the future?

I’ve moved into a managerial role since I’ve been here which is something I’ve never done back home, so I think that in itself has been a really good experience for me, and possibly one I could use when I return home.

What would you say to someone about to do VSO?

I think if I had to give any advice, it would be to be realistic about what you hope to achieve, and remember that small changes count, they really do.

It was December in 2008 and I had left my son at home with his two sisters when I went out for work. When I came back in the evening I asked the young ones “where has Omar gone?”. They said, "oh Mummy, we don’t know where he has gone, maybe he is playing?" So immediately I started looking for him.

I tried to look in the places he usually plays but he was nowhere to be seen. I then reported it to police and put announcements over the radios but we spent the whole night without seeing him. In the morning we got a call on the phone. Two women had found Omar dumped on a roadside in Mukono, a suburb of Kampala far from here. He was crying and semi conscious and craving water to drink.

We went to recover the boy from Mukono and he told us the story:
“Mummy, I was playing near our home. Then a boda-boda [a bicycle taxi] man came and picked me up and tricked me, he called me by my name and said: "your mother Vivien is calling you". So I climbed on the boda-boda and off we went but after a short while I noticed he was taking another route, not the route to your work. Then I told the man ‘it seems you are stealing me’ but the man now increased the speed and took me to unknown destination.”

So he described that they went to what seemed to be a shrine. There was a woman there who removed his clothes to examine him and said, “this boy will not make a sacrifice because he is already circumcised.” That was when they put something sweetly scented towards his nose and immediately he fell asleep. Then he woke up in Mukono, far away from the shrine.

Help from the ANPPCAN

The police immediately started their investigations. This led to the arrests of the suspects and police called all the journalists to come. The following day unknown people started coming to my home but they could not identify themselves as journalists – they looked strange. So I took the boy away to an uncle’s place. But still unknown people were coming and the uncle said, “we can’t keep that boy anymore because we’re scared, we see different faces peeping in the windows, behind the houses.” It seemed like they want to re-kidnap the boy.

I reported this to the police and they said they were processing it, but processes can be slow. Then a friend told me about ANPPCAN and I ran immediately there.

When I reached ANPPCAN reception they greeted me warmly. They interviewed me and I told them the story and immediately they gave me help. They agreed with the police that they would give my son security and they took him to a safe place. Psychological torture was at a maximum and they gave him counseling and me too.

Once ANPPCAN intervened, the process was very smooth. The police were no longer dodging me, everything was just straight. When the case came to court, ANPPCAN helped me very, very much. I didn’t know the process of the court, I didn’t know whom they called the prosecutor, I didn’t know all the terms. But the ANPPCAN lawyer would go inside the offices and check that everything was moving. I highly appreciate it because there was no corruption once ANPPCAN was there on my behalf. If it was not for ANPPCAN I don’t think I would have managed.

Speaking out

My son is still in a safe place. He has post-traumatic stress disorder. When he sees a stranger he runs away, he hides himself. There is some deterioration in his studies – he has been receiving an interim education in the safe place but now I want him to be back in school like other children.

I think it is important for people in other countries to know things that are going on in Uganda. The people who sacrifice children have an intention, and it may not end in Uganda- they may go abroad even to England. So I’m appealing to people all over the world that even a friend or brother or sister can do something bad to a child. So everyone should keep an eye on his or her family.

All names have been changed.

ANPPCAN is currently receiving support from VSO volunteer Elena Lomeli. She is sharing her communications and marketing expertise with ANPPCAN to help them raise their profile in Uganda, so that more children and families will know who to turn to when they need support.

I’ve known about VSO for as long as I can remember, but I’d always assumed they were looking for graduates. I rang up and said, ‘I’ve seen your advert and I’m interested, but you’ll probably tell me I’m too old.’ And that was when I found out that they did want people in their fifties.

Life in rural Ghana

A few months later my husband Pete and I were on our way to Ghana. Our placements were in Bongo District in one of the country’s poorest regions. It’s very rural: people are subsistence farmers and live in very traditional homes made from mud with a straw or tin roof. We lived in Bongo village, the capital of the district, and we had one of the smart houses – it had concrete walls, a tin roof, a tap, a cold shower and a toilet. It was a flush toilet but we quickly realised that a drop pit would have been better because we frequently had no water!

Challenges in schools

My job title was ‘Management Support Officer in Education’ with the Bongo District Education Office and one of my jobs was to look at why there was such a poor rate of passes in junior secondary schools. The official language of education in Ghana is English. We soon realised that the problems in the junior secondary schools were a result of the poor English teaching in the primaries. The children were coming to school speaking the local language, because that’s what they spoke at home. Many of the teachers didn’t have a good enough grasp of English to be able to teach it to the children well.

Typically there’d be six teachers in a school with around 300 children, but only two of the teachers would have had any training. The average class had 45 children but we found a lot with over 90.

Bongo District was split into seven areas and each area had a circuit supervisor – like an education adviser that went round inspecting the schools. But these supervisors hadn’t had any real training either and didn’t really know what they were meant to be doing in schools. So clearly providing some training for them was a priority. We taught them what they should be looking for in schools and what they should be doing to address weaknesses. Our bottom line was that there was no point in inspecting schools if it wasn’t going to lead to improvement.

Sharing skills and expertise with local colleagues

Each of the seven circuit supervisors chose two schools in their district. First Peter and I would inspect one school while they observed and joined in a bit. In the second school we’d hand it over to them. We’d watch and nudge them in the right direction so they’d be able to continue it on their own. When all 14 schools had been inspected, we made recommendations for each school and then in order to meet the recommendations we worked with the circuit supervisers on things like in-service training for teachers.

Success!

We had no idea if this would continue after we left. Six months after the end of our placement I returned to Bongo to undertake a three-month placement setting up a model kindergarten, and I was really pleased to discover that the circuit supervisers had taken everything on board. They had a rolling programme so that they’d be able to involve all the schools in the inspections every four years. They told me they were much happier because they knew they had something specific to do when they visited schools. So I think our biggest success was feeling that we’d given them purpose to their work, and seeing the improvement in English teaching.

I think doing VSO is a brilliant change for you personally. But it’s also good for the teachers you leave behind in the UK. Because you’re leaving a headship, you leave a gap so someone can move up. That leaves another gap, a gap that can be filled by a new teacher. So schools can develop their staff and get new people, and personally you’ve had a really good change as well.  So I’d certainly recommend it.

Eritrea was my first choice as placement country. One of the reasons I was initially so interested in coming here was that I read an inspiring article in The Observer in February 2006, which was so incredibly positive about Asmara, that it made me really want to live there.
 
I have not regretted coming here at all. In fact, I would safely say that this has been one of the most positive experiences of my life, both personally and professionally. Asmara must be one of the safest (and most beautiful) capital cities anywhere in the world; the level of street crime is extremely low and it is safe to walk almost anywhere late at night. The people are incredibly helpful and friendly. Almost everyone in Asmara speaks some English, many speak it fluently, which makes the integration process much easier. I can safely say that I have made many good Eritrean friends during the relatively short time that I have been here.

Building for the future

Professionally, my experiences have been very positive and I feel that I have been able to contribute to very good effect. One of the most interesting projects I have been working on is a pilot solar power project for schools in a deprived region of western Eritrea called Gash-Barka. The aim of the project is to provide solar power to schools there, in order to enable the installation of computers and the teaching of information communications technology (ICT) as a school subject. Thanks to the generosity of a number of organisations, the project is now underway. A solar power system was installed in the first school, in Gogne, last month (funded by the Irish construction company CRH Ireland) and we are now making plans to schedule the installation in other schools in the region.  

Satisfying work

In Gogne I did provide some IT training over a number of days for teachers and students. Practically none of the students had ever used a computer previously. It was extremely satisfying to see the incredible interest and enthusiasm of students and teachers alike in using the computers, receiving training and acquiring new IT skills.
 
There are some downsides to living here, including travel restrictions. Each time I travel outside Asmara, I must obtain a travel permit. However, this does not really impose on the lives of volunteers. Overall the advantages of life here far outweigh the disadvantages.
 

Tell us about your work

I’m a Children’s Rights Coach at the Primary Boys Boarding School in Kajiado. There are over 20 children with disabilities living within the compound of 400 boys. The majority of the children with disabilities have physical difficulties, and a handful have visual impairments. Working with ‘my boys’ has been a wonderful experience- they’re all full of life and confidence.

How have they progressed?

Many are at the top of their class, and have a fantastic grasp of English. That’s made my job much easier – I’ve gotten through my work plan in half the time I thought I would. That means a little more work for me, but it was great to push them harder with various difficult activities, and introduce them to concepts they had never come across before. In fact the club has progressed so rapidly that the boys no longer need my help, which was something I had hoped to achieve only at the end of the year. 

What have you done to ensure your work endures when you leave?

The boys have now elected a five-member committee, which attended the three-day Children with Disabilities National Conference in Nairobi. They’re now preparing club activities and training the other boys in everything they learned during those three days.

Have you faced any major difficulties?

My first day was possibly the worst thing I’ve had to deal with in Kajiado.

My placement manager took me to lunch to welcome me. He ordered a hearty beef stew for us all that, it transpired, was the only thing on the menu. Not wanting to be rude, I set aside 16 years of vegetarianism and ate, telling myself that I would just have to deal with it.

I was coping well until I was introduced to the school’s staff and children an hour later and had to make a run for the bathroom. Clearly not the first impression I had hoped for. Now my Maasai friends laugh at this bizarre lifestyle choice and accept me as a ‘strict vegetarian’ who is simply weird that way!

Healthcare in Malawi

Although VSO International usually focuses its efforts on training and improving organizations’ structures, the severe shortage of doctors in Malawi means we are currently recruiting for doctor roles while local staff are trained.

Twenty-nine year old GP Katrien Deschamps is one such doctor. She is based at Rumphi District Hospital in the north of Malawi. Rumphi is a small rural town, 65 kilometres of steep winding roads and rickety bridges from the amenities of Mzuzu, the region’s capital. With its rusting ambulances, over-crowded wards and severe lack of staff, the hospital struggles to serve the thousands of patients who might travel for days to get there.

“The whole healthcare system in Malawi is very understaffed, with very little nurses, very little clinicians, very little of everything in general,” says Katrien. “So that’s why along with my fellow volunteer Andrew, I’m the most senior person in Rumphi District Hospital. Until we came there were no doctors here.”

Lives being saved

Before Katrien and Andrew arrived at Rumphi, lives were being lost simply because doctors were not on hand to treat patients and ambulances were not available to transfer them to the central hospital. But VSO International has changed that.

“Since the VSO doctors came we are not referring many patients to the central hospitals,” says Bernard Chavinda, the district health officer. “We are now able to manage these patients here because of the expertise of the VSO doctors. This has reduced the transport costs to the central hospitals. It has made a big difference to us here.”

Making the work sustainable

Though Katrien’s is primarily a clinical role, she incorporates training colleagues into her job at every opportunity. “Andrew and I have introduced a blood bank system, and right now I’m in the middle of training on ECG. The government gave all the district hospitals ECG machines but nobody knows how to use them because it’s not part of their basic clinical officer training. So I started lessons on Saturdays in how to use the ECG machines, and how to handle the patient if they find abnormalities.” 

Katrien is also organizing training in neonatal care for nurses. “I think small things like this can bring a bit of sustainable change, so it’s useful that I’m here.”

Clinical officer Wizo Chilongo agrees. “A lot of improvement has taken place since Dr Katrien and Dr Andrew came here. They had the idea that at the end of every month staff should meet, and that improves our skills and our working relationships. For the patients we just used to write on pieces of paper and then leave them on the table, and then you’d look for the paper the whole day and not find it. But now we have patient files where we keep all the notes. So we are learning a lot from them.”

More doctors needed in the future

VSO International needs more GPs to work in district hospitals all over Malawi. Katrien is keen to reassure doctors who think Malawi is too much of a challenge that they really can make a difference. “You’re not going to change the world working for a few years in a developing country, but if you help just one patient each day or pass one little thing on to a nurse or clinical officer, you’re doing something – you’re helping healthcare in Malawi.”

Impact

• Thanks to VSO International doctors, staff at Rumphi District Hospital can now manage more patients there rather than referring them to the central hospital. This saves transport costs – and lives.

• As a result of a blood bank set up by VSO International volunteers, Rumphi District Hospital now has an efficient blood transfusion system.

• Patient notes are now filed, enabling staff to work more efficiently.