Voluntary Service Overseas

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Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is an international development charity that works through experienced volunteers living and working as equals alongside local partners. It is the largest independent (non-governmental) volunteer-sending organisation in the world.

VSO has offices in the UK, Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands, Kenya and the Philippines and a recruiting partner in India; as at December 2004, it has volunteers of 14 different nationalities on placement. Since its founding in 1958, VSO has placed over 30,000 volunteers (2004) in developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.

It currently develops programmes in six "goal areas" [1]:


Contents

[edit] History

It was founded by Alec Dickson through a bishop's letter[2] to the London paper, The Sunday Times, as an educational experience overseas for school-leavers, initially only boys, before starting university. Volunteers offered unskilled help in exchange for basic accommodation and pocket money. In 1962 the more recognised scheme of using 'qualified' volunteers came about. By 1968 VSO had 1420 volunteers overseas.

By 1980 the unqualified volunteers had been phased out and the period overseas had extended to two years, with a more professional approach. Active volunteer numbers initially fell to around 750 but by 2003 the number had returned to around 1,400. As at December 2004, applications to volunteer are accepted from people aged between 20 and 75, with at least two years' experience in their field, and the average age of current volunteers is 38. Unlike almost every other organisation of its type, VSO places no restriction on nationality.

In the early 1990s, in order to meet growing demand for highly specialised and skilled volunteers from its partners in developing countries, VSO established partner agencies in Canada, the Netherlands, Kenya/Uganda (VSO Jitolee), and the Philippines (VSO Bahaginan). In 2004, VSO launched a partnership called iVolunteer Overseas (iVO) in India with iVolunteer, an existing volunteering program of MITRA, an Indian NGO. At the same time, the charity's operations in Ireland are also becoming increasingly independent of the UK. VSO's structure is evolving into an international federation of these recruitment bases. International volunteers are recruited through all of these bases and they can be placed in any one of VSO's programmes (e.g. a Canadian volunteer working in Nepal, or a Ugandan volunteer working in Mongolia).

In addition VSO

  • supports a number of national volunteering programmes (including schemes in India, Ghana, Kenya and others)
  • acts as a 'knowledge broker', bringing local grassroots organisations together to share learning and best practice, for example through the Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa, with a network of partners in 7 southern African countries
  • offers two youth volunteering programmes, their own Youth For Development scheme, and Global Xchange in partnership with CSV and the British Council
  • offers short-term consultancy-style volunteer placements, to complement their traditional long-term (two year) placements, following the merger with British Executive Service Overseas (beso) in March 2005, a smaller charity with similar aims but which dealt with short-term volunteering.

Also, several large companies, including Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP and others, second some of their staff through VSO to work directly on international development projects.

At the UK Charity Awards in June 2004, VSO, which is primarily funded by the British government's Department for International Development, was named International Development Charity of the Year, with judges citing VSO's innovative approach to international development and volunteering.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Media reports

  • [3] How a Kenyan VSO volunteer is helping the health crisis in Malawi. From The Nation, Malawi, 26 May 2006
  • [4] Footballers' Wives actor Zoe Lucker visits VSO projects in Zambia, 35 years since her parents worked for the charity. Sunday Mirror 21 May 2006
  • [5] VSO focuses on senior teachers from Education Guardian, January 10 2006
  • [6]

Eight Ways to Change the World, a Panos Pictures exhibition on the Millennium Development Goals, involving VSO. From the Guardian, 7 September 2005

  • [7] VSO survey finds that women are more likely to volunteer, but rarely get the opportunity in their regular careers. Guardian March 20th, 2001
  • briandeer.com Critical report from the London Sunday Times, April 26 1998
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