When did you arrive and when are you due back in Ireland?
I decided to take a two year placement. I knew if I liked the town, the people and the job I would extend a one year placement anyway and by committing to two it reduces the overall cost of sending one volunteer per year. From correspondence with past volunteers this was best as it's late in the first year when you really begin to see how things work here and therefore the efforts you make as a volunteer have more of an impact. I'm due to come home in late June for two weddings. For me, I’m here to do what I can to improve the quality of education in Nekemte and it’s all one big adventure but I’m quite the homebird at heart. 

What were your first impressions on arriving in Ethiopia?
When I arrived to the city of Addis, where we had 10 days in-country training, my first impression was one of disbelief. I have been to many cities in the developing world but never have I witnessed the level of poverty as here. It is so evident on every street corner. On a positive note we discovered to our surprise and delight that, apart from petty crime, Addis is a very safe African city to walk around in.
 
When I arrived in Nekemte I experienced a whole different level of what could be called culture shock. We had a sheltered introduction to life in Ethiopia during our training. Meals prepared, hot showers, walled compound. I arrived with Marc, a fellow VSO volunteer. We were greeted by our landlords and dropped off at our homes.  End of programme office involvement, beginning of real life for the volunteer! Emebet, my landlady (there are huge gender divides here so an unmarried female owning a house is almost unheard of) showed me around the house with delight. Running water, western toilet, armchairs.

But I was feeling a slow panic rise “What the hell have I done? What am I doing here? Is this my home for the next two years?” It was actually better accommodation than I had expected but still the reality of the situation just seemed to suddenly smack me! For the first week I watched The Sopranos non-stop at every opportunity, trying to gain some form of comfort from the familiar. I slept curled up like a bug in a sleeping liner, with the light on. I left the house only if I needed to or arranged to meet Marc. The calls of “ferenji” which mean ''foreigner'' from almost everyone were difficult to cope with, especially as I hadn’t grasped the basic greetings of Afan Oroomo yet. When I think of it now, I really am proud of myself for getting on with it. People are amazingly adaptable and proof lies in the very low statistics of VSO volunteers ending their placements early.

What work are you involved in there?
Here in Ethiopia I am a trainer/advisor. Basically this means I help teachers in the primary school improve their professional skills in order to improve the quality of education at primary level. There is a toolkit/manual to help you to set up continuous professional development (CPD) in the schools but I soon found out it was not entirely a workable system i.e. a somewhat western manual for an African context. So over time you tweak it and adapt it in a way that works best for the schools...

For a full version of Joann's story please see the PDF download titled 'Joann Keenahan Ethiopia' on the left. 

AFA is a pioneering and dynamic organisation that provides support and services to people with autism, their families and to those who work with individuals with autism. The organisation was founded in 1991 by a group of parents at a time when autism was relatively unheard of in India and services were non-existent. These parents wanted to create awareness and understanding for their children and for all individuals with autism.

Each day I work with the children in the Open Door School and in an early intervention programme. Twice a week I run discussion groups with adults who attend the vocational centre. My work involves close co-operation with the special educators here who are a really lovely bunch of people, very dedicated to their jobs. One of the many exciting projects I have been involved in is the establishment of a friendship circle, pairing college students with individuals with autism. Watching the friendships and the project grow has been a great experience!

As my time in India draws to a close I am busily trying to meet all my goals and squeeze in as much fun as possible. I have had lots of memorable moments to date. Getting covered in paint to celebrate Holi, the festival of colour; playing Santa Claus for the children of AFA; travelling across India and spending 30 hours on a train going to a conference in Raipur; experiencing my first earthquake. Gradually I have learnt to speak some Hindi, my first full sentence, in true Cavan style was “That’s a crazy price- give me a fair price”. There is still a lot I want to do and see before I am back home, behind my desk with the health board.

I may be on the home straight (for now) but the work of AFA and VSO will continue. In India there are estimated to be 40 to 80 million individuals with disability. Low literacy levels, a lack of education and employment opportunities and deep rooted social stigma mean exclusion for many individuals. This is especially the case for individuals with autism as awareness and understanding of this disability is quite low. Change is happening slowly and there is a growing disability rights movement within the country, AFA and VSO are playing a vital role in this.

If you would like more information on volunteering or to support the work of Action for Autism and please check out this website:

http://www.autism-india.org/

Why did you decide to volunteer with VSO and what does your role invlove?
I wanted to use my professional skills to help the less fortunate. I also wanted to live and experience a completely different culture. VSO fitted the bill on both fronts. I am an IT adviser to an Ethiopia NGO. My work is mainly office based and involves working with local people to maintain computers, build websites and design publications.  
 
Describe your average day:
I usually head to the office around 8.30am. I spend around 30 minutes greeting everyone and try to come up with a plan for the day. I work alongside my counterpart to carry out the plan, experience an unscheduled power cut and enjoy some famous Ethiopian coffee. I continue working, deal with another power cut and share lunch with people in the office. Usually this involves being fed or feeding someone else at one point or another. I continue to work in between power cuts and coffee breaks.  Finish work at 5.30pm and either head home and cook or meet up with friends for a beer and some food. Home by nine and asleep by 10.00pm.
 
What advice would you give to a volunteer just beginning their journey?
Try and learn the language so that you can involve yourself in more conversations. Try all food at least once (even if it is raw meat) - the locals appreciate it. Find a nice balance between having local friends and foreign friends.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date, and what are the highs and lows?
The fact that my counterpart has a huge amount more professional knowledge now than she did when I first arrived. 
  
Lows: Constant attention from local people. You are always on show. Trying to deal with corrupt systems that counteract the work you are trying to do. Being away from the creature comforts of home.

Highs: Great weather all the time, always meeting new people and feeling like you are doing something good! 
    
How did you overcome any difficulties and what skills will you take back to Ireland?
By keeping in touch with people from home and developing friendships with other volunteers in the country. Also, developing local friendship helps to solve any major problems. I will be able to have a conversation with an Ethiopian over a pint of Guinness. Increased problem solving skills.  A new sense of what's considered important in life. 
    
What would you say to someone considering volunteering with VSO?
If you like a challenge and something away from the normal everyday life, go for it.

Why did you decide to volunteer with VSO?
My name is Padraic McKeon. I am a retired primary principal teacher from Co. Mayo. After retiring I felt I had more to contribute. I had visited Africa before on three occasions, and so was relatively familiar with aspects of life there. I applied to VSO and was offered a placement in South Sudan. After careful consideration and discussion with my family, I accepted the post.

Tell us a bit about your placement?
I am now 10 weeks into my one year placement as educational advisor in Yambio County, State of Western Equatoria, South Sudan (newest country in the world). I am lucky to have quite comfortable living conditions in Yambio, staying in the Christian Brothers compound with two other VSO volunteers, and most meals supplied.Temperatures have been in the 30 C's, but now, at the beginning of rainy season, are in the comfortable 20 C's.

Describe your typical day:
I wake up at 7am to dawn bird song outside my window. Prepare self-catering breakfast of cereal, bread and marmalade, with tea/coffee (flask of hot water from previous evening). Meet fellow volunteers; discuss general plans for the day. One of them works in the State Ministry of Education, so our roles overlap to some extent.

Off on my motorbike (boda-boda) to work. This day I am delivering training to school Parent Teacher Associations (PTA), working alongside local school inspectors. We go over our plans for delivery, and set off on our motorbikes for today's school, ariving at 9am. No tarmac roads here, so we drive in no higher than third gear. After greeting the 13 PTA members (much hand shaking all around), we start work, explaining the role and importance of PTAs, and help devise their constitution (PTAs are similar to Boards of Management in Irish schools, and are just being set up here).

We take a break at about 11am. Refreshments consist of cups of tea (lovely flavours, usually ginger) or hot milk with sugar (very tasty – yes, really!) with bread. In a previous school visit, they had no money, and all they could offer me was a pineapple, which I took gladly and had it for dessert that evening. We finish work around noon. Our offer to return in a few weeks to help them draw up their school development plan is enthusiastically taken up. Lunch today is back at my accommodation, as the school is nearby.

In the afternoon, it's off to the county education centre to work with their staff. This afternoon, we concentrate on child-centred methodologies of teaching, with which we are familiar in Ireland. I have brought the CD-ROM of the revised Irish Curriculum with me and find it very useful here. The enthusiasm and willingness to learn of the staff where I work is commendable. Facilities are basic, money scarce and progress is dependant on donor agencies. But things are improving slowly, and it's very satisfying to be part of that.

It is 5pm and time to head for home. I am the only white person driving a boda-boda, and also the only driver wearing a helmet. The locals are well used to me by now. Wind-down time now: quick shower, change clothes, meet the guys (both English and we all have common interests, including bottles of the local Tusker lager). Time for reading on the Kindle before dinner served by local cook at 7pm (yes, I know we're lucky). Menu of rice, meat, vegetables, often with Irish potatoes (from Uganda!) and fruit for dessert.

We even have a television to watch news or football matches (we are experts in the race for the Premiership title). Off to our rooms at 9.30pm, down with the mosquito net, listen to the ipod for a half hour and another day over.
 

“I’ve been working in the area of communications and design all my life but this will throw up some real challenges ”, Sean admits.  But it’s mainly his design and strategic skills that will be called upon in Tajikistan.  Sean will also be addressing social media, print and other avenues to enhance communications internally and to other countries. Sean has been thinking about becoming a VSO volunteer for the last eight years.  “Now is the right time for me.  I’ve been thinking of the VSO since a friend went to Vietnam with them in 2004 – and she’s still there’’.  Most of all Sean hopes that he can have a long lasting effect upon the lives of the people in Tajikistan.  As he puts it, “I just hope I can play a small part in improving the quality of life for the communities that I will be working with.” 

One challenge that Sean is worried about in the need to learn a whole new language, Tajik.  When he first arrives in Tajikistan there will be three weeks of language classes and in country training. He will be provided with a Tajik and Russian translator for the rest of his time and with all the support provided by VSO, Sean is sure that it will come together to be a fascinating and life changing experience. “Although”, he says, “One thing I already know that I’m going to miss is a pint of Guinness on a Sunday night!”

You can follow Sean’s blog here www.seanlynchtravels.wordpress.com

What made you decide to volunteer with VSO and where did you volunteer?
I had retired early owing to the death of my husband. I always wanted to go to Africa and this was the first real possibility that offered itself to me since my single days. I had lots of experience in the education sector and was still young enough for the challenge.

Can you tell us a little bit about your placement in Ethiopia?
The work in Jimma University was challenging because of different expectations and modes of working, but feasible with the help of the authorities and colleagues who were very appreciative of what we tried to do. Overall the work was interesting and rewarding. I did manage to set up an English language improvement centre in Jimma University, which I hear is still operating. The English teachers in the second level area need huge help with their own level of English and also with methodology and resources for their actual teaching. I also got involved in community projects outside of my official work and it is here still where my community and I continue to help Jimma.

How did you adapt working in a different culture and country?
I adapted with fortitude, gratitude for what I have here and lots of parcels from home. The fact that VSO has a system of support and collaboration in place was of untold help and benefit, and having at least two other volunteers in the vicinity was brilliant. I was also fortunate to have had a great colleague at work. He took me under his wing and saw me as one of his family. Other good Ethiopian friends also helped to make my journey productive and positive.

What are the highs and lows of working overseas as a VSO volunteer? The highs include: getting to know, love and understand a new culture, particularly that of a developing country; a sense of contributing to a country's development and helping very unfortunate people; working at such a high level with government and university people successfully.
The lows were: missing family and friends; coping with extremes of climate and lack of food; wondering at times if we were able to make any little positive difference to the challenges of Ethiopia; challenges of travel, and so on.

Did you feel your years of experience benefitted you as a VSO volunteer in Ethiopia?
Absolutely! Being older and having worked in Irish education for 30 years, I have a lot to offer.  I am wiser to the possibilities of what can be achieved, more accepting when things don't happen, and sensitive to how people work, as we are the same no matter where.

What advice would you give to a person who has retired considering volunteering with VSO?
If you are healthy, at a loose end and anxious to help with development, go for it! You'll never regret it, even if it proves difficult to actually measure what you achieve. With the VSO network and support you will gain, hopefully you can add a little hope and love to the stream of people's efforts before you.

My life as a VSO volunteer in the western highlands of Ethiopia has taken a strange turn towards luxury for the upcoming weekend of St. Patrick’s Day. Power and water shortages, the absence of cheese, the regular scurrying of rats in my attic and the countless dust-filled walks to and from my primary schools have given way, if only for a day or two, to the bright lights of the most decadent hotel in Addis. Yes, I’m a hard-core volunteer...most of the time...but bring on the comfort!

Friday night, 16th March, the Ambassador of Ireland, H.E. Ms. Sile Maguire requests the pleasure of my company (and all Irish living in Ethiopia!) at the National Day Reception at the Lalibela Patio in the Sheraton. I’m truly looking forward to this night as our ambassador looks after her VSO citizens very well. She knows we come to the big smoke to let our hair down. A ticket to the charity ball on the night of the 17th has cost well over one third of my monthly salary with part of the ticket going towards two deserving charities based in Ethiopia and the rest towards our meal (including salmon…salmon! Haven’t tasted it since I left home last September) and music (a band from Ireland are travelling for the event). I do wonder if the hotel will manage to cover their costs…a ballroom full of Irish people, away from home, with a free bar. Only time will tell!

When I speak about St. Patrick and explain his importance to the people of Ireland, it can be difficult for me to feel a sense of excitement about the day here. Only a small number of people in Ethiopia are Catholics so they’re not all that interested in hearing about St. Paddy, the Welshman, bringing Christianity to our wee island. Also, Ethiopians don’t celebrate events quite like we do in the west. We Irish can be the kings of excessive partying. I’m hoping for a bit of Riverdance at some stage over the weekend!

The challenges I face as a volunteer in Ethiopia involve bringing teachers together for workshops, the lost in translation language barrier, the regular ‘stomach problems’ and getting accustomed to the annoying local custom of endless calls for attention when I walk around. But suddenly a gúna for the upcoming ball has become a source of stress for me! What shoes will I wear? I am reminded immediately of life back home.
I haven’t thought about clothes or fashion in almost 6 months. It has been quite refreshing.

So though I look forward to my weekend of luxury celebrating, I do so with slight trepidation. The kind I have not yet experienced in my role as a VSO volunteer in Ethiopia. One that comes from my own need to party the night away with fellow countrymen in honour of St. Paddy!

VSO is the official charity partner of the St Patricks Day Festival.

You can read Joann's blog here

What made you decide to volunteer with VSO?
My wife and I worked as volunteers with Irish Aid in central Africa, through most of the 1980's. It was a wonderful and rewarding experience. Together with our colleagues and peers, we felt that we had made substantial achievements in our placements, which was in the education sector.
We then had two young children and we decided, with heavy hearts, to return to Ireland to rear and educate them. We vowed that one day we would return to share our skills and experiences.
Now we decided that it was time to fulfil our long held wish. My wife and I considered a number of volunteering options. We decided to pursue the matter with VSO, as they provide quality information and a broad range of experiences from returned volunteers, which was very helpful in coming to a decision.
 
What does your role in Tanzania involve? 
My official role is as an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tutor trainer. After a short time at Marangu Teachers College, during discussions with the college Principal and head of ICT department, it was decided to broaden my role to cover all tutors and administration staff at the college, as well as teachers at the local primary and secondary school. To date over eighty staff (tutors, teachers and administrators) have been trained in ICT including word processing, spreadsheets, presentation and internet usage. We have expanded the training and development program to include International Computer Driving License (ICDL). This allows participants to raise their skills and achieve international recognition and certification. My role also involves evaluating the training and development needs of other teacher colleges in our zone. 
 
Describe your average day: 
Rise at 06.00, have a wash. A shower is a rare delight, as water is scarce. College starts at 7.30. Depending on the day, I teach the students (mostly in a team teaching role) with one of my colleagues. I have a discussion with other tutors about any issues which may need to be raised at a meeting which takes place at 11.30 daily. The meeting takes place in Kiswahili and is chaired by a tutor and attended by the principal and vice principal. I understand some of the discussion, but a brief translation is normally provided by the tutor sitting beside me. We have a small office, where we work at preparing teaching and learning materials, examination papers and so on. Anyone is welcome to come in and discuss ICT or other issues.

How did you adapt to life in another country and culture? 
Having lived and worked in Africa previously, there were no major shocks or surprises. Our experiences were well supplemented by pre departure and 'in country training' provide by VSO. On arrival in Marangu, we got involved with the locals; shopping in the local markets, going to church and other local activities. Recently, I was invited to be guest of honour at a college sports evening and participate in the opening and closing ceremonies. It was a great honour to be asked and gives an indication of how well we fit into the local community.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date?
The answer to this question would be when a tutor from Mandaka Teachers College said 'Mr. John, you have changed my life'. She was referring to the skills and confidence developed through our ICT training program. Prior to this, she and her colleagues prepared examination papers and other materials by hand. Now they are doing this work on computers. She and her colleagues felt that the teaching and learning experience was greatly enhanced.
 
What are the highs and lows of life as a VSO volunteer? 
Many of the highs come through working in a collaborative spirit with my colleagues, to achieve our objectives. Working and socialising with people from a different culture is a real learning experience for me, and one which I find very rewarding.
The lows come mainly from practical problems, shortage of electricity (very problematic in an ICT environment), lack of teaching resources and faulty equipment.
 
How did you overcome any difficulties in Tanzania? 
On the issue of electricity outage (which can happen at any time), be prepared well in advance by having tutorials ready. These can be delivered instead when the power is out and then we are well placed to deliver the practical lessons when power is available.
The teaching and learning materials referred to are mainly text books, which are either non-existent or out of date. We try to overcome this problem in two ways; guiding the students to relevant teaching and learning materials on the internet (over a very slow link) and preparing our own booklets of ICT materials.

What new skills will you take back to Ireland? 
Skills based on working effectively with people from a different culture and a deeper understanding of how to tackle underdevelopment, especially in the field of education. 

What would you say to someone considering volunteering with VSO? 
Go for it. But be sure of your motives; go with a genuine desire to help others. Research thoroughly the development issues in your field of expertise; this will help you to make an informed decision.
Happy volunteering!

What made you decide to volunteer with VSO?
I have wanted to do development work ever since I left university, and it was only recently that the timing seemed right. I have volunteered short term with organisations abroad before and after a trip to Africa, I began researching different development agencies. I was struck by the professional and sustainable ethos of VSO, and their years of experience working in development made them an easy choice.

What does your role in Guyana involve? 
Until last year, Guyana did not have a local speech and language therapist; they relied solely on VSO to provide expertise in speech and language therapy (SLT). My role here in Guyana is in capacity building for the one local speech and language therapist and the rehabilitation assistants. The result is an enhanced quality and scope of service offered to people with communication difficulties. I am based in the SLT department in Georgetown Public Hospital where I do daily coaching of the staff in clinical techniques for working with paediatrics and adults with communication impairments. I also work in a rehabilitation department for adults and in a centre for children with developmental disorders. I liaise with the ministry of health and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to secure financial support for the departments.

Describe your average day.
Here in Guyana, there is no average day. It’s this constant diversity that makes working and living here so fascinating. My working day starts at 8.30am after I’ve had a cold shower and cycled to whichever centre I’m working in that morning. I work with my colleagues and patients all morning, helping demonstrate techniques or set goals for each patient. Throughout the morning I may also be responding to phone calls from colleagues in the region who contact me for advice about a patient or require support with a management issue. At lunch, I pop out to a local vegetarian food stall and pick up some eddoe leaf for myself and fresh mango for my colleagues.

Our department is a tiny room crammed full of toys, books and boxes of files. This small room doubles as the lunch room. Services in Georgetown are fairly well utilised and resourced, however outside of the capital the regional departments have specific issues that need addressing in the long term. There is a lot of bureaucracy that has to be navigated. In the evening I often find myself catching up on work that requires internet access and I’m lucky enough to have this at home. I usually meet a friend for a walk along the sea wall or a swim in the pool, and most nights there’s some sort of social event on with the other international development workers.

How did you adapt to life in another country and culture?
VSO provide excellent training to help with this, and having had experience of developing countries before I felt reasonably prepared for the transition involved. Building up a social network of local and international friends has really helped me adapt to life away from home. I loved exploring Georgetown during the week, and getting out and exploring the regions at the weekends. Every month there’s a different festival to celebrate, be it 'Hindhu Phagwa, or African Emancipation Day. Learning from my local friends about their food and customs has been a wonderful way to feel more at home here.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date?  
There have been many projects I have been involved in that I feel incredibly proud of, however, my greatest achievement has to be when I see a rehabilitation assistant working with a patient and carrying out a well structured session using techniques that I’ve taught them in. When I see a colleague working confidently and delivering effective therapy to a patient, I know that my work here has been of benefit, as they feel they can carry on after I have left.

What are the highs and lows of life as a VSO volunteer? 
Having such great job satisfaction is a real high, after all that’s why I’m here. Leading a life where every day brings something new and different is incredibly inspiring. The lows are far less substantial to the highs and usually relate to short term frustrations with bureaucracy or my hatred of tropical bugs, or occasional passing bouts of home sickness.

How did you overcome any difficulties in Guyana? 
I did struggle at the start with the security issues here in Georgetown, being unable to walk by myself after dark, and having to lock doors even during the day made me feel quite trapped. But over time I’ve become used to the security measures and no longer miss the sense of personal freedom I take for granted at home. It took me a long time to get used to all the attention I get on the street; however I understand that I’m always going to be a source of interest being foreign and I usually respond with a wave or a smile.

What new skills will you take back to Ireland? 
The last 12 months have taught me so much! My clinical skills have improved through working with limited resources. I’ve also been able to develop my skills in training others, and gained incredible experience in managing a full department and negotiating with international NGOs. Outside of work, I’ve learned to become more resilient and have a greater appreciation for life in the developed world. I hope that when I return to Ireland I will make more ethical decisions to do with my lifestyle and this is a direct result of learning about global development issues through my work here.

What would you say to someone considering volunteering with VSO?
I’ve had the most incredible experience and would encourage anyone interested to go for it. The experience really is what you make of it, and you have to go into it with the right motivation and be prepared that it is going to be tough at times. But if you have a genuine desire to share your skills with people from across the world, learn from a different culture, and have a year of adventure, then volunteering could provide you with a truly life-changing experience.

In conjunction with VSO I am spending a year working with AFA.

AFA is a dynamic, fast moving and energetic workplace. Founded in 1991, by parents of individuals with autism, its goal was to "put autism on the Indian map." We provide a range of direct services including clinical and educational programmes, and engage in advocacy and research.

The goal during my placement is to strengthen the organisation's service delivery by providing speech and language therapy to individuals with autism.  In order for a sustainable impact to be achieved my role encompasses a strong focus on skill sharing.

I am very busy on a day to day basis. I work Monday to Friday and the occasional Saturday. We work from around 9am to 5.30pm. Lunchtime involves lively work related discussions where progress, problems and practical matters are debated. I move between the services offered by AFA. Mondays and Fridays I meet with the adults with autism attending Adhaar, a vocational centre, for “discussion time” where there is always a surprising contribution from one of the adults! On Thursdays I spend time with families and children who are attending the parent child training programme. This is a three month programme during which a group of parents train together daily along with their children with autism, gaining a greater understanding of their children and autism.

I provide information workshops on communication, speech and language development, I meet with parents on an individual basis to provide information, support and advice and I contribute to the children’s individual education plans. I work collaboratively with the teachers to support them in their work, focusing on the development of communication skills. In the afternoons I work with children who attend mainstream schools but access support services at AFA. Skill sharing has occurred during lunch time discussions, meetings, and collaborative working in structured workshops. Skill sharing has definitely been a two way process and I feel like I will leave India with a wealth of information and experiences.

Working in a multilingual environment has not been the daunting experience I expected. No barrier has been too great that it couldn’t be surmounted. I have benefited from the many visual approaches taken when working with individuals with autism. I have learnt some Hindi and Indian Sign Language but have also benefited from working closely with special educators and AFA staff who have acted as linguistic and cultural interpreters.

So far I have really enjoyed my time in India, working in a multilingual environment and learning about a new culture has been a positive experience.

The baby is not breathing. How long? No time to ask. Two doctors and three nurses surround the little brown body in the emergency ward. The infant’s mother sits silently on the floor by the entrance.  Her mother and aunt peer in from the porch.

It is early afternoon and Louise Buckley has just waded back from lunch across flooded hospital grounds. Ngam Kim, her volunteer assistant, greets her with an urgent message. She is needed in emergency.  Her first reaction to the scene, as she will say later, is a feeling of frustration.

Quickly, she reminds them of steps from the practice. One team member uses a bag-valve mask to cover the infant’s face and pump oxygen into his lungs under pressure. Another begins chest compressions. Louise steps back, finds a lamp to shine on the bed, and reminds each nurse taking turns with the mask to keep an airtight seal around the infant’s nose and mouth.

Maybe they are getting better at this.

“Now they know to get a good seal with the chin in and the head back so the air is getting in. If they look like they know what they’re doing and look quite comfortable, then I have them swap with somebody else. It is all about getting practice…

“And yes we are trying to save the baby but we’re also educating so the next time a baby comes in they don’t need a baraing (a westerner) to come in and say, ‘No, you do this!’” 
This is teaching in real time. In this classroom, outcomes are a matter of life or death. Louise has trained for years to be here. She set her heart on becoming an overseas volunteer while growing up in Ireland. She has a post-graduate degree in nursing and worked in the intensive care unit at the hospital in Cork before coming to Cambodia. Now the test is to make good some of her professional knowledge in a place where health care is sometimes little more than an amulet and a prayer.

Louise is the only baraing in Angkor Chum, a rural centre just over an hour’s drive from Siem Reap and the great temples of Angkor Wat. The referral hospital where VSO Cambodia has placed her provides emergency and obstetrical services for a population of more than 20,000 people.  Since her arrival early in 2011, she has tried to stick to the role of nursing advisor, to hold the routines of the day at arm’s length.

Sometimes that works, as in the case of the woman with snakebite, a widow with young children. Let’s treat her here, Louise argued, rather than send her to the regional centre where a doctor likely would take off her leg. The woman needed three months to heal, enough time for Louise to train the entire staff in sterile dressing of the wound.

Emergencies represent a different opportunity. The hospital staff is largely untrained or unpracticed in life-saving procedures. In cases of critical injury or a child’s life in danger, all turn for leadership to the determined Irish nurse. Even the two staff physicians defer to her experience.

“In an emergency, Louise is the most important person,” the more senior doctor, Sieng Kheng, acknowledges.

Louise is uneasy with that endorsement.  She is here to teach others her skills, not take their place. In the emergency ward, she pointedly looks to the doctor to make decisions.

“What is the plan?” she asks when an unconscious admitted infant begins to show some signs of vitality. The soles of baby’s tiny feet are pink, not deadly white. Louise gives a small yelp of delight when a stethoscope detects a steady heartbeat. The next step she leaves up to the doctors. Their decision is to move the child to the regional hospital in Siem Reap. The infant, the mother, the grandmother, Louise and two nurses – Sokha and Sokhean – head off in the ambulance.

The mission will not be successful. The nurses continue with the mask and compressions but baby dies on the way. Going back to Angkor Chum, the mother’s distress is compounded by nausea from the unfamiliar ride. Sokha prepares the little body for the mother to take when she has composed herself and the three nurses come together in a hug.

“I was proud of the girls,” Louise says later.  “They kept going and there was no stage of staring out the window which is what they used to do. And there was a lot of respect to the baby, after you know, wrapping it up and keeping its face covered.”

The afternoon has been a defeat, but not a failure. At the morning meeting next day, Louise congratulates the staff. Even two months ago, she tells them, she doesn’t think they would have worked together so well.

She means this sincerely. Her fear has been that the good practices she has stressed will be forgotten when she leaves in two years time. But ever so cautiously she is beginning to hope they may instead become good habits, and that her example of professional pride and purpose may be taking hold.

“Instead of floating in here with a couple of tablets,” she says when trying to explain the feeling, “I’m floating in with knowledge and experience and some of the staff are sponging it up. Not all of them, but some of the staff are sponging it up.” 

What made you decide to volunteer with VSO?

During college I was very interested in international work and education policy and I was lucky enough  to get some experience  through the students' union.  I then did a Master in International Human Rights in the Irish Center for Human Rights so it seemed natural that after working for three years in same job in Ireland I should apply to become a volunteer and share some of my experience and get some new skills.

What does your role in Cambodia involve?

I work with the Cambodian Independent Teachers' Association (CITA) www.cita.org.kh which is the largest teachers' association in Cambodia. My role as three parts:

1. Advise on the advocacy strategy and policy development.

2. Support the implementation of CITA's  organisational development plan.

3. Assist with project management.

Describe your average day:

A normal day starts at 6.30am (which is late by Cambodian standards) when I wake up to the latest Morning Ireland podcast (I am very lucky that I have internet access and can keep up to-date with the news from home). After a quick 10min cycle if the streets aren't flooded and traffic isn't to bad l arrive at the CITA office at 7.50am and get my laptop set up before the day officially starts at 8am and my colleagues arrive.
The first thing I do is check my emails and the newspapers  to see if there is anything urgent relating to CITA's advocacy strategy or education generally and update my colleagues if there is. It is small office with dedicated team of four full time Cambodian colleagues so we are all busy; planning workshops (we do two every month), preparing and managing projects (which is our main funding source) we have two ongoing with the ILO and Association of Teachers' & Lecturers (ATL)and are applying for two more, or researching different aspects of the Cambodian Education system.

Currently we are working on a position paper on Teacher Training and preparing campaign activities for the Global Campaign for Education Action Week which takes place from the 22nd-28th of April. Before lunch I have brief meeting with my colleague Rachana (who is also acts as my translator) to go over the work that we are doing. These meeting are very important has it ensures that Rachana can keep the CITA president Mr. Rong Chhun informed get his input as his English like m Khmer is very basic.
 

Lunch is from 12pm-2pm and with the temperature hitting 30 C and humidity at 60% I like to head straight to local pool and skip eating. In the afternoon we normally have quick meeting with Mr. Rong Chhun to get his approval and feedback.

Depending on what is happening we might have a press conference on the educational issue of the day  (June-Sep is state exams and corruption, Sep-Dec Teachers Salaries and the rests of year a myriad of issues including health and safety, discrimination and individual cases). Today we will be going to the EDUCAM meeting which is forum for all  education stakeholders that meets on a monthly basis. By 5pm we try to be wrap up  but sometimes it can be closer to 6pm when we finish. 
Then I grab some food at one of local restaurants there are hundreds, the food is good and dinner usual comes in at $2-4.  Depending on the evening it is either a quite night in, or maybe a table quiz or gig with friends at one of the many bars in Phnom Penh. 
 

How did you adapt to life in another country and culture?

I have done a bit of traveling (I had been to South East Asia in 2009) so was was prepared for the element of culture shock. I also have the  ability to eat almost anything which has helped in adjusting as small stomach problems are the biggest issue people have at fist. For me the biggest areas of adjustment was to the weather (hot and humid), the daily cycle (getting up at early and in bed my 10pm) and pace of life which is a great deal slower if more chaotic than Ireland.  Over the past 18 months I have adjusted  to the weather and dread returning to famed Irish climate, getting up early is still not something I enjoy and I don't think I will every adjust to the lack of government accountability or chaotic decision making systems in Cambodia.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date?

There are three things that come to mind the first two are publications that CITA produced which was a position paper on Teachers' Terms & Condition and National Teacher Survey 2011. The third was helping to organise the World Teachers' Day 2011 , this involved the press launch of the Give Teachers'  a Voice Campaign and public demonstration with over 700 teacher, parents and children participating. The campaign was supported by several teachers  unions including the INTO.  (see photos attached)

What are the highs and lows of life as a VSO volunteer?

The highs include:

working hand-in-hand with your Cambodia colleagues this gives you a much better understanding of where they are coming from and creates a sense of solidarity.  
taking joy in the small changes that you contribute to and learning to adapt to a different work culture
The lows include:

being away from friends and family can take it's toll but staying touch is still relevantly easy. 
managing to live as volunteer in capital city were the creature comforts are available for a price.

How did you overcome any difficulties in Cambodia?

I am very lucky too have  tight group of very close friends here and at home that have been tremendously supportive and encouraging when things have been difficult. In terms of practical issues the like health, accommodation etc  VSO team in Cambodia are great.  My mum also provides me with regular gifts to ensures I can get a indulge myself once in awhile. 

What new skills will you take back to Ireland?

The new skills I have developed include:

Organisational Management & Development
Project Management
Advocacy Management
Public Policy Management 
I have also learnt the value of soft skills such decision making and analysis.

What would you say to someone considering volunteering with VSO?

Do it! it is a fantastic experience, take it on with a open and positive mind you will not only contribute but gain so much. It is the kind of experience that will enrich you as person and can literal be life changing. In the current economic climate been a VSO Volunteer offers chance to reshape your life and to get some perspective on what really matters.

The Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA) was established in March 2000 and gained formal recognition from the Ministry of the Interior (MoI) in July 2001. CITA is the only independent, nonpartisan, non-profit, non-governmental teachers’ union in Cambodia. All government and private employees teaching from kindergarten to university level are eligible to apply for membership of CITA. Through national and international campaigning, CITA advocates for improvements in the difficult working conditions facing teachers in Cambodia and lobbies the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) to recognize teachers’ rights.

On Christmas day I’ve been invited to join a colleague’s family at their church. From there I’ll visit a residential home with other VSO volunteers where we’ll spend time ‘gaffing’ and singing with the children and elderly persons there. In the evening I’ll visit friends to join them in their festivities and will sample the local Christmas dishes of pepperpot and black-cake. Friends from home have asked will I miss home this Christmas. I’m sure I’ll fit in some skype calls on the day, but for now Guyana is my home and I’m excited to be spending this Christmas with new friends.”

Read more about VSO in Guyana

I’m based with the Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC) which carries out research, advocacy and development projects on natural resources – mainly water and forestry – in the state of Odisha. I spent six weeks in their head office in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, before arriving at the regional office in Koraput, a remote town in the tribal belt, high in the Eastern Ghats. Probably the most interesting part of the job so far has been learning about how the various forest plants are used as medicines and treatments for different diseases: there is an entirely different system of health and medicine here. Although this is one of the poorest parts of India and life is hard for a lot of people, mobile phones, satellite TV and the Internet are present everywhere. The contrast between prosperity and extreme poverty is very pronounced and visible right across this country.

Christmas will be spent here in Koraput. There’s another VSO volunteer here in town, Nancy from the Philippines. Claire from Scotland arrives to start her placement just a few days before the 25th. We will be joined by three other VSO’s who are travelling from elsewhere in Odisha. Turkey and ham won’t appear on our table but we’ll enjoy each other’s company and swap the latest VSO gossip.”

I soon found that skills learned as a student teacher many years ago and long out of date in our high tech schools in Ireland, are exactly what developing countries need. I found this comforting and encouraging. In the average school electricity is unknown, slates and chalk or paper and crayons are luxuries used with enthusiasm by children previously expected to sit quietly and just listen. Laughter comes easily to children here, it’s heartwarming to see how they enjoy the old playground games like ‘What’s the time Mr. Wolf?’translated of course. It’s easy to forget your age when you travel by motorbike or play hopscotch!

Waking up every morning to clear blue skies also puts a spring in your step. While I’m not saying it’s all fun and games, I do miss the comforts of home from time to time, volunteering has been a memorable experience that I can honestly recommend as an anti-aging exercise.

I feel years younger, let’s hope returning to Ireland does not turn me into ‘Rip Van Winkle’"

After undertaking a variety of communications and business development roles in Irish companies, Audrey decided this year that a more modest life helping others was for her. 

Having departed in June 2011, Audrey took up a challenging 1-year placement in Sierra Leone.  Now she is working as a Business Services Development Adviser with a local organisation called AFFORD that promotes employment by supporting small businesses. 

During her time in Africa Audrey will be imparting crucially needed knowledge to businesses in Sierra Leone, and will thus play a major role in developing its economy, which has been devastated by numerous conflicts in recent years.

Audrey speaks about her first few weeks:

“I am collected each morning in the VSO four wheel drive pickup which takes me and the other volunteers to the VSO office for our first two weeks of training.  We are a multicultural and multi-disciplined group consisting of: a Canadian who will be working in water management; two Ugandans, one working in business development and one in marketing; A Kenyan also working in Marketing; a New Zealand statistician who will be working with a government department, an Indian who will work on fundraising and me.  I will be working in business development and so am grateful to find that there is another ‘newbee’ working in my field.

The training itself has been fascinating covering everything from the cultural aspects of the country, lessons in Krio (the local language), health and safety issues to an analysis of the Secure Livelihoods Programme area in which we are all working.  The sessions have been lively and interactive and the lunch time discussions even more fun as we compare cultures and attitudes to everything from food to the amount of housework men should do in the home.  Us opoto’s (white people) are also getting a good slagging from the other Africans as we constantly complain about the heat.”

A key attraction for me was that VSO will match your professional skills to a suitable vacancy in several locations around the world. The advantage to this is that when you arrive ‘in country’ you have the necessary skills to try and make an impact. VSO provided very comprehensive training prior to departure which was very informative and useful. There was also training on arrival in Tajikistan.

I found this invaluable in providing information about the country and where you will be working. There is great network of support from fellow volunteers and the local programme office. I am here now two months working for a local organisation trying to promote awareness in the private section around the whole issue of disability and trying to promote an understanding that people with disabilities have great potential and can add value to organisations. It is early days yet but to date my experiences have been hugely awarding.

Yes there are frustrations particularly around language and local customs but nothing that cannot be overcome with some good humour. The people here are incredibly kind and gracious and welcoming. Volunteering with VSO – I would highly recommend it. “

Now he is working as an English Language Coordinator with Haromaya University. English language skills are of crucial importance in enabling Ethiopian children to avail of global economic opportunities, which are heavily based in the English-speaking world. However the quality of English teachers in Ethiopia is poor, primarily due to the chronic under-funding of the education system.

Gary’s role enables him to assist English language teachers in improving their skills. He therefore plays a major role in brightening the future of thousands of Ethiopian children.

“I'm working in a university in the east of Ethiopia near the border of Somalia. My main duties involve running programmes to improve the general standard of English on campus. This year these have included training Graduate Assistants, newly qualified teaching staff, and a World Bank funded programme for academically weak female first year students. I've also tried to establish some extra-curricular activities such as Debate Nights, Spelling Competitions, Book Club, and a student run English Club.

In my spare time I visit a local school once a week and we've initiated a pen-pal letter writing link with a school in Ballyboughal, north county Dublin. I plan to request children's books, writing material, and other basic stationery from schools and individuals in preparation for the next academic year. I also hope to establish more links with various schools in the rural surrounding areas.”

In the last 6 months I’ve had the opportunity to get involved in a variety of projects, supervising students on their clinical placements, classroom based teaching, conducting a clinical audit on the outcomes of newborns, working on a small grant proposal for improving conditions on maternity ward and helping with a WHO funded project to equip a maternal and child health clinic in a rural area relatively near to Gondar.

Equipping a health clinic has involved a few trips to the clinic to piece together a variety of medical equipment from delivery couches to autoclaves and lamps. The final aim being to train all of the health centre workers on how to use the equipment effectively.

Our first trip: Accompanied by one of the only senior female doctors from internal medicine we make our way to the clinic, the driver speeds along the dirt road kicking up a trail of dust behind us. Entering the clinic we greet a number of the staff, their names and positions are mostly lost on me, as my basic Amharic doesn’t keep up. Proudly we are shown the large boxes that contain the equipment. Chaos ensues as each box is pulled into the courtyard and opened. “Koi, koi, wait, wait” I cry futilely wanting to keep the components of each box together…

Never mind I think at least the instructions can identify what goes where. Instructions are non-existent in any language. A shrug of the shoulders and a deep breath is taken, how hard can this be, I was a student of the IKEA flat pack bookcases, I can do this…

Three hours later with much laughter and confusion through a fog of English, Amharic and the ‘sign language’ of pointing we managed to assemble 2 stools, one delivery couch, 2 lamps and 3 drip stands. The midwives, nurses, birth attendants, cleaners, student health officers who just happened to be visiting the clinic and our driver all stand around with a sense of accomplishment, promises are made that we will return to complete the project as we head home as the sun starts to set.

What made you decide to volunteer with VSO?

I wanted to challenge myself, to ‘do’ the VSO thing, which had been on my list since I left university. I felt I had something to give and also wanted to get to the ‘source’ of where my students came from, how their lives were before they came to Ireland and the education they might have had. 

What did your new role in Mongolia involve?

I helped facilitate teacher-training workshops and organise two national TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) conferences. I delivered direct teaching in English language, literature, culture and film to the graduate students and provided informal teacher training to my colleagues.

How did you adapt to life in another country and culture?

I was blessed with the best colleagues in the world, who had been waiting for their ‘international expert’ for months and couldn't wait to get going. I found the first month a little difficult to adjust to, but then I started working and things started looking brighter. I really liked being welcomed into someone's house for Tsagaan Sar (Mongolian new year) or a birthday party. I liked seeing camels in the main square and I found being thanked everyday in my work highly addictive.

Do you think you made a worthwhile contribution in Mongolia?

We reached hundreds of teachers from the countryside when the conferences were taking place. We started many extracurricular activities, including a film club and English club. I think most of my colleagues just grew in confidence and they all told me that their English language skills had improved. They also did more communicative and cooperative lesson plans. By the end of my placement I couldn't walk down the street without the daily "Hello teacher Ruth". 

How did you overcome any difficulties in Mongolia?

The two main challenges were the climate and missing my friends and family. Sometimes in winter the temperature can drop to minus 40 and while it’s beautiful with the never ending blue sky, sometimes having a frozen nose because you walked to work was irritating. I bought more warm clothes and then before you look around, spring is on its way. Luckily most of my friends and family use Facebook or email and I started writing letters again, which is actually something I really enjoy.

What new skills have you brought home with you?

I teach with more confidence and would be quite happy to conduct workshops for other teachers. I can also lecture, I’d never ‘lectured’ to a hundred people before. I can solve problems with few or no resources in a time deadline of eight minutes! I have learnt to be flexible, adaptable, and more sensitive to the needs of others. I know more about Shamanism, I can sing three Mongolian folk songs and I know how to walk on a frozen lake and check if it's safe. 
 

What are you doing now and how far do you think you’ll stay in touch with VSO?

I'm getting married (we started dating shortly after my assessment day, he stayed in Ireland, waited and I eventually came back!). I’m also teaching part-time in a summer school. I want to be actively involved with VSO for as long as possible – I have spoken at the VSO Dublin information evening and may run a marathon to raise money. I would highly recommend VSO. I think everyone should go overseas. The only thing I wouldn't recommend is trying to organise a wedding in four weeks when they return!

How the day begins

I get up with just enough time to get myself washed and dressed and make the one minute walk to my office for 9am. My Nepalese friends and colleagues find this amusing if a bit inconceivable, in particular the females who are up hours before me to get the morning meal cooked. 
 

How my placement works

I have been placed as a management advisor with an organisation called Blue Diamond Society (BDS). It is a HIV and AIDS and human rights programme for sexual and gender minorities in Nepal. BDS are a VSO partner through the HIV and AIDS programme. It is a very dynamic organisation that has achieved amazing results since it began in 2001.

I am placed with the finance team of a large HIV and AIDS prevention project.   I am an accountant and the placement outline indicated that I would be supporting the development of the finance function. However, a lot of the work has been around proposal writing/editing and donor reporting as the organisation receives funding from various international donor agencies. The work really is what you make of it and the success of a placement seems to depend a lot on how well you build relationships with the people in the organisation.

Where my role takes me

My work does not require that I travel outside of Kathmandu very much.  I do get out and about around the city for various meetings but the majority of the time, I am based in our office in central Kathmandu. Getting about in Kathmandu is easy – there are an abundance of taxis, rickshaws, buses and tuk-tuks. 

What's on the menu

Food is a major topic of conversation in Nepal based on my experience and one of the topics I can join in with having grasped the basics of Nepali, the national language. A frequent greeting is “khanna khannu bhayo?” which literally translates as “have you eaten food?”.  You cannot speak of food in Nepal without mentioning Daal Bhaat. This is the traditional food of Nepal than is eaten twice daily. Daal is a lentil broth and Bhaat is simply boiled rice.

The changes I have encountered

Before joining VSO I was the manager of a client reporting team in a large consulting firm in Dublin. It was a pressurised, deadline focused environment. Here in Nepal, there are deadlines imposed by donors and other stakeholders and they are usually met but there is not the same build up of pressure to meet them. 

How to relax in Nepal

Most weekends I get together with other volunteers living in Kathmandu so that is a good way to wind down after a week in work. On Saturdays, I usually go outside the city for a walk with the Himalayan Hash House Harriers. It has been a great way to meet people that are not connected with work and escape the pollution of Kathmandu. I also watch a lot of movies on my computer. When it is hot and sunny, I sometimes pay to use the pool facilities in one of the local hotels and pretend I am on holiday.

Things I miss about home

I feel very lucky to be placed in Kathmandu as a lot of the things I might have missed from home are available here. I do miss spending time with my family and the friends back home but we keep in touch via email and Skype and I have made one trip back so far to visit. 

What I love about Nepal

I love the chaos and how it has changed the way I approach life and living.  They recommend that you prepare yourself to be flexible when you become a volunteer and this is the best advice I could give anyone considering it.  I think the experience here means that I am better equipped to deal with change in my life both personally and professionally. I have really enjoyed learning a new language and making lots of new friends both with my fellow volunteers and my Nepalese colleagues and neighbours.

Taking the leap

Susan’s relationship with VSO began at a Working Abroad exhibition in Dublin. “I was actually there looking for information about getting an Australian or New Zealand visa,” she reveals. “At that stage, I had already applied for a career break from teaching because I wanted to travel and do something different, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.”

Realising that getting a visa to work Down Under would be a headache, Susan began to seriously consider the idea of volunteering with VSO. A teacher colleague, who had worked in Africa for two years, convinced her to give it a go. She applied, attended an Assessment Day, and very quickly found herself signed up with VSO and heading off to Namibia.

“I don’t mind being so far from home and my family are pretty used to my ‘galavanting’,” says Susan. ”Technology has made the world quite small and keeping in touch is really easy. I’m lucky enough to have fairly reliable Internet access at work, so I can have regular conversations with my family and friends. I’ve had chats with them all at once that make it feel like we’re sitting around the kitchen table at home in Oylegate, County Wexford.”

A challenging situation

Like many in her position, Susan finds her role both frustrating and rewarding. She works with Namibia’s National Institute for Education Development, developing curricular manuals and helping improve in-service teacher training. “Sometimes my job gets bogged in bureaucracy and I’m stuck behind a desk writing documents that seem to be of no practical use to teachers, as people working at national level are often out of touch with the reality on the ground,” she explains.

“But at other times I will run a workshop and see teachers getting excited when I show them a simple game or strategy to use in their teaching. That’s when it all feels worthwhile. Everything can be very disorganised and haphazard here – I’m having to learn patience. Teaching is not a popular career choice in Namibia, as teachers are inadequately trained and poorly paid, and therefore are often lacking motivation. Working here makes me appreciate how lucky we are in Ireland.”

Cause for celebration

St Patrick’s Day provided a telling contrast between life in Namibia and back home in Ireland. “They’ve hardly heard of Ireland, let alone St. Patrick!” laughs Susan. “I spent my Patrick’s Day at the Namibian Parliament on a work visit and then met up with some volunteer friends for a few drinks (what else?!) in the evening. There are no other Irish volunteers in Namibia; in fact I haven’t met a single Irish person since I arrived. I plan to spread the word that there is more to Ireland than Guinness.”

The adventure begins

After 20 years of travelling to Uganda to undertake short placements, Diane took the plunge and volunteered for a two-year stint with VSO. She was accompanied by her eight year-old daughter, Sara, and, although she too had been to Uganda before, they found themselves excited and a little nervous at the prospect of moving from Belfast to Kampala.

They needn’t have worried. “We quickly settled into our new home,” recalls Diane. “A week after arriving, Sara started at her new school  – Rainbow International. There have been ups and downs, but I’m incredibly proud of the way she has slotted in there with very little complaint and has done well. She is enjoying her life here. She’s learned to swim properly and has made lots of friends, most of whom come from the large slum area nearby.”

“Life in Uganda is amazing but not without its challenges,” she continues. “The traffic and the roads are atrocious, the dirt is horrendous, and the poverty is heartbreaking, but after a while you learn to make the best of it.”

Changing attitudes

Diane’s role was initially as a midwife tutor in the International Hospital in Kampala. She needed to adjust quickly: “Working in Ugandan culture will always throw frustrations in your path, whether it be attitudes or work ethic – which is incredibly different from where I come from – and the speed at which things move is often painfully slow. It takes determination and sheer perseverance, with a bit of ego massage for a few personalities along the way, but eventually things start to happen.”
 
“One of the biggest challenges for me has been knowing my limitations,” she adds. “I arrived with plans to change a whole organisation or culture, but over time you come to the realisation that you will achieve only a tiny 'nibble' off the edge of what has to be done, but that that tiny nibble makes a huge impact.”

Looking ahead

One year in, her role has mushroomed into a large and exciting collection of jobs, from teaching midwives, nurses and doctors to developing protocols that ensure good risk management. She is currently also working to develop midwifery services in Lira, a more rural district about five hours North of Kampala.

“Sub-Saharan Africa still has an unacceptably high maternal and infant mortality rate,” says Diane. “There’s a lot of work to be done within communities and another project I am working on is increasing awareness of the importance of effective bereavement care for mothers who suffer loss in childbirth. Speaking to bereaved mothers, I realised that they struggle with a lack of acknowledgement of their loss within their communities. Helping local midwives to see this, and designing tools for them to help a mother begin the grieving process may go some way towards making this tragic loss a more positive experience.”

As Diane and Sara head into their second year in Uganda, Diane says, “I hope and pray for another year as good as the first. To those of you embarking on a VSO adventure, you won't regret it!”

Wake up call

The roosters start crowing at daybreak in the village where we live and the local people, not having electricity, live and work according to the daylight, but a lifetime of habits is hard to break and I don't rise until about seven. If the power is working I'll have tea and toast for breakfast, if not, I'll settle for milk and bread.

My role with VSO in Malawi 

I work with the Ministry of Education as a professional development facilitator. The schools are clustered into zones and each zone has a Teacher Development Centre, managed by an adviser. My colleague Kieran, who also happens to be my husband, and I work with these advisers – all 49 of them in a geographical area spreading hundreds of miles north of where we live.

The advisers are former primary school principals and they are responsible for the professional development of the teachers in their zones, sometimes up to 200 teachers. It's a daunting task and that is where we come in. We try to support them with trainings and regular meetings, we facilitate exchange visits between districts and we have helped to improve networking among learners and educators with regular newsletters.

Travel

We have a monster jeep, which comes in handy as many of the centres are on earth roads that are often waterclogged during the heavy rains. We have to ford a river, two foot deep, on today's journey, but we pull it off and continue on our way. We have gotten stuck a few times, but not for long. Even on a seemingly deserted track, people pop up out of nowhere to help Kieran push the vehicle while I try to steer it out of the mud.

Differences from working at home

One of the biggest challenges I have encountered is adapting to the Malawian work ethic, which can be summed up in the words: “No hurry, No worry!” Meetings are often postponed or cancelled, or simply no-one shows up, communication is poor and there can be an over-reliance on the NGO sector and a lack of initiative on the part of the locals. But, I don't blame them, they have grown up on a diet of handouts and charity, and it has been a real endeavour of mine; to instil independence in my colleagues here.

What I do to relax

I try to get an hour on our veranda as the sun sets. My main pastime here is reading, it is just as well I love books, as there is little in the way of other activities.

What I miss about home

I know it is a cliché, but by far what I miss the most are my family and friends. I have made some new friends here and we are tied together in this shared experience, but nothing makes up for the comfort of old friends and the familiar warmth of family. I can't wait to see them all again.

What I love about being here

The thing that I love most about Malawi is, without a shadow of a doubt, are the children. They are the most beautiful creatures full of smiles and giggles, growing up in a carefree world of skipping, dancing, tree climbing and the enviable freedom.

When I arrived in Malawi over six months ago, I felt sorry for the people all the time. I was overcome with pity and guilt, but the longer I am here the more that pity turns to envy. In Ireland, we tend to associate Africa with famine, disease and war, but there is another reality here. There is an overwhelming sense of kinship, community and loyalty, and people are quick to laugh and smile.

It only took a few days for VSO volunteer Lisa Drayson to detect glaring gaps in hospital care when she started her placement as a Nurse Midwife Trainer in Mzuzu, Malawi. “Patients were lying on the floor without a mattress, sometimes there were two people in a bed and two under the bed while heavily pregnant women had to sleep outside. And nurses were overstretched, there could be two nurses managing seventy patients in a ward of thirty beds.”

Ideally there should be one midwife per seven patients in Malawi, but there is only one midwife per 700 women, according to the Nurses and Midwives Council Malawi. The Council has deemed most hospital and health care facilities in the country below standard, so there is a colossal need for better qualified nurses and midwives to meet the demands of a growing population.

It’s a problem Lisa’s trying to fix, training up to fifty nursing students each year at a nearby college of nursing. Over two years, Lisa's helped train 150 student nurses and midwives, though she strongly feels quality should never be sacrificed to make up numbers.

Simple skills save lives

After a few months of college-based teaching, Lisa’s placement shifted to the hospital, where she worked closely with the sister-in-charge to bring about real changes to clinical care in the overburdened hospital, “Often people think they can change things really quickly, but I found the best way was to observe initially –you see many shocking things...but I just kept it all in my head to begin with and when the opportunity arose, I made the most of it.”

A simple but vital practice Lisa introduced to the hospital was a documentation system – recording patient details on the ward, and changing the filing system of the ward, which was later implemented by managers throughout the entire hospital. “It has had a massive impact,” says Lisa, “...there would be nothing written about patients who’d been on the ward for months, patients would die and no one would know why.” Lisa implemented this change after developing a relationship of mutual respect with the nurse management, and worked with them collaboratively to bring about this critical change in behaviour. “I would think – what can I do today to help change a attitudes a little – there is the long-term change, but there are the small things too. Sometimes things need a lot of work, other things are nearly there and just need a bit of support. “

Raising the pass rate to 100%

Lisa has spent the last two years of her extended placement with VSO lecturing at Mzuzu University Hospital, where 100% of students passed exams that enable them to register as nurses and midwives in 2011; a triumph after only 38% passed the same exams in 2010. Lisa believes the success is down to a succession of VSO volunteers in a similar role at the university, building upon the work of one another, “Coming from the outside to really influence the ways things are done can be difficult, which is why you need to be there long-term to bring about real change.”

It's a scorching June afternoon in a rural village in Miirya sub-county, Uganda. In the cool shade of a tree, VSO nurse Pam Llewellyn uses brightly illustrated posters and the help of Sally, her colleague and translator, to train village health volunteers in malaria infection and prevention.

How we catch malaria...

"Mrs Anopheles, the female mosquito, bites you at night-time when you are sleeping and transfers the malaria parasite into your body," explains Pam, with Sally translating as they hold their first poster aloft.  "She comes to make a meal to feed her eggs."

The second poster features a cartoon of the malaria parasite making its way to the liver; in poster three it is busy reproducing itself. And so the session goes on. It ends with poster seven, which stresses the life-saving difference sleeping under an insecticide treated mosquito net can make.

...and how we can prevent it

Next there's a practical demonstration of how to hang up a net. The afternoon's training ends with everyone standing up to sing The Malaria Song: the verses describe the symptoms and the chorus is another reminder to sleep under a net. 

Stephen is one of the volunteers Pam has been training. Before he met her, he and his family hated sleeping under mosquito nets because they were too restrictive and claustrophobic on hot nights. But the consequences were serious – and expensive.

"I was having a lot of problems with my family, a lot of malaria, and there were a lot of expenses as I was having to transport my family to hospital," remembers Stephen.  "But with Pam's education and being told how important it is, now we won't sleep without nets! And we have no more malaria."

100 volunteers spread the word in rural villages

Newly equipped with expertise in preventing malaria, Pam's volunteers – nearly 100 of them, distinctive in their blue t-shirts – will return to their villages and promote the use of insecticide treated mosquito nets. They'll show their communities how to tuck their nets tightly under their sleeping mats and how to tie them up during the day so that they don't get ripped. The volunteer will warn their communities against washing their nets too often so as not to dilute the insecticide.

Some families in the village will tell the volunteers that they can't afford nets. They usually cost around £3, so are beyond the reach of the average Ugandan. But the volunteers will happily contradict them. With the help of friends and family back in the UK, Pam and fellow VSO volunteer Dr Chris Jary have raised enough money to buy thousands of nets. They then sell them at the subsidised price of £1. Selling the nets is better than giving them away because people value them more and will look after them. The money is invested into the project to buy more nets.

Miirya beats malaria

Nearly 5,000 nets have been distributed so far. That means thousands of lives have been saved. And the word is out: nets are now in demand. "The thing I’m most proud of is that we’re no longer having to persuade people to buy nets," says Pam. "People in Miirya are asking for them – they understand their value and they want them. That is a lovely feeling."

Take a look at our gallery of Pam's work in Uganda. 

 My father was a transport driver, running a sort of ambulance service in our village. Quite often he would end up helping people in need of urgent medical care because of the shortage of health centres near our village. The distances people travel from rural areas to see a doctor can be great. Growing up, I saw that if there were more doctors or health facilities available to people in villages, they could be seen quicker and less people would die. I thought it would be so much better if more of us are trained…so it made sense for me to be a doctor.

But it’s expensive to train to be a doctor here.

Luckily I was one of the top ten students with the best results in public examinations, so I was fortunate to be awarded a scholarship to enter medical school. It was like a dream come true; because my father wasn’t able to raise even one fourth of the money required for me to enter medical school. Now, as a medical student, I’m learning something unlike anything else in the world, and I’m learning a lot of new things from Dr Shona Johnston. Working with her has helped me realise how important it is to have passion for the work.  Dr Shona is very industrious; she has taught us many emergency medical procedures, like cardio-respiratory resuscitation.

Doing an ultrasound is something we normally only see performed by professionals trained abroad, but we have been introduced to it here by Dr Shona. She has taught us how to identify the heartbeat from the scan, and how to spot the liver. I am very confident that I could save a life just by using that technique, because of the way it was explained and demonstrated to us by Dr Shona.

After Dr Shona leaves...

I’ll be able to teach my skills to community health officers in rural areas, because this knowledge is transferable.

Even now, when fellow medical students miss out on learning from Dr Shona, I share the procedures I’ve learnt from her with colleagues. If you keep on practising and showing others, then I believe you’re able to do more and help other people do more too.

 You know, here in Sierra Leone, we don’t have much equipment compared with overseas. We have villages in Sierra Leone, like the village I come from…it’s one of the remotest villages in the country where there is no electricity. I want to return to my village to help my people. If I don’t have the skills to help them, I’ll be part of the problem rather than helping to solve the problem.

 I believe if I’m well trained, I’ll be able to go to my village, help my people and in so doing I'll be help reduce the infant mortality rate in our country.

What does your role in Ethiopia involve?
I am a higher diploma leader. This means I lead and teach the Higher Diploma Programme (HDP) to the teachers/lecturers in a teacher training college, Sekota College of Teacher Education. I have 21 candidates in two groups; each candidate must be formally observed teaching three classes at 50 minutes per class and each must have two professional interviews of 45 minutes during the 30 weeks. All of that, combined with preparation, assessing the candidates’ work, meeting to discuss active learning projects and action research projects, makes it a full time job. I am also required to train Higher Diploma (HD) tutors who will, by the end of the year, be capable of leading the course next year.

I find the job extremely rewarding as I got great support from day one from the college dean and vice dean. The candidates are hugely enthusiastic about the course and willing to try new teaching methods. One of my tasks is to encourage them to be innovative and find ways of using locally available, no cost, materials and come up with activities.

Describe your average day:
I walk for 45 minutes to the college to arrive at 8.15am. I do the four sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays so the other days are taken up doing what I have described above. If I am observing a class I am greeted by the teacher and escorted to the room; all are very open to observation and see any constructive comment as helpful. They love to share experiences with others; in that way they could teach us a valuable lesson.
When I have a break I go to the staff room, or go out to sit with those watching a table tennis game, which is very popular here. The dean’s door is always open so I drop in to discuss progress. The course is very clearly set out and the initial training was very good so that combined with the experience I brought with me makes my job easier.

I go to my house for lunch and I try to get a ‘Bajaj’ for at least one leg of the way as the temperature can be very high at that time of the day: 27-30 C and the sun high in the sky. I generally walk with some of my colleagues/candidates and discuss the topic of the day-never the weather! I am the only foreigner or ‘ferengi’ as they say, in the town so that means I have plenty of opportunity to mix with the local people and get to know the culture. It is a rural town in the true sense so I share street space with donkeys, goats, sheep and oxen.

People all around are involved in eking out an existence but all are remarkably cheerful and interested, often too much so, in ‘the stranger’. The simple act of buying bananas or powdered milk can turn into a communal activity: everybody minds everybody else’s business and no one minds at all. I do my own cooking but as the choice is limited and I have, like all volunteers, only a one ring electric cooker, my culinary skills are not really tested.

How did you adapt to life in another country and culture?
I found the first few weeks quite strange, being as I was, ‘lone and remote’: the VSO categorisation for someone who is not accompanied by another volunteer and is in a very remote area. The fact that there was no one in the area whose first language was English was difficult and I did not have internet access for the first two months. I was dependent on phone calls for all communication and as the lines were sometimes down it was very challenging.

The people are extraordinarily friendly and helpful: I was invited by so many people to come to their homes for coffee or a meal that I would have done nothing else if I accepted all invitations. Against that, the children can be over friendly; I got very good advice from my dean on our first walk through the town: ‘Do not shake their hands and do not give them money’. Children beg whether they need to or not: ferengi are seen as rich, which is relatively true, and it is a reflex action to say ‘You, you, money, money’. For a while I felt like the Pied Piper but eventually they realised that all they were getting was a wave and a smile so now the numbers are greatly reduced! Although money is very scarce, the people have enough to eat and the children are well nourished.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date?
I think surviving the first month and getting the course off to a good start, despite the difficulties, was a big achievement. Most of the candidates are in their 30’s and when one of them said that I was like a mother to them as well as a teacher, I felt I must be on the right track. Many of them have very difficult lives also as they live away from wives, children and families and do not see them for months due to the poor roads and distance involved; most journeys take two days. I realised very quickly that I would not be leaving Sekota often so I made plans for two holidays: one at Christmas when one of my daughters and her partner visited and the second in Feb/March when my husband visited and we travelled for two weeks.

What are the highs and lows of life as a VSO volunteer?
The highs are feeling you are making a difference and succeeding in whatever your role is. Getting immersed in an altogether different culture is very exciting and a marvellous experience. Talking to people about their culture, lifestyle, beliefs, hopes and dreams is interesting and often amazing. The lows are missing family, being lonely at weekends in a remote place where there is no entertainment of any kind, especially for women. This would not be the case in Addis Ababa or a few other urban areas as there would be a number of volunteers from various agencies and also a more ‘modern’ attitude and way of life.

How did you overcome any difficulties in Ethiopia?
I called up whatever resilience I have, I communicated a lot with the staff in the college, I have a Kindle full of good books, I have an iPod and I spent time and money emailing and sometimes on Facebook once I got internet service. I did a lot of research on the area before I came and I knew, to some extent, what was in store. I didn’t know I would be the only foreigner for miles around but I soon realised I would have to make the best of it and now I am rather glad I did.

What new skills will you take back to Ireland?
I know I can survive quite adverse conditions. I was already a reasonably good communicator but I now know I can manage to learn the basics of a foreign language fairly quickly; the course I am facilitating is in English and some of the staff in the college have quite good English so I need Amharic only for the market, shops and so on. I know I can organise and deliver an academic course to adults, which is quite different from my experience as a second level teacher. I can motivate and encourage people to take risks and try out new approaches to teaching, as long as they are well practiced and confident.

What would you say to someone considering volunteering with VSO? I would say go for it. It will be an exciting and rewarding experience. You will do a fairly in-depth preparation before you leave for your placement and the in country training provided is comprehensive and encouraging.
VSO is a very professional organisation and will listen and assist you if you find yourself in any difficulties. You will meet very interesting people, including other volunteers when you meet up for workshops or social gatherings and you will get a real insight into another culture. Do not expect it to be a holiday or a bed of roses but any lows will be more than offset by the joy of working with people who are really appreciative of your efforts and very happy to have you share their lives.

Volunteer now   
 

Ethical tourism

A key part of the solution is tourism. By drawing on the region’s natural assets and attracting tourists, the local community can make a much needed living and provide for their families. That is why VSO volunteers Christine Braganza and Jelte Bakker worked with the Pamir Eco-Cultural Tourism Association (PECTA). PECTA works with the local community to develop tourism services and to make sure that local people benefit. 

Both Christine and Jelte volunteered as tourism advisers and have more than 20 years’ experience of developing tourism in the Netherlands, the UK, the US and Italy.

Christine and Jelte trained PECTA staff to identify their market, tailor their products and provide the quality of service tourists expect. As a result, PECTA is aiming its services at growing number of adventure tourists, who are naturally drawn to the mountains of the Pamirs. The volunteers also helped PECTA to produce promotional brochures which show off the region, local products and services available.

Lasting effects

Tajikistan has a strong culture of hospitality and homestays are often a way to develop tourism locally. However, many families are willing to impoverish themselves to provide for guests by accepting prices that don’t cover the costs.

Christine and Jelte supported staff to produce materials that will ensure tourists learn how not to make the poverty in the region worse. Now all materials produced by PECTA warn tourists of the danger of making the Pamir community even poorer by misunderstanding the situation.

In 2011 the association faced closure as its funding collapsed. However, through hard work and support from Christine and Jelte, PECTA has secured more funding. PECTA can now continue its work to promote the Pamirs and to increase the wealth in the region.

This ripple effect is at the heart of PECTA’s approach, explains Kirgizbek Kanunov, chair of PECTA, “Improve people’s livelihoods and their income will go to their families and everyone they live with. Everybody benefits!”

PECTA is supported by VSO and the Aga Khan Foundation through the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP).

For more information about PECTA visit: www.pecta.tj/en

I’ve always enjoyed teaching, being creative and trying out new ideas. I was an early years teacher for five years in the UK before volunteering with VSO; but I had always wanted to work overseas and share my skills with people who’ve not had the opportunity to receive much training and guidance with their career.

Describe what you are doing.

I work in a teacher training college as a methodology and resources adviser, helping improve the quality of education in Rwanda. My role is to work with trainee teachers who haven’t yet taught in schools, sharing child centred teaching methods with them, like songs, games and group work. I’ve been showing them how to make teaching resources out of low cost materials such as rice sacks, paper bags and discarded bottle tops. I’ve also started up a centre for student teachers.

What’s the education system like in Rwanda?

Things have moved on here - most children now have access to education in Rwanda but a lot of children drop out of school in their first few years. One reason for this is that the quality of education is poor. Class sizes are very large and a double shift system is operated throughout primary school where children only go to school in either the morning or afternoon. This means teachers work very hard, teaching from early morning until evening for a small wage, most have also had only very basic training so they lack an understanding of how children learn.

Can a UK trained teacher add value in a country like Rwanda?

UK trained teachers have lots of skills to share with teaching staff in Rwanda such as how to plan lessons, assess learners and make learning fun and engaging. These things are a great help to a country like Rwanda where most trainee teachers themselves have had an incomplete or disrupted post-genocide education and have never experienced child centred methods.

Describe a typical day on placement.

I start my day looking at my list of classes, reading lesson plans and preparing resources. I then teach a variety of classes across the three year groups of the teacher training college. Some days I observe and support the trainees on teaching practice at the local primary school and sometimes they come to the resource centre to ask for help with making teaching aids for their lessons. From time to time I train teachers and head teachers to run workshops on methodology and resource making with other VSO volunteers.

Most memorable experience?

I developed a teaching and resource making course with other VSO volunteers for pre-service teachers. It was recently included in the official curriculum for teacher training colleges across Rwanda. Knowing that our course will continue to be taught by local tutors after we have left our placements felt like a real breakthrough - it makes our work sustainable and long lasting.

Best moment so far?

One of my best moments was when my trainee teachers decided to teach me something. We had been singing the song Frère Jacques and I had been teaching ways of adapting the words to teach children about different topics. My class of trainees then decided it was time to teach me the song in Kinyarwanda and they didn’t give up until I could sing the whole song back to them. It was great for them to see that sharing skills is a two way process.

And the worst?

One of the hardest things to deal with is that teacher training colleges in Rwanda have a high staff turnover. Sometimes I’ll work with a tutor on teaching methodology at the college and a few weeks later they will leave their post and I’ll have to start all over again.

How is it living long-term in Rwanda?

Rwanda is a beautiful country, the scenery is breathtaking and it is small and easy to get around so I have done lots of travelling in my spare time. The people here want to develop their country so they are forward thinking and eager to work with you. I have been lucky enough to experience a completely different lifestyle and culture, and learned so much as a result.

Any stories you would like to share about the trainee teachers you work with?

I had one young trainee who came to me for advice on making a teaching aid for her lesson on the water cycle. I suggested she try drawing a picture of it on rice sacking material. At first she refused, saying she couldn’t draw. But after a bit more encouragement she gave it a go and was delighted with the result. I saw her teach a lesson using the resource she had made and it was brilliant, it would have been considered a good lesson anywhere in the world. Since then she has been one of my most enthusiastic trainees and she often comes to the resource centre to practice her drawing.

What would you say to other teachers considering volunteering?

Do it! It will add an international dimension to your teaching experience and you will be inspired every day by the willingness of the teachers and trainees to improve their practice and develop their country in difficult circumstances. I have had opportunities that I would never have had in the UK, for example working on curriculum development at a national level, organising education conferences for donors such as UNICEF and USAID and working with other inspiring volunteers from all over the world.

Women in business in Tajikistan

The National Association of Business Women of Tajikistan (NABWT) works with women training them in the skills they need to find work. With over 20 offices throughout Tajikistan, NABWT also works with young female entrepreneurs who are trying to start their own businesses.

“We work with women because they are the most vulnerable, especially as so many men are leaving the country to find work elsewhere,” said a spokeswoman at NABWT.

The business women often sell handicraft that they have made at home in local markets. However, many are unaware of their rights or what fees they need to pay. This is highlighted when the women cross borders to sell their goods in other countries. the women are often unaware of the customs procedures and have difficulties at the checkpoints. The NABWT employs a lawyer to work with business women to inform them about the rules.

NABWT had trouble delivering training at low cost, as the women it helps can’t always afford to pay for its services. It had also struggled to help the women to broaden their customer base and connect to potential customers.

VSO’s work with the NABWT

NABWT asked VSO Tajikistan to help them strengthen their business development activities. VSO volunteer Victoria Fletcher, is working as business development adviser. Vicky was ideal for this placement as she has years of experience  - at director level in the UK - of turning small business ventures into profitable and sustainable medium-sized enterprises.

With Vicky’s help, NABWT has recouped the cost of its training and increase the number of women learning important career skills. She has also helped NABWT to negotiate a contract with a US-based distributor which sells traditional crafts. This market has high potential market for Tajik goods which could lead to more opportunities for the business women. 

“VSO work to help local people make decisions about their own lives and futures.  It doesn't work in a way that says 'we know best' but allows the local communities to plan their own futures,” said Vicky.

NABWT has also streamlined its design process and revaluated the craft products so that the women involved can cover their costs and make a profit on their goods. 

The organisation is stronger than ever and reaching more vulnerable women every year. As a result of access to the American market, women with young families to look after are able to make a living without leaving their homes, selling handmade handicraft with skills taught by their mothers and grandmothers.

You can find out more about NABWT by visiting: http://nabwt.tj/en

George has never known life without HIV. Born HIV positive in the sprawling city of Nairobi, he was orphaned in his teenage years along with his siblings, when their mother died of AIDS. Since then, VSO partner Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK) has played a vital role in the life of George and his siblings. WOFAK has part-paid their school fees, providing them with text books and uniforms, and feeding them a nutritious meal every weekday. 

WOFAK – A lifeline for George

Now 26-years-old, George confidently declares how much he has benefitted from WOFAK, “I would not have been able to complete school after my mother died”, he says.  But it’s WOFAK’s vocational training programme that has helped him the most as he transitioned from his teenage years into adulthood.

After completing a six month diploma in hairdressing, George was awarded funding to complete a six month diploma in beauty.  He took a three-month teaching course and now trains hair and beauty therapy students full-time.  His HIV status means he frequently gets sick so the low-intensity work that teaching hairdressing and beauty demands suits his needs well.

WOFAK pays for 20 HIV orphans a year, aged 16-25, to complete a course in vocational training.  Skills’ training ranges from hairdressing and tailoring to mechanics and takes between six months and one year, equipping vulnerable young people with basic skills to earn and support themselves and their families. 

How VSO supports WOFAK

Setting up a Monitoring and Evaluation system across the organisation, VSO volunteer Aurelia Valota plays a critical role ensuring that funding continues to filter through to Kenya’s most vulnerable youth. 
WOFAK carries out myriad activities across its seven offices, from organising group therapy sessions in city prisons to providing food baskets to grandmother-headed households in remote and impoverished parts of the country. But documenting the impact WOFAK has on the lives of AIDs victims has always posed a challenge.

In a climate of decreasing funding, donors are demanding more evidence now than ever, before releasing funds.  With the critical assistance and expertise of Aurelia - WOFAK is now able to prove to donors that their work is an important lifeline to thousands of others like George, in Kenya’s poorest communities.

Brighter future orphans living with HIV 

Even though George now supports himself without the ongoing help of WOFAK, he still spends most of his spare time at a district office and represents WOFAK’s youth wing as chairman. His dream now is to open an orphanage; “I want other orphans to feel they have a home and people to take care of them, like I found with WOFAK.” 

Sierra Leone emerged out of civil war ten years ago, but the aftermath has brought little hope for future generations in a country that has seen brutal conflict in recent years.

Jennifer’s parents were told they would never see their daughter again when she was aggressively attacked and snatched by soldiers at the age of eighteen. 

After trying to escape twice, she was stabbed, beaten – and issued with a death threat if she attempted to escape again.  Jennifer endured two years living a life of enforced servitude and was raped several times by her captors. It was only following the disarmament in 1999, that she made her way back home, now a single mother of two children.

Nevertheless she returned back to school, juggling responsibilities of motherhood with her school subjects, until the next misfortune found its way into Jennifer’s life.

“I was selling at the junction when I felt something fall inside my left eye...I went to Freetown to get my eyes treated but they told me I had a cornea scar and could not operate... I have never been able to see again.”

Earning a living

It was at this desperate moment in Jennifer’s life that she discovered VSO partner organisation, Binkolo Growth Centre, an employment and skills centre nearby that was assisting people with disabilities to find work.  Here she was provided with a small grant as start-up capital for a small business.

VSO volunteer Mabel Sengendo trained Jennifer in business management and marketing skills, giving her merchandising advice. Mabel spent a year at Binkolo Growth Centre helping to train staff, improve systems and develop a marketing strategy for the organisation. Recognising the additional challenges faced by disabled vulnerable young victims of war, she worked on a funding proposal for training and grants to benefit more disabled youths, like Jennifer.

Jennifer now sells commodities such as palm oil, cola nuts and rice.

“The business is helping me greatly – in the past I couldn’t afford money to buy soap but now I can buy soap, clothes, and shoes for my children as well as afford school fees – because I’m buying seasonal business.”

Promising future

Jennifer now buys palm oil or rice when prices drop, preserves it, and sells it on when the cost of these products goes up. The business has presented Jennifer with previously unknown opportunities, but she is still fixed on recouping the education she never completed.

“My dream before 2013 is for my business to grow in such a way that enables me to return to school... there is a blind school close to Binkolo that I would love to attend.”

Though Jennifer faces the additional challenge of adapting to life with a disability, her personal journey is not unlike many other young people affected by the war in Sierra Leone. In addition to supporting small businesses, VSO partner Binkolo Growth Centre offers blacksmith and carpentry training to desperate youths unable to earn a living. With the expertise and input of volunteers like Mabel, it is creating previously unimaginable livelihood opportunities for a young and unemployed population in a land of lingering hope.  

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.

As a child, Jan Teevan says she dreamed of travelling the world on “The Good Ship Hope,” working as a doctor and providing care to mothers and children in the developing world.

Unfortunately, her dream of becoming a doctor ended after she took her first volunteer hospital job.

“I became a candy stripper [hospital volunteer] for a summer in high school, working in a hospital, and I thought, no, doctors deal with sick people,” she says. “I don’t want to be a doctor.”

It was only after she had her three children that Jan says she found another way to fulfill her dream of working with mothers and children. A self-proclaimed hippie, Jan decided to opt out of hospital care and have her children at home with the assistance of a midwife.  That’s when she found her true calling.

“When I heard about midwifery, I realised that I could do the medical stuff for healthy people having babies. It was the perfect job for me.”

In the 1980s, Jan apprenticed with her own midwife in Calgary, as part of a home birth movement that was still illegal in that province. She later went on to become one of the first fully certified and government-recognised midwives in Ontario – and established along with her colleagues a thriving practice in Ottawa helping mothers who wanted the experience of home birthing their babies.

But one piece of the dream was still missing.

“What I’m always looking for is a new experience, a feeling like I’m making a difference. If there’s need, it makes me feel like I’m doing more. I was working with women who pretty much had it all. So I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to go overseas?”

A midwife abroad

Jan was recruited by CUSO-VSO in 2007 to be part of a joint VSO project with the Malawi Ministry of Health. At the time, Malawi was facing a health care crisis; the ratio of health workers to patients was very low and as a result, the average life expectancy of a Malawian was 39-years-old. The country desperately needed volunteers and foreign workers to plug the gaps while new health workers could be trained. The country also needed to build the capacity of the existing Malawian health care workers to become tutors and lecturers.

With her long history in midwifery, Jan Teeves became part of the solution.

She was placed at the St. John’s Nursing School in Mzuzu where she worked for six months as a clinical tutor in midwifery for nursing students and nursing birthing technicians. 

“The mandate is that any nurse must be trained in midwifery because so much of the health care revolves around maternal-child health issues,” she says.

For Jan, it was a bit of a shock finding herself in a system that valued institutional childbirth over home-birth.

 “As far as the staff went, a lot of staff were brought up in the British-Malawian system of ‘I’m a nurse, I have skills – lie there. I found that they looked down at the patient rather than providing a collaborative, compassionate approach.

“There was a value difference – that’s for sure. When I said to the staff that a woman didn’t need to be flat on their back to give birth, they just laughed at me.  Said: ‘Oh, Jan, you’re so funny.’ You definitely got the feeling that if people couldn’t hear you about birth positions, how would they hear you about other things?”

The challenge of maternal health

There was also the challenge of helping the more than 11 per cent of Malawian women who presented in the hospital with the HIV/AID virus.  Each woman was required to take an HIV/AIDS test when they signed up for pre-natal care and delivery.

“We were following a protocol. When the women came into labour, they got medication while the baby was still inside and when the baby was outside, we gave the medication to the baby.”

Mothers were strongly encouraged to breast feed for six months, with no solid foods. This regime was followed to ensure the lining of the baby’s stomach wasn’t irritated by food and then infected by HIV through mother’s milk.
The use of formula was restricted because of the cost and the chance the formula would be contaminated by dirty water.

“We impressed upon the students the importance of using universal precautions at all times,” she said. “And we saw that students were more reluctant to hold the babies after birth, which is different than in North America where everybody touches the babies. But those were just precautions. There was strict confidentiality – the same rules for everybody – so nobody was labelled as being HIV.”

Jan believes her biggest contribution in Malawi was working with the nursing staff and students to help improve professional development.

 “One thing we realised was the important role the staff nurses played in the educational process for students. We needed to make sure that the already trained nurses were getting professional development.  After I left Malawi, that was the big piece that needed to be developed by the partners.”

Jan found herself in a key role, training the staff in emergency delivery procedures, after hearing about a baby who had died over one weekend from shoulder dystocia, a serious obstetrical emergency in which an infant’s shoulders becomes lodged in the mother’s birth canal.

In talking to senior nursing staff, Jan learned that the nurses were not required to become re-certified after graduation and, as a result, many were not adequately trained to perform modern emergency procedures.

“Every nurse in Ontario is required to do an emergency skills workshop every two years as part of their certification,” she says. “Every doctor at that hospital was required to attend continuing professional activity. But the nurses were not.

“I talked to my fellow tutors, and they picked out the skills that were important so I ran workshops with senior students on emergency skills – that was my contribution.”

Advice for volunteers

Jan has this advice for North Americans wanting to volunteer abroad.

“I’d advise any volunteer not to have high expectations. As my mother once said: ‘Catch them doing something right and build on that.’ It’s important to build the confidence of people who are doing great stuff, but who aren’t getting recognition. That’s certainly a place where an ex-pat can play a key role – really appreciate the good stuff that’s going on.”

Like thousands of other Canadian volunteers who have ventured beyond personal and geographic borders, Gaston Matte occasionally flips through the photo album from his overseas posting in Papua New Guinea, all those years ago.

Snapshots of another time reveal people he once knew, places he once walked. Following a return visit to Papua New Guinea after nearly two decades, Gaston can paste in new photos and new memories coloured with pride and hope..test

In 1985, he and then-wife Suzanne Saunders landed in Mt. Hagen in western Papua New Guinea. A small gateway town ringed by sustenance farming, it links the coastal plains to the interior highlands of that South Pacific nation.

For the next two years, the Canadians would volunteer at the Mt. Hagen Handicapped Children’s Centre, operating out of a sparsely furnished room in the back of a small Baptist church.

Building a home for disabled children

In the mornings Gaston, who had managed a vocational programme for developmentally challenged adults back in Canada, offered physiotherapy to the children, some severely handicapped from cerebral malaria.

After lunch he searched for badly needed funds to keep the centre operating, buy equipment, and build a permanent home for the children. Suzanne was a special education teacher/trainer.

“It was difficult at first,” Gaston says, “not because it was a hardship post – living conditions were ok – but because I felt I couldn’t do enough. We were trying to do so much with so little.”

Services for handicapped children were scarce in Papua New Guinea, and many kids with challenges could not attend school; at the time, ‘special’ education was unheard of. The Mt. Hagen’s Children’s Centre had been started by Leslie Edge, an Australian missionary who had a disabled child. Whenever Edge shopped at the local market, other women with handicapped children would make their way to her through the piles of produce, looking for help and advice.

The missionary set up the centre in 1984, and watched a dozen children, including infants, come through her door. But the Australian knew she needed support, and approached international agencies including CUSO, which had been placing teachers and teaching trainers in Papua New Guinea for years.

Gaston’s job was to build on what Leslie Edge and her local staff had started, and he hunted for money both within Papua New Guinea and internationally. Suzanne was to develop an elementary curriculum for hearing impaired children.

At one point, Gaston thought about heading home, frustrated by the slow progress. But he ended up staying an extra year, and over the three years of his placement he helped raise US$500,000 to build a new centre, purchase vehicles to transport the kids, buy physio equipment, and hire Papua New Guinean teachers to be trained to take over from the foreign volunteers.

When Gaston left in 1988 – with one-year-old daughter Kayla and adopted Papua New Guinean baby brother Logan in tow – there were 25 children being helped by a staff of three Papua New Guinean teachers and three international volunteers hailing from Canada, the UK and Germany, all housed in brand new staff buildings. The new centre and houses were surrounded by dirt, so we planted trees and gardens, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever make it back to see if they’d grown.”

A returned volunteer journeys back

Almost two decades later, Gaston – who lives in Ottawa and works in CUSO-VSO’s fundraising department – journeyed back to Mt. Hagen for the first time. He half-expected the centre’s doors to be locked, having heard it was closed for a few years, cut off by international funders due to mismanagement. Not many Canadian volunteers get to go back again, and when they do, they are sometimes disappointed. Development doesn’t happen overnight, but is measured in generations.

Gaston didn’t know if the literal and figurative seeds he helped plant had taken root. But there, still echoing with the sounds of children, sat the building framed by full-grown trees and lush vegetation.

The centre is currently run by the Catholic Dioceses of Papua New Guinea and the Callan Services for Disabled Persons, an agency set up in 1991 by the Papua New Guinea Congregation of Christian Brothers. Now known as the Callan Centre, so named for the Irish town where the founder of the Christian Brothers was raised, the operation receives money from local sources and Christian Blind Mission International of Germany.

Visiting Papua New Guinea again was an emotional experience for Gaston, who rode waves of nostalgia, happiness and concern – funding for the centre is still precarious. And he couldn’t help but feel pride when Mary Wannis and Don Waipe, Papua New Guinean teachers hired during his placement who were still working in Mt. Hagen, affectionately called him “Papa Centre.”

Now back home, new photos of Mary and Don, and the children who face a better future because of all the teachers at the centre, have now been added to the pages of Gaston Matte’s memory.

“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 organisation 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.”

Get up time/breakfast

I usually get up at 7.00am. I cook on two gas rings and first thing I need to do is to put on a big pot of water to boil the life out of it. Clean and arsenic free water is a major issue in this rural area of Bagerhat, Khulna District.

Then I am off to work on the local mode of transport which is a cycle rickshaw. The man or boy pulling the rickshaw sweats and pulls to get me to my destination. I found this very difficult to take at the beginning and sometimes I just want to give him the money and walk to my destination. Rickshaw pullers have to do a lot of work, pull a lot of rickshaw rides to provide basic food and shelter for their family.

My job

My job title is ‘organisational development adviser’. I work on a project which is part funded by the European Union (EU).  It is called the SCORE project (Strengthening Communities Rights and Empowerment). The project strives to strengthen and support local communities living in poverty to organise themselves collectively and work with and challenge local political structures to bring about a change in the quality of their lives.

The project works through local community based organisations (CBOs) in three areas in southern Bangladesh. 

What I do

My work includes one-to-one mentoring with the directors of the CBOs, designing and delivering workshops to staff on community development and developing relevant and appropriate systems and policies. As a volunteer my work needs to be about passing on and building up skills so that CBOs can develop their own work with the community rather than setting up a dependency on the VSO volunteer who leaves after two years.

Travel

Now and again I need to be in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, for VSO Bangladesh events or meetings. This journey takes at least seven hours in bus and ferry and longer if there is a long queue at the ferry. 

Food 

Typical Bangladesh food is rice (eaten three times a day), seasonal vegetables and fish. Women, the majority of whom work in the home, spend most of their day collecting wood to cook with, pounding spices and chillies to make paste for sauces and of course doing the cooking on clay ovens.

Difference from working at home

I have had to learn about this culture before I can begin to work within it. The NGO work culture here is at a slower pace than at home which can be frustrating. The issues are so big and so connected with decisions made in other parts of the world that it could become disillusioning but the energy, commitment and passion of the NGOs which I have met and their collective work together is very positive.

What I do to relax...

To relax I listen to music, read watch DVDs, talk on Skype to friends and family – most of which is done through my laptop which is a lifeline here.  Bangladesh is a poor Muslim country, so there is very little to do on a daily basis when I am not working.

What I miss?

It goes without saying that I miss meeting and chatting with friends and family. I also miss cafes and restaurants, wearing my western clothes and being able just to go out and about freely. 

What I love about being here?

Bangladeshi people are a joy to be around. They are so welcoming, friendly, warm and in the majority genuine people. They have good sense of humour and I have good fun with the groups with whom I work. It is a simpler life here that has its attractions.

A story of transformation

It’s early on a Tuesday morning and pupils in a class at the Morning Star Centre are singing a welcome song with their teacher. Each child is sitting calmly, their smiles matching those in the photographs that decorate the classroom walls.

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago, the atmosphere in this classroom was completely different. That was before the arrival of VSO volunteer Peter Thomas, a Special Needs Teacher Trainer. “We couldn’t control the difficult behaviour of the children,” explains Anh Nguyen ThiTu, the Head of Learning at the centre. “Peter has helped us make wonderful progress.”

Morning Star is one of the few centres for children with disabilities in Vietnam. Shockingly, only 1.2 per cent of Vietnamese children with disabilities receive an education. It has 200 pupils, many of whom are autistic. Before Peter arrived, teachers were frustrated because they did not have the skills to cope with pupils’ challenging behaviour. This created a tense and unpleasant atmosphere in which it was almost impossible for children to learn.

Dealing with frustration

“There used to be a lot of stress because they saw the behaviour of children with autism as naughty, so they punished them physically and maybe shouted at them,” says Peter. “So through workshops, advice and some classroom intervention, I’ve helped them to see that they need to be child-centred; that they need to follow the child. When they don’t push the child, the stress is reduced and children behave better.”

Indeed, Peter is credited with completely changing the method of teaching at Morning Star. “Peter comes to observe my class and if I have problems, he makes suggestions,” says Le TrunThi Hong, one of the centre’s teachers. “For example, a child in my class always used to cry. Peter suggested I stop forcing him to learn and to let him play with toys that are soft and tactile. The child is now more relaxed, which means he’s ready to learn. He’s shown us it’s about following the child, not forcing them.”

Spreading the word

And it’s not just the teachers who are learning about the children, as Peter has also been running workshops for parents, passing on skills that they can use at home. It’s clear from the children’s calm and happy demeanour as they sing their welcome song that Peter’s techniques are having a positive effect on their lives.

“I wish every school could have a Peter working with them,” says Le Thi Kim Guyen, a psychologist at the centre. “I’ve seen very good changes. It’s different to other centres in Vietnam – here they care about the children’s difficulties and want to understand them.” Guyen’s wish may be about to come true, as the Morning Star teachers plan to pass on their new skills to the other centres around the country. So thanks to Peter, hundreds more children will soon be smiling, too.

What work do you do as an early childhood education adviser?

I’ve been helping with the implementation of the literacy hour in grades one and two, which is a fairly new initiative in Guyana. I’ve worked with parents and teachers to ensure that they’re equipped with the skills to implement the new programmes. My role changes every couple of months as we see progress taking place.

Describe your average day

My average day consists of a lot of travelling! I normally try to visit at least two schools every day. I could be going into school and meeting with the head teacher, liaising with one or more teachers, maybe doing some team teaching or a demonstration lesson. There’s lots of discussion and sharing ideas. It’s very varied.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date? 

I don’t have one greatest achievement but I see small achievements every day which when combined are enormous. For example I had a grade seven class who couldn’t write their names when I began working with them. They didn’t know the letters of the alphabet. Now, two terms on, these children are reading, they can write sentences and short stories. They are coming back to school where once they didn’t want to attend. I think that’s been a huge achievement.

What new skills will you take back to the UK?

Heaps of new skills! Improved communication skills. You’re always trying to persuade people to do things differently and you have to communicate in a way where you’re not going to offend. You have to make sure that you clearly understand the situation before you advise.  I also think I’m more resourceful now. I’m able to build relationships. I don’t think I quite envisaged how much advising I would be doing in terms of working with teachers and trainers and so on. Those skills have been hugely important.

What have you learnt from Guyanese teachers?

I think a greater empathy and a greater understanding of the challenges they face. In Guyana teachers are teaching in hugely difficult circumstances and they do a great job. It’s just about assisting them to make the most of their time in the classroom and the few resources they have here to be able to bring children forward. It’s a two-way process so you learn from them and they learn from you. I think it’s important to listen for a long time when you start your placement with VSO. It’s all about listening. 
 

What are the highs and lows of life as a VSO volunteer?

The travelling can be quite tiring, but it’s necessary in this region because it’s so big. It can also seem a bit lonely at first until you start building up relationships. But there are many more highs than lows. The Guyanese people are wonderful; they are very generous. I have lots of good friends here. I like the hustle and bustle of Guyana - the noises, the smells, the weather and the food. Everything. Just being in a new culture and being accepted by a new community is great.

What would you say to other teachers who are thinking of volunteering with VSO?

I’d say, “Do it”! It’s the best two years that I’ve had. I’ve learnt so much. I think that I’ve made some impact in the job that I’ve been doing. And I’ve never looked back and never regretted it once.

Living with prejudice

Mother of two Ben Nguyen became infected with HIV through her husband, who died nine years ago. “Luckily my children are not infected,” she explains, “but when I took my son to kindergarten the staff treated him very badly. They wouldn’t let him play with other children. He would be left to sit on a chair, apart from the rest of the pupils.”

Despite testing her son for HIV repeatedly, Ben found that staff would not believe the test result. “They thought I’d paid for it to be declared negative. I even asked the head teacher to go with us to see the test being taken, but they refused.”

This kind of discrimination is not uncommon among the HIV and AIDS community in a country where there is little public awareness of the infection. Over the past 10 years, however, self-help groups run by and for people living with HIV and AIDS have begun to emerge. Such groups are a lifeline for people like Ben, who have become isolated from their former friends and neighbours.

Positive action

Today Ben is a member of a group called Hoa Sua, which has 54 members, most of whom are women. As well as creating a supportive environment for its members, the group offers care, treatment and advice to more than 500 patients living with HIV and AIDS in the Hanoi area. Ben is Deputy Manager of Home Care, which involves visiting people who are in the advanced stages of AIDS. “I give them food, clean their wounds and wash their bodies,” she says. “I share my status with them. This helps them feel more accepted and understood. They realise they are not alone.”

To help support this growing trend for self-help, a number of VSO volunteers are working to help strengthen the groups – through assisting with funding applications, or offering technical support or training. David Graham is one such volunteer.

Offering essential support

With a background in health promotion, he’s using his skills to deliver health education and training for various groups, including Hoa Sua. Recently, Hoa Sua ran a series of HIV awareness events in areas known for high levels of stigma and discrimination. David spoke at two of the events – each of which was attended by about 200 people.

“It was really powerful,” he recalls. “When the Director of Hoa Sua Group disclosed her status, she got people from the audience to come up to the stage and shake her hand. It was the first time many of them had met somebody prepared to disclose they were HIV positive.”

David is looking to the future with enthusiasm – excited about his work with Hoa Sua and with other groups around Hanoi. The future is also looking brighter for Ben. “Discrimination has reduced since we joined the Hoa Sua Group,” she says. “Attitudes are changing. The group is helping us support each other and improve our quality of life.”

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.

“Sex is easy to joke about, but difficult to talk about”

“Vietnam has a saying that sex is easy to joke about, but difficult to talk about,” explains Dr Hoang Tu Anh, Director of the Centre for Creative Initiatives in Health and Population, or CCIHP, a Vietnamese organisation which works in the area of reproductive and sexual health rights across the country. “Our research has shown young people are displaying risky sexual behaviour because they don’t have enough knowledge about sex and relationships.”

In reaction to this, CCIHP set up CHAT, an online counseling service aimed at 14 to 24 year-olds who are looking for advice and support on anything to do with sex, reproductive health, relationship issues and HIV. “We are promoting healthy sexuality. We acknowledge young people have the right to have safe sex, so we have created an environment for them to talk about this.

The government were initially cautious

CHAT has been a huge success. “At first the Government was cautious, says Dr Hoang. “People saw we were talking about sex and using the internet, and they thought it was dangerous. But we convinced them that what we do would be healthy. Now they have seen what we do and they trust us.”

Today the service gets on average 10,000 hits a day, from young Vietnamese from provinces all over the country and abroad. It runs from 8am to 6pm, employing counselors who respond to emails, a journalist who uploads articles, and moderators who oversee the forum.

Ian’s working to make the service more efficient

VSO volunteer Ian Bromage is now also working on CHAT, as part of his placement as Organisational Development Advisor at CCIHP. Before volunteering, Ian worked as a project manager at a medical company. “I’ve brought several transferable skills,” says Ian, “planning and coordination, and motivating people to be able to deliver results. These are key skills here, and they can be applied to any sector.”

Ian is involved in helping to develop CHAT’s marketing material, such as posters and leaflets, to help publicise the service and so extend its reach. This year he also plans to work on making it more efficient, and will help set up a telephone counseling service to run alongside the website. “I will be involved in seeking funds for the service,” he says, “which is another avenue of communication for young people and will allow them to speak to someone, rather than just emailing and asking for support.”

The perfect partnership

Ian is thoroughly enjoying working on CHAT. “One of the delights for working for CCIHP is that they are quite radical and they will tackle issues not widely spoken about in Vietnam,” he explains. The positive feeling is entirely mutual – CCIHP are thrilled for him to be part of the CHAT team. “We feel so lucky to have Ian in the organisation,” says Dr Hoang. “It helps having an outside view so we can see more clearly how to develop. Local non government organizations don’t have many resources in Vietnam so to have his expertise is wonderful.”

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.

A question of survival

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 to other parts of Sierra Leone. Abass Koroma from Thonkoba, near Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, is one of those who avoided recruitment but whose life and education were severely affected by the conflict.

“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 and lived in the bush,” he says. “For many years I lived on wild fruit and bush meat. At certain points I thought my life would end like that.”

Although Abass managed to avoid capture, when he returned home there were few opportunities for him: “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, lacking the skills to make the most of opportunities to profit from farming. That changed in 2006 when VSO partner organisation CCYA (The Centre for Coordination Youth Activities) established a programme in Thonkoba.

New opportunities

When CCYA community development workers visited Thonkoba to tell residents about a beekeeping cooperative they planned to establish, Abass seized the opportunity with both hands. Membership includes training in beekeeping and honey extraction techniques; help to set up a bank account; and all the necessary equipment. All profits from the sale of the honey go back to the cooperative.

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 on a research project to further identify the needs of young people in Sierra Leone and help them to more effectively access donor funding.

Life-changing results

In its first eighteen months, the cooperative produced 10 gallons of honey, with profits helping 25 members. A sister cooperative was established in neighbouring 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 that 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.”

In India, a shocking 78,000 mothers die in childbirth and from complications of pregnancy every year.

Many are very young: among women aged 15 to 19, 16 percent have already started having children. The majority will live in rural areas where teenage marriages are common and where women struggle to feed their families, let alone themselves. Their status is low, so women are last to eat; if there was little food to begin with, there’ll be little left over when their turn comes. As a result of their inadequate diets, more than half of Indian women are anaemic - another potential killer during childbirth.

When traditions become life threatening

“Traditionally many women deliver at home,” explains Sangita Singh, a VSO volunteer working with NEEDS. “It’s something that’s entrenched within them. A lack of education and a lack of awareness of little things, like monitoring pregnancies throughout their term, and looking for very easy warning signs around their health, mean that there are a lot of preventable deaths.”

Looking around the tiny hut that she shares with 12 members of her family in the remote village of Khendira, it’s hard to believe that Kanchan Devi is one of the lucky ones. But compared to many, she is fortunate - she has given birth to three babies and has lived to tell the tale.

Like two-thirds of Indian women, 25 year old Kanchan had her first two children at home. There was no one but an untrained traditional birth attendant to help her through the delivery, so Kanchan was putting herself at great risk. But she knew no other way. 

NEEDS volunteers dispel fears and change attitudes

Then, when Kanchan was pregnant with her third child, a local volunteer from NEEDS visited her.  Sadha told Kanchan about the benefits of giving birth in a hospital. “She told me it would be better for me,” says Kanchan. “But I was scared. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought I would prefer to have my baby at home.”

But Sadha was persuasive, so a heavily pregnant Kanchan bravely travelled the 20 kilometres to the nearest hospital in Deoghar. As Sadha had promised, Kanchan was treated well. “I received a registration card, dahl and rice every day and vaccinations,” she recalls. “Nurses were there, doctors were there, I had medicines.”

Kanchan was also given all-important iron tablets to help fight anaemia. She didn’t have to pay to give birth in hospital; instead, she received 1600 rupees (about £22) from the hospital for going there to have her baby.

“After I had the experience, I was no longer scared,” remembers Kanchan. “I felt good about getting the free care. I will tell my family and neighbours what Sadha told me. My hope is that all women in India will be given the information I was given.”

Real life in rural India

Asked if she would choose the hospital over home when her fourth child comes along, Kanchan laughs, but her words are somber. “Three children is enough – three is too many. If we had had a girl and a boy, it would have been fine. But as we had no boy, we had to have another. We are very poor people and children are very expensive. Where will we get the money from?”

For now, Kanchan has her work cut out. While her husband is out earning a living as a bus conductor, she does all the chores in the house while caring for her three small children. Her hopes and dreams for them? “We are poor people. We don’t have dreams. I hope that my children will be educated, and will learn to read and write.”

Thirty-nine year old Fatmata Kanjia is a final year BSc nursing student at the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Sierra Leone. One of her teachers was UK nurse and VSO volunteer Joanna Haworth. Here Fatmata, who also works part-time in a Freetown hospital, explains how Joanna's training has helped her, her patients and her family.

“Joanna taught us many things that have helped me provide better care for my patients, such as ward administration, staff supervision and infection control,” Fatmata said. “For example, before we never checked if junior nurses had completed their tasks. Now we supervise them properly and provide a proper handover to the next shift to make sure all patients receive the care they need.”

The importance of talking to patients

Fatmata sees communication as one of the greatest skills she has learnt from Joanna. “Before I used to sit and talk to the nurses. Now I go to the bedside and talk to my patients. Some unfold problems pertaining to their care that they have not disclosed to their doctor.”

“There was a patient with acute abdominal pain but she was afraid to explain the circumstances of her condition to the doctor. She didn't want people to know,” Fatmata explained. “I read through her charts and history and I talked to her. She was bold to tell me that she had done an abortion three months before but she did not want me to tell anybody. I urged her to let me tell the doctor because he was treating her blindly. She consented but only if the doctor agreed not to tell her husband. He agreed and her treatment was changed.”

She added: “Two weeks later the patient was discharged. If I did not speak to her and gain her confidence she would not have recovered.” When Fatmata told her student colleagues about her experience, many said they had had similar experiences following Joanna's teaching.

Taking new skills home

Fatamata's new skills are also benefiting her family. “I use many of the things I have learnt from Joanna at home. For communication, you need to interact with people. If you have a problem you should share it, you should speak to your partner. My daughter asks so many questions. I used to say leave me. Now I listen to her and try to explain and answer her questions.”

Joanna’s work continues

Hospital patients will continue to benefit from Joanna's teaching long after she returns to the UK.  “All of us on the course are teaching our colleagues the things we have learnt from Joanna,” Fatmata said. “I want to transfer my knowledge to other nurses to improve their skills and improve patient care across many hospitals. With their mission of sharing skills and knowledge, VSO provides long term benefits to Sierra Leone as a whole.”

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'.

Get up/breakfast

I wake up at 5.30pm just before my phone alarm goes off. The army camp down the road has started sending the men out road running early in the mornings, so I get woken up bright and early every morning by the sound of running feet. Breakfast is coffee, bread and a hard-boiled egg I cooked yesterday, plus my anti-malaria tablet.

Travel

I leave the house at 6.45am and head to work. There should be a lot more children on the roads on their way to school but most will still be at home doing household chores and will arrive to school late. The 15-minute walk to work is the usual procession of greetings and the occasional giggling handshake.

My job

I spend the morning updating the staff returns from the local primary. All schools are short teachers, some have only two-thirds of the staff they need and many don’t have a principal. This is a major problem here – teaching is the absolutely last refuge for anyone with an education, especially primary teaching. In January, the government completely changed the primary school system. This means that teachers who were already underpaid and poorly respected are now expected to start work earlier, finish later and have only a 30-minute break in the middle of the day, which isn’t long enough for them to go home and eat.

I also spent the morning helping my two colleagues with their computers. The District is helping their employees to buy laptops but is providing absolutely no training whatsoever, so I am trying to help them with the basics of Excel and Word.

The afternoon is spent teaching the district staff English. This wasn’t part of my original job description but, as work has been slow to develop, I am happy to be doing this.

Meeting new friends

This evening I have a drink at a local pub with Enock, a Ugandan teacher who also teaches English to the district staff. I asked him what brought him here to Rwanda. He said he was working as a tourist guide in a park on the Uganda/Congo/Rwanda border when the group he was with was attacked by the Interahamwe. He ran 30 kilometres to the Ugandan army base to raise the alarm.

What I do to relax

I usually log on to Facebook and catch up with family and friends (it is a bit weird working a computer by candlelight – there is no electricity where I live).

Reflection

I have been in Rwanda since September 2008 and it has been the single greatest experience of my life. Yes there have been problems and there continue to be problems: frustrating bureaucracy, incredible inefficiency, a culture that can seem impenetrable at times. But there is warmth and friendliness...and safety. I have made some great new friends and hope to make even more!

There have been difficult moments, difficult days and there will be more – but never for even one second have I regretted coming here.

Why short term volunteering?

“I hadn’t volunteered before, so I didn’t want to launch straight into a long-term role,” says Bola. “Twelve weeks would be a taster, giving me the opportunity to do a self-contained piece of work – something that I could confidently start and finish.”

Based in Rwanda, where nearly half of all children fail to complete basic education, Bola was supporting the Muhanga District Education Office in improving the performance of the 23 secondary and 106 primary schools in the area.

Bola’s professional expertise enabled her to achieve a lot in those 12 weeks. Her tenacity and sense of humour helped too. “The short time scale proved to be both a challenge and opportunity,” Bola recalls. “My colleagues responded positively to my constant reminders that I was only there for 12 weeks. So things moved along quite quickly.”

Making a meaningful contribution

As well as undertaking a training needs analysis and running two workshops for 40 teachers, Bola helped to implement a new monitoring and evaluation process. 

“So that they could identify priority areas to improve, my colleagues were visiting schools and gathering data,” describes Bola. “But this was ad hoc, with different people gathering different information at different times. As a result, the data couldn’t be easily evaluated.”

Bola created a new monitoring and evaluation tool to be used on school visits: a detailed checklist with a wide range of questions, from the number of children in the school to the number of blackboards and toilets. This tool ensures that all information gathered on the schools is standardised, making it easier for Bola’s colleagues to plan and prioritise.

The short-term/long-term dynamic

VSO International’s long and short-term placements are often designed to compliment each other. 

Bola’s was no exception. As well as playing a vital part in developing a long-term volunteer’s job description, she laid a solid foundation for him to build on.

“The training needs analysis I did with the director of education led to the development of a year-long training plan for teachers,” Bola explains. “This plan will be supported by the new volunteer when he arrives in January. It means he won’t be starting from scratch.”

Supporting diaspora organisations back in the UK

Being black was one of the biggest challenges Bola faced as a volunteer. “The locals’ stereotype of a volunteer is white,” she explains. “So they’d either assume I was Rwandan and talk at me very quickly, ignoring my pleas of “English! Anglais!” or they’d address everything to the white volunteers. They just aren’t used to black people volunteering.”

That’s one of the reasons Bola is now getting involved with VSO’s Diaspora Volunteering Initiative. Through this initiative, VSO helps diaspora communities in the UK to volunteer in their countries of heritage. Bola is drawing on her own experiences of volunteering to support two diaspora organisations - the African Child Trust and the Medical Association of Nigerian Specialists and GPs - to develop their own volunteering programmes. “I want to see more black people volunteering,” she says.

Bola’s commitment to the diaspora organisations and her plans to undertake another placement with VSO demonstrate her great enthusiasm for volunteering. “I’d recommend it 100 per cent!” says Bola. “It widens horizons, broadens skills and gives you an appreciation of what can be done if you put your mind to it. You might not be able to save the world but you can certainly make a small difference in a small way. And that’s the start of the ripple effect.”

Impact

• Bola ran two workshops for 40 teachers on topics such as staff appraisals, child centred methodologies and using local resources like rice sacks and bottle tops for teaching aids.

• The training needs analysis for head teachers that Bola undertook with her employer led to the development of a year-long training plan, which will be supported by a long term volunteer.

• As a result of her experiences in Rwanda, Bola is now helping two diaspora organisations in the UK to develop their own volunteering programmes in Africa.