Voluntary Service Overseas

VSO is an international development charity that works through experienced volunteers living and working as equals alongside local partners. It is the largest independent (non-governmental) volunteer-sending organisation in the world. VSO has offices in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Kenya and the Philippines and a recruiting partner in India; as of December 2004, it has volunteers of 14 different nationalities on placement. Since its founding in 1958 VSO has placed over 50,000 volunteers in over 140 developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

It currently develops programmes in the following areas:

• HIV and AIDS
• Education
• Health
• Disability
• Participation and Governance
• Secure livelihoods

History

VSO was founded in 1958 by Alec Dickson through a bishop's letter to the London paper, The Sunday Times, as an educational experience overseas for school-leavers, initially only boys, before starting university. Volunteers offered unskilled help in exchange for basic accommodation and pocket money. In 1962, the more recognized scheme of using 'qualified' volunteers came about. By 1968, VSO had 1420 volunteers overseas.

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

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

In addition, VSO:

• offers youth volunteering programmes for young people to volunteer abroad to fight poverty and injustice overseas
  • Global Xchange in partnership with the British Council - Global Xchange is part of the UK government International Citizen Service. Youth Action (3 months) and Youth Xchange (6 months) offer placements for 18-22 year olds who wish to volunteer overseas
  • Youth For Development
  • VSO Canada's NetCorps and International Youth Internship Programs
• offers short-term consultancy-style volunteer placements, to complement their traditional long-term (two year) placements, following the merger with British Executive Service Overseas (beso) in March 2005, a smaller charity with similar aims, but which dealt with short-term volunteering.
• supports a number of national volunteering programmes (including schemes in India, Ghana, Kenya and others);
• acts as a 'knowledge broker', bringing local grassroots organisations together to share learning and best practice, for example through the Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa, with a network of partners in seven southern African countries;

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

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

In November 2008, VSO Canada merged with CUSO, creating the largest volunteer sending organisation in Canada, and extending the VSO federation's programmes into Latin American countries.

VSO is a member of the European Volunteer Centre. (CEV)

See also

• Peace Corps
• Fredskorpset
• CUSO
• United Nations Volunteers

Further reading

• "How a Kenyan VSO volunteer is helping the health crisis in Malawi", The Nation, Malawi, 26 May 2006
• "Mica's Lost His family - I Wept For Him", Sunday Mirror, 21 May 2006
• "VSO focuses on senior teachers", Education Guardian, January 10, 2006
• "Eight Ways to Change the World", The Guardian, 7 September 2005
• "Women lead as overseas volunteers", Guardian March 20, 2001
• "Brian Deer investigates VSO", London Sunday Times, April 26, 1998

External links

• VSO UK homepage
• VSO Ireland homepage
• VSO Canada homepage
• VSO Netherlands homepage (in Dutch)
• VSO Bahaginan homepage (Philippines)
• VSO Jitolee homepage (Kenya)
• iVolunteer Overseas homepage (India)
• iVolunteer homepage (India)
• Volunteer Service Abroad (New Zealand's equivalent of VSO)
• Australian Volunteers International (Australia's equivalent of VSO)