Major health problems in Mongolia include cardiovascular disease, maternal mortality, infant mortality and increasing rates of sexually transmitted infections.

CHVs are members of the local community and are more likely to be able to give health information in a way that is relevant and understandable to local people. While they are not medical experts, CHV encourage people to use existing services and give them information to choose healthier lifestyles.

VSO volunteers are based at local health departments and are working as public health advisers and volunteer management advisers. They train and support health service staff on volunteer management and CHVs on health-related subjects.

The vital work of a community health volunteer

Marusya is a CHV working in Uvurkhangai. She currently visits 72 families to share the information and health advice. One of her families is a young mother called Chantsaldulam, who has a new baby boy, Munkhkhusken. When Marusya first visited, Chantsaldulam was having problems with breastfeeding and her baby was not gaining weight very quickly. Marusya gave her advice on breastfeeding and when she visited again a few weeks later Chantsaldulam was no longer experiencing problems and Munkhkhusken was healthy and happy.

CHVs like Marusya play an important role in improving the health of the community. As Laura Murgatroyd, VSO volunteer management adviser, said: “In Uvurkhangai, people have very basic knowledge about many illnesses, if any knowledge at all, so the role of the CHV is vital. I am constantly amazed at the commitment of the CHVs and the amount of time they put into an unpaid role – they really are fantastic.”

Lasting change in the community

The EC project is focussed on building the capacity of the health department service and management staff to safeguard the sustainability of the CHV initiative. One way to do this is to train local volunteers and staff on how to deliver training themselves.

Through the enthusiasm and dedication of local volunteers, VSO’s impact will be lasting in Mongolia. We hope that improved access to primary health services will reduce the incidences of common illnesses, healthcare costs and poverty in the community.

VSO volunteers are working in the rural provinces of Dornod and Uvurkhangai and the urban districts of Bayanzurkh and Nalaikh in the capital, Ulaanbaatar.

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

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

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

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

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

Eighty per cent of vegetables sold in Zanzibar are imported

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

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

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

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

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

A local initiative with national plans

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

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

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

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

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

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 are you doing as a VSO volunteer in Nepal?

I’m working in the Ministry of Education and Sports in Kathmandu, in Foreign Aid Coordination.  This is the section within the Ministry that deals with donors such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and also bilateral donors like Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Department for International Development in the UK.

Why is a position like yours important to Nepal?

At the moment, education in Nepal for children is only grades one to five. They plan from 2009 that it should be grades one to eight. The demands on funding for that will be huge – at the moment, 30 per cent of the education budget is provided by donors. In some countries it’s 80 per cent, so when Nepal’s budget increases, sections like the one I work in here in the Ministry of Education and Sports will be vital.

Do you think your knowledge of schools in Britain has helped?

I find that my education experience is a big advantage in Nepal’s Ministry of Education and Sports having been on the receiving end of Government directives in England. What I think I’m able to do with the Ministry is to show them ways in which the things they want to happen in schools can happen. I help them to consider the people that will be affected by their policies: head teachers, the teachers, and the pupils.

Why do you think experience is vital in a developing country’s education system?

The important thing for Nepal is that volunteers understand education through and through.  There’s no better training ground in Britain than as a teacher or a head teacher. I know I get credibility in meetings with government officers and donors because I know what it’s like in schools. I think that people from education, in particular people who have worked in schools, will have experience that a lot of government officers lack.

How do volunteers make the most of each other’s experience?

Here in Kathmandu the education volunteers meet on a regular basis and our experience is very different.  We learn a lot. Those of us who work in government offices in the capital learn a huge amount from people who work in the field, who work in remote districts. I think there’s a big strength in VSO being vertically integrated in the country. There are people who work in schools, in district education offices and then here in the capital there are people who work at the highest level in planning and strategy and this kind of joined up working works.

Is there a social aspect to volunteering?

Put quite simply: in Britain, I don’t get invited to birthday parties of 30-year-olds, but here in Nepal, you get very close to the other volunteers. It’s partly a sense of shared predicament, but it is also partly a real pleasure in being in such a fascinating country as Nepal.

What is life like outside of your placement?

VSO understandably publicises its work in HIV and AIDS, governance, education, health, but outside of the inspirational aspect of volunteering, there are other, shall we say, unwritten benefits. In my case it’s the trekking, the tiger reserve near the Indian border, travelling to Tibet and Kerala and immersing myself in the country. I think that being able to drink in a culture and to really take advantage of where you are, in my case Nepal, is one of VSO’s best-kept secrets.

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.

Working across the system

Encouraging teachers to really find joy in their work was one of the key contributions of my two year VSO placement in Nepal.

As an education advisor, I worked with teachers at the education office, as well as head teachers, teachers in the classroom and children, so it was a great mix. My aim was to guide teaching staff to see education as a valuable and worthwhile profession, and derive a sense of pride from being part of it.

I also worked with the local community and parents – so I was able to adopt a fairly broad perspective. VSO’s vision is to create lasting change through its placements, which is why the teachers that VSO recruits mainly work as advisers as this helps to reach more children in the long run.

Boosting confidence and identifying solutions

The Nepalese education system is so completely different from what I'd experienced in the UK. Initially I just watched and observed what was happening in the classroom – identifying the main concerns of teachers, seeing how children responded to each other and what the curriculum was like. Slowly I started to discover subtle structural aspects of the education system that aren’t so obvious. For example, it's common for Nepalese teachers to receive little support, such as the initial education training and ongoing support we take for granted in the UK.

Teachers in Nepal potentially have so much freedom when it comes to what they can do in the classroom, but so many of them lack confidence. Many are poorly paid and have had very basic teacher training.

On one occasion, a local teacher said to me, "the sign of a good classroom and a good teacher is when you walk through school and hear only silence, because then it means the teacher is doing all the talking..." so I do think UK trained teachers can give and learn a lot through working overseas. With a background in active learning methods, UK trained teachers have so many insights to share.

I don't think you can go out to countries like Nepal expecting to change the whole system but you can have an effect on what individual teachers do in front of their groups of children. You can work with head teachers to motivate individual staff, and talk to the Education Office about how to improve education for children with special needs.

Living in Nepal

When I first arrived in Nepal I was really scared. There were so many unfamiliar sounds like the screeching horns of vehicles, cows along the road as well as unusual smells and wonderful colours. But it's funny; now that I'm back in the UK I really miss that vibrancy of life. Sometimes I missed home, but overall I loved my two year placement. I walked around town on foot most days, finding out everything I could, listening to people talk and observing how people went about their daily lives. Every morning when I walked through villages people would call out my name; they all knew me.

One of the great things about being an education volunteer in Nepal is that there isn't a typical day, just as in the UK – all children are different and they come to school every day with a different view, and they surprise you.

The ideal time for VSO

I'd first approached VSO when I was in my early thirties as I wanted a change, a different life experience. It didn't work out at that time, but I always knew it was something I'd really like to do.

After taking early retirement in my fifties I enjoyed being a woman of leisure for a while, but then there was a feeling that I really needed to use my skills, I still felt I had things to learn – and of course I had VSO at the back of my mind.

Now that I’m back in the UK, I keep in touch with my Nepali friends and get regular updates on the progress they are making. There is one particular school that a colleague and I are raising money for in the UK. It has been great to continue to be involved with the work I did out there.

I'm now involved in lots of work for local charities, but in so many ways I'm tempted to do it all over again and volunteer overseas once more.

Ultimately, I would like to think that a number of teachers I worked with began to enjoy working with their classes much more and have started to create a wider world of opportunity for the children they work with.

Thirty-five-year-old Chandani was born and raised in poverty as the daughter of manual labourers in a village near Kandy. "I remember using a plastic bag to carry my school books throughout my childhood," she recalls. Economic woes have been in Chandani's life for as long as she can remember, but she was able to get by.

It was immediately after the birth of her second child that Chandani's mental illness developed, and after being taken in by her parents and experimenting with traditional healers; she was admitted into hospital as an emergency in-patient and diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder.

Chandani remembers this difficult period in her life, "I was outcast from society and criticised in the community – people were calling me a mad woman... it was very difficult." Her husband was forced to return from his duty with the armed forces during the civil war to care for her.

Her condition was controlled, and Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. Wickremasinghe played a key role in treating Chandani. VSO volunteers worked alongside him at an organisation called the Nivahana Society of Kandy to help integrate Chandani and others back into society.

The Nivahana Society of Kandy is a VSO partner that develops primary, secondary and tertiary mental health services in partnership with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health. Around 15 VSO volunteers have been placed at Nivahana over the years, raising standards of occupational therapy, providing specialist training and introducing mental health community rehabilitation to primary care workers.

VSO volunteer Mark Chamberlain was as an advocacy adviser during Chandani's process of rehabilitation back into her community. He was involved in creating a Kandy-based consumer action forum (Hitha Mithru Sangamaya) in 2008 that enabled Nivahana to establish links and networks with other similar emerging organisations in the country.

Soon after returning to her community, Chandani started to earn a small living by making and selling 'string hoppers' (Sri Lankan staple food made with rice flour). It didn't earn her sufficient money, but kept her mind focussed and her condition stable. She soon became a founding member of a small grassroots support group that emerged out of the support received by the Nivahana Society of Kandy.

Thanks to the links established by VSO volunteers and Nivahana, the grassroots group organised a workshop with a company engaged in small enterprise development. The session focussed on the importance of selecting an income-generating venture with a therapeutic value. Impressed by Chandani's efforts and her plans to expand her small business activity, Chandani was able to secure a small loan that gave her access to a string hopper machine a few months later.

The machine has enabled her to increase her production from 150 string hoppers to 1500 per day. All the loan interest has been paid off through the money she has earned, and her success has dramatically improved awareness of mental health illness in her community.

"I am very happy, I have no financial problems and the stigma has reduced... I feel that people are even jealous of me now that I am doing so well!" remarks Chandani, who today is a shining example of how a person with a mental illness has transformed her life.

Sri Lanka has suffered a long civil war, internal displacement and a tsunami in the last decade, yet the national health system was previously unable to manage the psychological consequences of such traumas as well as common mental health problems.

VSO's partnership with Sri Lanka's Ministry of Health over the last 15 years has led to the development of around 40 rehabilitation centres and mental health clinics. Nearly 50,000 mental health professionals have participated in training and workshops carried out by VSO volunteers to improve the quality of mental health care in Sri Lanka. Sharing skills with 10 partner organisations, the work of 65 skilled VSO volunteers is estimated to have influenced more than 2.5 million Sri Lankans, supporting the transformation of the country's mental health service.

VSO volunteers in Tanzania manage a pioneering partnership in collaboration with UN Women to train rural, illiterate women as solar engineers. The women gain income-generating skills, improve the quality of life in their villages by increasing access to electricity, and also gain greater standing in their communities, playing an increased role in local decision-making.

A man's world

Forty year-old Arafa was born and raised in a remote village close to Mtwara (Southeast Tanzania). She remembers being forced out of school at a young age, and working the land after marrying an authoritarian husband. He spent any money she earned on himself.

It is painful for her to recollect the days when she didn’t have enough food to eat and clothes to wear. "I felt very bitter and betrayed. I was literally starving, and didn't have money for food or clothes," she said. At the age of 16 she had her first baby and two years later she gave birth again; both children died before they were five years old.

Things started getting better for Arafa when she gave birth to a third child, and remarried. The freedom she had to make decisions over her own life was greater than she had previously known, but even that can’t compare to what happened next.

A life-changing journey

Arafa is one of a handful of women selected by her village in 2011 to train as a solar engineer at the Barefoot Solar College in India. Challenging the patriarchal norms of her community, she spent six months alongside women from around the world getting to grips with circuit boards and soldering, equipping herself with the skills to power her village with solar electricity.

The pilot project is run by UN Women and India's Barefoot College, with VSO volunteers Lesley Reader and Maurice Kwame overseeing its implementation in Tanzania. Lesley describes why it focuses exclusively on women: "training women between the ages of 35 to 50 is a great investment because they return to their community instead of taking their skills to the city, which is often the case with younger men and women."

With the support of her second husband, Arafa embarked on an overseas journey she could never have dreamed of, a million miles away from the village she has lived in her entire life. "There was a big language barrier as the other women all came from countries like Uganda, Sudan, Bhutan, Malawi and Peru," says Arafa, "but we overcame this and bonded, communicating through sign language and slowly began looking after each other."

Electricity and empowerment

Arafa and her fellow engineer Sofia have fitted more than 60 solar installations in village homes. Many have benefitted including several village children who can now study using solar lanterns in their previously poorly lit homes.

But the real upshot of training rural women as solar engineers lies in the transformation they undergo as individuals and the impact this has on their community as they take on unprecedented leadership roles in their traditional villages.

Saidi Hamisi Namaruka, the 53 year-old local leader of the village said, "Nowadays those girls are heard. Even in the meetings they raise a hand to speak, people are paying attention to them and listening to them without a problem. So they have that power. They are like leaders in the village."

Part of the project involves the women setting up a village energy committee that handles the money that members of the community contribute towards the cost and maintenance of the solar equipment. 

Fatuma, a local village woman who now acts as treasurer of the committee said, "For the first time, we are being respected when we speak, people are listening to what we have to say, and the engineers are setting an example for other girls in our village who want to be like them."

VSO volunteer Lesley believes the participation of women at the local level benefits the entire community, "Women are the ones that gather the firewood; they fetch the water; they look after the children; they cook and clean. When they’re involved in decision-making, they take all of that into account."

A brighter future

Fifteen Tanzanian women have so far trained as solar engineers within the programme; aside from fitting solar panels, many of them have informally shared their skills with other community members.

The plan for the project is now to set up a training school, so the women solar engineers can share their skills with other women. In turn, they will be able to bring solar energy into their remote communities and play a greater role in local decision-making.

"Tanzania is at a crucial point in its history," remarks Lesley, who is optimistic that things are on their way up. "The country is in the process of reviewing its constitution and there's another election in 2015. Women are playing a stronger role politically – it's just about making sure that filters down to the village level as well."

Watch Women in Power – a video featuring an interview with Arafa in her village and take a look at the Tanzania women solar engineers photo gallery.

Decades of conflict, mass unemployment

Northern Uganda has one of the world’s youngest populations but after decades of conflict, scores of youth lack the necessary skills to earn a living. Thousands grew up in internally displaced people's (IDP) camps; while others were abducted in their childhood by the Joseph Kony led LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). Some were raped and forced to fight as child soldiers. Today, many of those young people suffer the social stigma of isolation and survive as subsistence farmers without an education, or means to earn a living.

Twenty-eight year-old Betty Nyaga is one such victim of war. Abducted from her village near Gulu by LRA rebels at the age of 15, she remained in captivity for six years. She was forced to live as the wife of a senior commander, and became a mother to two children. Betty eventually returned to her village as a widow and mother of two young children, only to discover her entire family had been killed during the conflict.

Relative peace has prevailed in Gulu since the war ended, but the legacy of decades of war is a jobless, disempowered younger generation. Recognising the problem, the Ugandan government started working to improve employment opportunities in the northern region in 2010, and is being supported by VSO in its efforts.

Empowering the next generation

VSO volunteers are working through the local government to target the most vulnerable war affected young people in northern Uganda, identifying and mobilising them on to an income-generating path out of poverty. The Youth Empowerment and Local Governance (YELG) project aims to empower Uganda's so-called 'lost generation', to help them on the road to employment by nurturing self-sufficiency through business. The enterprise groups include a focus on beekeeping/honey producing, agribusiness, baking and tailoring.

Betty is one of the girls and women training in bakery skills as part of this initiative, supported by VSO volunteer Jan Sharp. Jan works with the local government to organise training in bakery skills as well as basic business skills such as marketing and branding. The dearth of employment opportunities in northern Uganda makes enterprise the focus of the YELG project, the only real option available for youth to generate an independent income.

The YELG project gives women like Betty a boost by providing a shared oven to the group and extensive business skills training, but VSO volunteer Jan says cultivating a sense of ownership is key for the young people involved, "They chose the bakery project as their enterprise, so they own the oven. It empowers them so much more than just giving, giving, giving".

Laying the path for sustainable and holistic change

The watchword on the enterprise groups is sustainability. Giving young people the tools and skills to set up their own business and empowering the group to encourage others to do the same is the way this project aims to improve the lives of the youth in the long run.

Betty and others like her participate in the Village Savings and Loans Association as committee members, coordinating loans to villagers and managing the interest earned.

Tomorrow’s leaders

The twin objective of the project is to train youth in local governance, equipping them with the knowledge to advocate, exercise their rights, and ultimately, share their skills with others. Whilst a government policy for Ugandan youth exists, information is often not available to young people. So Jan has initiated a training programme for young members of the enterprise groups to identify suitable candidates to act as youth MPs in their district.

The women in the group all have a shared dark past in common, which means they offer one another mutual support in coping with hardship. With the support of VSO volunteers, hundred of youth affected by war are embarking on business ventures they couldn’t have previously imagined.

People often think an anaesthetic doctor's sole purpose is to put people to sleep for operations. But in many cases, they are critical in keeping people alive before, during and after surgery.

As the only anaesthetic doctor at Yekatit 12 hospital in Addis Ababa, Dr Tom Bashford helped to improve the entire cycle of surgical care in a country where such specialist medical skills are rare.

There are fewer anaesthetists in the whole of Ethiopia, a country of 85 million people, than in the London hospital where Dr Bashford had been working before his VSO placement.

During his one year working alongside the hospital team Tom introduced simple, but life-saving practices. He set up a High Dependency Unit; and after observing the way operations were being carried out, he implemented the routine use of the globally-recognised WHO Safe Surgery Checklist.

The turning point

"The turning point came early on in my placement when we operated on a boy called Binyam", recalls Tom.

Binyam had a huge tumour on the side of his face which started to bleed heavily during an operation, putting his life in danger. Blood arrived from the lab just in time to save his life, but Tom observed how it should have been available before the operation. "I can't imagine a child being at such risk in the UK, Binyam had come so close to dying", said Tom.

Binyam's surgery prompted Tom to teach colleagues how to use a Safe Surgery Checklist; a simple piece of paper that is shown to reduce surgery related deaths by as much as 50% in the developing world. Tom saw firsthand how it can save lives in trained hands, by making sure a plan B and plan C are in place before an operation, in case plan A fails.

Life saving equipment lying in cupboards

Tom also identified that patients were dying or suffering brain damage after surgery on the wards because their oxygen levels were dropping and over-stretched staff weren't spotting this until it was too late.

In the UK, pulse oximeters, simple devices that clip on the finger and measure how much oxygen is in the blood, are used routinely. Tom found despite having been donated the necessary equipment, many of the staff needed training in how to use it effectively. He leaves behind a team with the skills to keep patients alive through surgery and crucially, able to train more staff to do the same.

Tom said, "Part of our role as long-term volunteers is that you can take these things out of the cupboard, you can confidently explain to people how they're used, how they can work, and how they can benefit their patients. And then you can support that use over a number months until they come completely routine and as useful to them as they are to us at home."

"I gained my medical skills in the UK and I'll almost certainly spend my whole career looking after people in Britain. But there's such a desperate need for these skills in poorer countries like Ethiopia. I wish more people could give up a year or two to share what they know. I've seen what a lasting difference it can make."

Dr Tom Bashford volunteered as an anaesthetic doctor with VSO Ethiopia from July 2011 – July 2012. Since returning to the UK he has been awarded the prize for National Patient Safety by the Association of Anaesthetists for Great Britain and Ireland for his work in Ethiopia.

Volunteering is something I’ve always wanted to do...

...so after 13 years of teaching in Plymouth, I decided to take the plunge. I was actually one of the youngest head teachers in Devon at the time – but wanted to broaden my experience and do something completely different. Being here has given me a wide range of experiences, such as working in a teacher training college, teaching English in a prison and working with a variety of local primary schools.

In a country where 2.7million children don’t go to school...

...VSO's been working through the government to engage pupils in learning and improve the quality of education they receive. My main work has been to train lecturers and student teachers at a new training college in Finote Selam, Western Ethiopia. Back in 2003, VSO volunteers worked collaboratively with the Ministry of Education to devise a one-year national course called the Higher Diploma Programme and since its inception, it's exceeded targets and over 6,000 lecturers have been trained. These trained Ethiopian lecturers have continued to filter skills such as lesson planning, continuous assessment, active learning methods and action research through the education system.

For the past year and a half I’ve been sharing my skills ...

...in these areas, which are common practice in the UK but new in Ethiopia, and helping lecturers pass them on to their students. To ensure the programme is still being rolled out effectively once teachers have been trained, I've also been visiting a cluster of primary schools and supporting existing teachers with their professional development so they keep learning on the job.

Since I’ve been here my greatest success...

...has been seeing teachers enthusiastically use active learning methods in the classroom. I've visited around 50 different teachers and seen for myself that they're using various active learning methods, so it's definitely happening. When I first arrived in Finote Selam I witnessed a lot of 'chalk and talk' teaching. Now when I go into classrooms I see teachers getting children up to the front of the class to write on the board, working in groups, discussing subjects and smiling... because they're enjoying their classes. If children are happy, if children are active; children are learning, so that is very satisfying to see. Since taking a batch of trainee lecturers through the one year Higher Diploma Programme, it's now a policy across the teacher training college that everyone has to do lesson planning – so that's had a major impact, as it's now embedded in the culture of the teacher training college.

When people think of Ethiopia, they always think of the famine in the 1980s...

...many people back home are surprised to hear it's a beautiful and safe country with friendly people. I like living in a small town because everyone is friendly and I regularly go out with colleagues from the college and other VSO volunteers. I've also travelled around Ethiopia while I've been here, visiting lakes and tourist attractions in the north, east and south of the country. I think that's one of the joys of volunteering: that in addition to your main work, you also get to see a really beautiful country.

Doing VSO has really opened up my career options...

...in the UK I'd be doing continuous professional development with my staff in the school. So I'd be doing staff meetings and training them, but here, I'm actually working at a teacher training college, so that's given me a completely different breadth of experience, and in the future, who knows? Maybe I'll go and work in a teacher training college in England. So it's opened up different options; different experiences, and it's been great to work with different people. The people I work with are so keen to learn and develop new skills– that's what makes volunteering here so enriching.

VSO currently has a range of placements for teachers across 17 developing countries.

Describe your typical morning in Cambodia

Usually I get up in the morning around 6am. In summer it might be a bit earlier, because then it's light earlier and I can do some exercise before work. I either have breakfast at home or later that morning with my colleagues. It's a good way to establish relationships over a bowl of noodles or rice with pork! I work in a teacher training college, where the day starts with their flagpole meeting at 6.45am. That means that I need to be in at 6.40am. I like to cycle to work. In the morning these cycle rides are lovely, with a beautiful sunrise. I attend the flagpole ceremony, after which the trainees get information about new events, teacher-trainer workshops or things that the management think are important for them. At that moment I usually check my email for messages from the country office or other volunteers.

Who do you work with?

I work closely with my volunteer assistant (VA), we often meet in the morning about what we are going to do that day or the plans for that week. If we have a meeting with management, we usually prepare this very well, so he knows exactly what our ideas are and what we would like to get out of the meeting. I help management with improving the leadership and management of the organisation, communication between them and the teacher trainers and more interactive meetings.

What else does your placement involve?

Sometimes I meet my VA in one of the practice schools in town. During the practice period I observe the trainees in their practice schools and give them help and suggestions for their teaching. I also talk with the class teachers about their support. At the moment we are quite busy implementing some of the Khmer literature material another organisation has donated to the practice schools. We help the teachers with implementing the materials and give them suggestions on how to teach in the most effective way. Teachers are quite pleased with this, after they have understood you are not there to inspect them. They are not used to being helped in this way and most of them take the opportunity to ask a lot of questions.

I also prepare workshops, reports and visits – such as an English teacher in the college. They are able to speak English with me on a fairly reasonable level and it's possible to have a feedback meeting afterwards without a translator. We also have meetings with all the other education volunteers in Battambang, or cross-sector meetings with all volunteers.

What are meal times like?

There is usually a long lunch break in the education sector in Cambodia. We stop at 11am and are back at the college at 2pm. My VSO colleagues who work in the Provincial Office of Education or District Office of Education usually start at 7.30am and are finished at 11.30am. During this long break I usually have a simple meal (fried rice, noodles, or banchao – a kind of pancake with chicken and bean sprouts) with my husband in one of the cheap restaurants or at the market. I also quite often get takeaway and eat at home. We have a nice modern little house, on the same grounds as the landlady’s house. There is even a small garden. We almost always stay outside during the day, surrounded by palm trees and banana plants.

What do you do in the evening?

In the evening we read, study Khmer, watch videos and take Khmer lessons, I also help a Japanese volunteer with her English. Usually we go to bed quite early at 9.30pm, compared to the time we went to bed in the Netherlands. But that's still late compared to our neighbours – they usually close the door at 8pm and go to bed before 9pm. Well, if there are weddings or a funeral nearby, the music will wake you around 5am (!), you just need to take all the sleep you can get!

What’s life like in Cambodia?

In Kampot, I ride my bike everywhere and people constantly call out “hello” — it’s like being a rock star just being me every day! Several times a week, I go to the local market to buy food. Kampot is lucky to have such a large market. When I first arrived it took me two hours to do the shopping simply because I had to search for things. After I became familiar with the area, it took only an hour. But this lasted only a few months before I was quickly up to two hours again. Why? Because now I stop to talk to everyone, with questions: Where are you going? What are you buying? Do you know how to cook that? This vegetable is good with that... here, you do this with that, and you’ll need this too... Oh, will you come with me to the pagoda next week?... Nice haircut, etc. If I miss a week at the market, people get worried and ask about me. People are so friendly that I make sure I put in an extra 20 minutes to any planned errand because it is likely I will end up talking to someone along the way.

How do you fit in with the locals?

I brought two outfits with me from home and subsequently bought Khmer clothes in the markets to complete my wardrobe. For women, this means choosing material for long skirts called ‘sampots’ and collared shirts. I brought these to a tailor in the market and she custom made my outfits. For men, wearing regular trousers and collared shirts is normal, so it’s not as interesting to get clothes here.

In addition to my formal clothes for work, I bought skirts called a ‘sarong’ to wear around the house. Sarongs are bright, colourful, cotton material sewn in a tube and tied in a knot at the waist. One of my favourite feelings is to come home and slip into the cool cotton sarong. I wear this to the market too – people are really happy to see foreigners wearing Khmer clothes, plus it is a great way to show that I am trying to learn the language and am interested in talking to people.

I also tried to fit myself into whatever was going on at the school. One thing I repeated over and over to colleagues is “I am a person too—we are equal with each other,” and they started inviting me to ceremonies at the pagoda, or for walks to exercise at sunset, or to their houses for lunch. I would take my bike out on Sunday and visit my colleagues at home for an hour. Soon I was invited to plant rice, harvest rice, or on special occasions go to the pagoda for magical 4am excursions to feed the ghosts of ancestors. I started a little group for neighbourhood kids to come and colour and play games at my house. The kids went from being too scared to draw a line on the paper to producing pictures that we hang up in our ‘gallery’ (the walls of my house).

Describe a typical day

On a typical day, I go to eat pork and rice, or noodle soup, at my regular local stands at 6.30am. Many people eat out for breakfast and I like to watch all the morning activity of kids in crisp blue and white school uniforms on bikes, parents bringing kids on motorbikes, and sellers on the streets. Work starts at 7am at my organisation, and I meet my colleagues and have simple chats about food, weather, the next holiday, their families, and my activities. When I first arrived, I made sure I spent a lot of time getting to know people. I observed lessons and gave positive feedback and started helping teachers with some simple resources and games.

At 11am everyone goes home for lunch and returns at 2pm. During the break, I cook, clean the house, wash clothes in a bucket, write, read, and nap. Everyone returns to work for the afternoon session from 2pm to 5pm. I usually visit one of the primary schools or talk to students – trying to learn Khmer or help them with some English words. I made plans with colleagues and started to get more involved as people saw that I would not criticise or go too fast, but would offer to help and work in partnership.

What are the challenges?

There are many challenges in my work: people don't have much time, sometimes it is hard to find a way to work together and sometimes ideas don’t go as planned. The more communal, less private lifestyle has taken some adjusting to. But the experience has been so rewarding – the sense of community and feeling of welcome have opened my heart and I am privileged to work in this place with these people.

Do you feel you’ve had an impact? 

The changes at work have been encouraging. No one can know in the short two years what impact they have. But I have been able to see the presence of VSO’s 10-year history here, and know some stories from other volunteers before me. I can see that the daily interactions I have with people make a difference. I am honoured that people trust me for ideas and contributions and that we can work together.

My ideas alone are no good, but with willing partners, we can come up with some really good ideas. Even small things, like how to run the bike club better, or how to compliment a colleague, or what kind of partnerships we need to help us develop – all these conversations build connections, trust, and ideas. The more I learn and understand about life here, the more I can adjust my ideas and my support and the more effectively we can work as a team. As they say here, 'drop by drop fills the bucket' – I am glad to contribute a few drops to this community.

Early morning activities

My alarm goes off at 5.45am. Sometimes it’s an earlier wakeup call when there’s a wedding or funeral in the vicinity, and the associated early morning chanting by the monks. All I can hear today are the crickets and a couple of distant cockerels crowing. It’s the coolest part of the day so I’m quickly outside running through my 30-minute skipping routine. There aren’t many exercise options locally so this works quite well for me. Breakfast is tea, fruit and a baguette warmed up from frozen (the freezer is very expensive to run). To this I add one of my luxuries; peanut butter brought from Phnom Penh. After a cold (but incredibly refreshing in the heat) bucket shower, I’m dressed in trousers, a short-sleeved shirt and flip-flops for the two minute ‘commute’ by bicycle to be at the office by 7.30am. On the way I get a least two excited shouts of "hello!" from children on the street
(all foreigners are minor celebrities in Kratie) and a friendly wave from the mechanic who I go to for bike repairs.

Work news and developments

Good news comes early in the day when our new tour company learns that it has been officially endorsed by the National Ministry of Tourism. This follows over three months of letter writing and other activities aimed at gradually grinding our way through the various levels of red tape associated with Cambodian bureaucracy so it’s high-fives all round for the team involved. My main task for the morning is working with the finance and admin manager at my NGO to redevelop their appraisal system. I was only told about this the previous afternoon so I haven't had long to prepare. However, I start by laying out some of the general principles and theory before we jointly consider the needs of the NGO and the options we have available. The session ends positively and I commit to developing our agreed plan into a draft outline document for discussion by the rest of the management team. I’m also contemplating the implementation of this in a culture where saving face has huge importance and there is a lot of resistance to providing candid developmental feedback.

Lunch at home

At lunchtime I head back home, a large wooden house on stilts with reliable electricity and fans to keep the place cool. I reheat and eat the meal I cooked last night (white rice and curry) on a gas stove, with a glass of cold water. The two-hour lunch break seemed very generous on arrival but the time is often used to rest, especially when it’s really hot. I usually read, watch a film on my laptop or play cards with my wife. However, today I need to pick up some supplies from the market where many of the traders now seem to have disappeared to their hammocks after starting their day at 4 or 5am.

Planning for the field

At 2pm it’s back to the office for the short afternoon where I’m working with the marketing manager on developing the NGO’s approach to market development work for their beneficiaries. There are always language and cultural misunderstandings along the way, but by the end of the meeting (typically longer than anticipated) we have the first of seven steps drafted. We’ve also prepared for next week’s overnight visit to the field to discuss the needs of the communities who we are working with on this project.

Sunset beers

At the end of the day, I follow the road along the edge of the Mekong River to the Kratie volunteers’ favourite ‘beer lady’. It’s a rare privilege here to have a beer, coconut juice or cane sugar drink by the river as the bright red sun drops down behind the island opposite. I’m a little bit later than planned because my meeting overran but I catch the tail end of the sunset and exchange some of the day’s experiences with other volunteers in town. After socialising, it’s back home to cook dinner, eat and prepare for bed. We do occasionally eat out, but the VSO allowance requires most meals to be prepared at home. As I get in, the friendly landlord, whose family lives below us, invites me and my wife to his niece’s wedding by handing me a bright pink and gold embossed envelope. It looks like next week I’ll be part of the wakeup call for some poor souls elsewhere in the neighbourhood.

What are the major risks for women giving birth in Sierra Leone?

In Sierra Leone it is part of everyday life for mothers and babies to die. Too many hospitals simply don’t have basic utilities like 24-hour water and electricity and suffer from a shortage of trained surgeons to perform emergency caesareans and well-trained midwives. There’s a lack of basic midwifery equipment, and traditional cultural beliefs can also compound the issue. For example, some women won’t go to a hospital when in labour unless they have been granted permission from their husbands. All these things contribute to emergency treatment being delayed and lives being lost.

How vital are midwifery skills?

Sierra Leone has such high maternal and infant mortality rates so naturally midwives play a vital role in addressing this. With only two midwifery schools in the country, many babies are delivered by poorly trained health workers. More midwives are desperately needed to support a rapidly growing population.

Describe your day to day activity

Teaching starts at 9am, in small hot rooms with little ventilation and no fans. On average there are around 70 students in a class.  Earlier in my placement there was poor electricity, so all the teaching was talk and chalk – with very little use of audio visual equipment, but we have fun in class. Students have been taught in school by rote and often ask to use my pre-prepared notes - but I encourage them to write in their own words and reflect on their own experiences. I also teach maths daily as it’s required for drug calculations. Initially students moaned – but I adopted fun methods of teaching that they can share with others, so now there’s no excuse for not being able to calculate drug doses correctly.

How do your midwifery skills contribute?

With up-to-date midwifery and neonatal skills - I have a lot of knowledge to share with students. At the start of my placement I spent time in a local government hospital observing how midwives work and make use of equipment, and taught senior staff basic life saving skills. I have also given a lot of teaching material to the school of midwifery and have left two years worth of teaching notes for future use. Students I work with – many of whom have previously worked in midwifery units before becoming student midwives say they now have a better understanding of clinical situations, and have learnt a lot of new things they didn’t know before.

Has anything surprised you?

The standard of education for most student midwives is very low, so I have scaled down how I communicate information. I have also been really surprised by how little student midwives know about childbirth, even though many of them have been working as birth attendants. This made me realise it was one of multiple factors as to why 1 in 8 women in Sierra Leone lose their lives.

What will you remember most about the placement?

The students! They are a vibrant group, colourful in the way they speak and dress, so keen to learn and a real joy to teach. In spite of the difficulties of living in Sierra Leone- the thrill of teaching student midwives who will go on to play a direct role in saving lives... makes it all worthwhile.

Alice Waterman is one of thousands of VSO volunteers making a distinct and lasting contribution to some of the poorest communities around the world.

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Find out more about becoming a VSO volunteer.

Thanks to VSO supporters, see how Alice is saving lives through sharing skills overseas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_bC-mC54s4

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 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.”

is a mixture of desk work and meetings with donors or project teams, so I’d say it’s the ‘non-typical’ days that make life here interesting. It’s not often in life you find yourself inspecting a crocodile farm on the Tonle Sap Great Lake, or riding a motorbike through the rainforest wondering where the track disappeared.

The fisheries sector is huge here, providing income and livelihoods for over 4 million people. It is a major source of employment, fiscal revenue, food, a rich natural heritage, foreign exchange and economic growth for the country, contributing 8-12% of Cambodia’s GDP. Astonishingly, the average consumption of fish is over 50Kg per person annually. However, the industry is under threat for many reasons. 

Over-exploitation, pollution and habitat destruction, global pressures from markets, climate change, fuel, food prices and global economic imbalances are dramatically changing the way we use our natural resources. All these things will deeply affect future generations. Ensuring that the natural resource and its environment are managed sustainably is a big challenge.

My role...

is to advise staff in the central planning department. Together we’ve drawn up clear plans for the next ten years. I help manage projects that study the likely impacts of building dams on the Mekong River, and the effects of climate change. I’ve also been involved in creating a strategy for a new coastal Marine Aquaculture Research Centre. The work I do contributes to the development of a complete sector of the country’s economy.

I was naturally pleased to win a national award – it’s of course nice to be appreciated by those you work with.   I think the major impact of my work has been changing the way planning now operates. The staff can plan more clearly, are more flexible, and have streamlined a lot of their processes. The result has been to reduce bureaucracy and concentrate on real practical issues.

I often feel ‘out of my depth’...

but I think it’s important to have the confidence not to feel threatened by something you don’t understand – just analyse the situation calmly, talk to colleagues and THINK. In the military we used to say “fall back and re-group” – it works in this context too!

Patience is without a doubt the most important quality of a volunteer. Often it is hard to cope with seemingly unnecessary delays and diversions. I normally take a deep breath and KEEP SMILING!

I’ve lived in Cambodia for nearly four years now. I have married a lovely Khmer lady (a Fisheries Officer in a different department) and made some great friends. I don’t want to go back; at 58 I’d never match my current life back in the UK.

My advice...

to anyone considering volunteering…come on in! The water's lovely!

Tough decisions

"If somebody asks me what changes I made, I will tell them that am very proud of my work so far," says Shamsul Akhtar. In view of the obstacles he has had to overcome during his time working with the Babessi community, this is a somewhat modest assessment.

Having amassed invaluable experience working with the Indian government to promote its Strengthening Rural Decentralisation programme in West Bengal, Shamsul felt the urge to apply his skills to a fresh challenge, leaving Africa with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

Tackling the challenge

As Shamsul explains, things did not get off to the best start: “My placement was away from the Capital city Yaoundé and a sizeable distance from Bamenda, the regional town of north west Cameroon. I was given a house of seven rooms, but it had neither running water nor toilet facilities.” After a week, he secured better lodgings, though these lacked electricity.

“Having moved to a more decent house, I was able to begin work,” Shamsul continues. “I met the mayor and other people with whom I was to work. I began acquainting myself with the local situation in relation to the Participation and Governance programme.” This, too, proved challenging: “I discovered that the work ethic in Cameroon is very different to what had I been used to. The people fear change and so aren’t very flexible. Corruption is another big issue. I was facing an uphill battle.”

Signs of progress

But Shamsul and his VSO colleagues rose to the challenge. In time, Babessi’s local council began to see the value of shifting from an autocratic model – in which crucial decisions were taken by the mayor and the secretary general – to something more democratic.

Shamsul drew up a strategic plan for change, encouraged open communication and equipped both the council and community with a better understanding of their responsibilities. He began to build relationships based on trust and mutual respect. “I held many workshops, and hosted informal and formal discussions until I began to feel and see changes,” says Shamsul. “After some initial hostility, the mayor at last began to delegate power to the community. I was also involved in the recruitment of 20 primary school teachers in the area – a ‘quick win’ that convinced people of the value of the programme.”

There were other victories, too: “We secured a donation of 45 computers from a primary school in the UK, and these were distributed to various schools and administrative offices.” It has been a testing journey, but Shamsul is now seeing the fruits of his labour. There have been personal transformations, too: “I never cooked in India, but I found myself hosting so many people from all corners of the VSO family that I began to enjoy preparing Indian meals for my guests. As well as improving my planning, budgeting and workshop skills, my work with VSO has also helped me to explore my personal potential.”

Read Shamsul's latest report on the small money BIG CHANGE project in Cameroon.

It may seem unusual for a boy to care about a school club aimed at improving education for girls– but that was the case for Abdul Ganiu, president of Pope John's Catholic School Gender Club in Ghana, who took his responsibilities so seriously, it caused arguments at home.

VSO volunteer Damien Gregory introduced gender clubs throughout schools in northern Ghana that focus on changing the behaviour of girls but also help boys to understand their responsibilities.

Abdul's local gender club was established during the 2011 rainy season. In this agricultural area of Ghana, children are expected to return home to the farm straight after school and help their parents with the harvesting. Abdul's parents were not happy that he wanted to stay late at school - but he was determined to change their minds.

Before joining the club, Abdul had not been taking his studies seriously, “I mostly walked around with friends and because they were not interested in reading, I also did not read." When he heard Nurudeen Amadoo, the club facilitator, introduce the club and learnt about the extra study that members would also receive he realised he wanted to change his behaviour.

Reducing the domestic burden for girls

VSO volunteer Damien trains gender club facilitators to help both boys and girls understand the issues they face. As Damien said, "It is really important that boys are involved in considering issues that affect girls' education because they’re all part of the same situation. If we want to reduce teenage pregnancy we need change the behaviour of boys. But it's relevant across a whole range of issues. For example, if we want girls to have less of a domestic burden at home in terms of doing chores then maybe we need boys to take on some of that burden so we need them both to come together and cooperate so that things can change."

For Abdul, the club has helped him to understand more about the challenges girls face: "Traditionally our girls fetch water and help our parents on the farms. Girls were absent from school, they missed lessons and failed their exams. The club helps us share ideas. Girls share their views and we give them our ideas. Before the club the girls and boys were quite separate but when the club started we realised we needed to come together."

Changing attitudes

As a result of the club, Abdul felt the most significant impact within his own family. His parents wanted to send his younger sisters, aged 17 and 15, for ‘kayaye’, a migratory labour practice where girls from the north travel to the wealthier south to take on head porterage work. These girls miss out on their schooling, and their health and safety is put at risk.

Despite Abdul doing all he could to change his parents' minds they were insistent and his sisters travelled south. But a few days later the family received a call to say there was no work and no accommodation. His sisters were scared but they returned home safely. His parents have now become keen advocates of the gender club activities, sharing their experiences with other parents and encouraging them to seek other ways to supplement the family income.

Rolling out gender clubs

 In addition to setting up the club that Abdul attends, Damien researched and wrote a comprehensive manual to support the formation of gender clubs in neighbouring districts. He has also designed a system to measure the impact of the clubs to ensure this model for tackling girls education can be rolled out effectively to improve the lives of many more girls and boys throughout Ghana.

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.

Describe what you are doing on placement?

I am working as a teacher educator; I travel to schools all over the western region of Uganda and deliver training to head teachers, on how to improve school standards. I also observe teachers and try to improve their teaching methods.

What’s the education system like?

There are thousands of primary schools here that can often be found nestled on top of mountains. They never have fewer than 400 pupils, in fact classes are usually over 100; even in the first level of primary school. It is all ‘chalk and talk’...that is when they have chalk. Pupils occassionally have something to write on and a pencil, but they certainly do not have the luxury of a textbook. Teachers may have one text book per subject. Education here is totally geared towards passing the primary level national exam because without it you cannot go to secondary school. Even if you pass the exam, many cannot afford to pay for secondary education. It’s often said that Uganda does not have an ‘education system’ it has an ‘examination system’.  So many children get left behind or drop out in primary school.

Describe a typical day.

What are some of the challenges?

Most memorable moments?

It’s extremely difficult to pick out memorable moments. Everyday has at least one moment when you can stop, smile and appreciate what you have. The Ugandan people must be the friendliest people in Africa! Making a difference to individuals is the most rewarding part of the job. Little by little and 'slowly by slowly' as they say here... we make a difference.

What is it like living in Uganda?

Living in Uganda is not that difficult...it is a beautiful climate. Always warm and never too hot.  It is just like a really good British summer every day.  Even when it rains it does not forget to stop!

What would you say to someone considering doing VSO?

 To spend time in a developing country volunteering and sharing your experience is possibly one of the most rewarding things you can do. It is said we make a difference and so we do but, the biggest difference we make is to ourselves. It is said that to never stop loving and never stop growing is the key to a meaningful life. It is great to think at this time of my life- the latter years – I am still doing both these things. I will never regret my decision to volunteer with VSO.

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.

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.  

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

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

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

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

If you can’t beat it, adapt to it

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

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

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

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

Volunteers keep their cool

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

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

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

Livelihoods severely affected

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

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

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

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

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.”

“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.”

What does your job involve?

I’m working with the Association for Women with Disabilities (AWWD) field staff to develop systems to get information so that we can use it in reports for the donors. I’ve also been doing communications work, getting case studies from the field and using those to promote AWWD’s work and show the challenges disabled women face.

Can you describe some of those challenges?

Dealing with impairments like not being able to see or not being able to walk is difficult enough in any case, but these women have to deal with them while living in a slum or a remote rural area. So they don’t have running water, they don’t have toilets, they don’t have a kitchen, the streets are unpaved, there are open drains. Not only do they have to deal with their impairment in those circumstances, they also have to confront stigma.

What does that stigma look like?

Disabled women are often harassed or abused the street. Many are too afraid to come out of the houses, so they’re isolated for their whole lives. It’s profoundly shocking.

Is your work going to help address that?

I really hope so. I’m developing a booklet of disabled women’s stories that will help AWWD promote their work and challenge stereotypes. It’ll show the extent of the challenges faced by disabled women in the slums and in the rural areas and also show that disabled women are capable of achieving just as much as anyone else in Indian society.

What do you think of VSO’s way of working?

I really like the emphasis on sharing skills. My experience in India and Pakistan is that the NGOs are very professional in their project activities but because they are focusing on those, they often don’t have the professional expertise in organisational development. So I think volunteers can bring an awful lot in terms of building the organisation’s capacity.

What will you do when you return to the UK?

I’m going back to do a Masters in social work. Working in Pakistan and India has made me realise that I want to work directly with vulnerable groups. It has given me so many skills for working with different cultural groups, and I’d like to work with refugees and asylum seekers back in the UK. 

So do you think volunteering has been good for your CV?

It has been such good experience in terms of broadening my skills, being able to do a wide variety of work from developing communications to proposal writing to report writing.

Tell us what you’d say to someone thinking about volunteering with VSO.

I’d say definitely go for it. It’s a life changing experience – you’ll shock yourself at how much how you can cope with and what you can achieve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putting privilege to good use

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

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

Helping sex workers find alternative income

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

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

Providing support for those living with HIV and AIDS

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

Looking to her future

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

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.”

Interactive learning in Zanzibar’s classrooms

It’s a bright Tuesday morning at Saateni pre-school in Zanzibar. The children in Teacher Asya’s class are busy: in the playground, three young girls crowd around a saucepan in which they are ‘cooking’ a plastic fish, while in the brightly decorated classroom two boys are stringing red shells onto shoe laces to make necklaces. Teacher Asya moves from group to group, smiling, encouraging and admiring.

This is known as free play - essential for helping children reach important social and emotional development milestones. It’s thanks to VSO volunteer Daphne Sharp that free play has been scheduled into the school day not just here at Saateni but at nursery schools all over the island.

Daphne and Teacher Asya working in partnership

With support from her close friend and colleague Teacher Asya, Daphne has spent the last two years sharing her expertise in early-years education with teachers in Zanzibar. These teachers have previously been trained in the “chalk and talk” style of teaching, which simply doesn’t work with three to six year olds.

“We need to move the teachers away from chalk and talk. So Teacher Asya and I developed 14 weeks’ worth of three-hour workshops, looking at things like story telling techniques, making teaching aids using local resources, classroom management, team teaching and free play,” says Daphne. “Asya went away and translated them, and then she delivered the workshops in Kiswahili.”

Skills shared with 18 schools

Representatives from all of Zanzibar’s government pre-schools attended the workshops. This means that every child attending pre-school – over 12,000 - has benefited from Daphne’s skills. She is confident that what she has achieved in Zanzibar is sustainable: “I know that Asya will continue the work we’ve been doing. Seeing how she has blossomed as a teacher and a trainer has been absolutely wonderful.”

Teacher Asya - who now divides her 38-strong class into lions, giraffes, elephants and zebras so that she can manage it more effectively – is just as confident.

“Teacher Daphne has taught me so much. I have so many approaches to teaching now,” she says. “I am ready any time, any place to teach.”

Listening and learning with RISE

Daphne has had an equally positive impact on her colleagues at the Radio Instruction to Strengthen Education (RISE) project. RISE is funded by USAID and focuses on thousands of children in Zanzibar who don’t go to pre-school, perhaps because they live in remote areas far from schools or because their families can’t afford uniforms and books.

Instead these children receive basic education by joining a local RISE club and tuning into an interactive radio programme. Broadcast three mornings a week, it covers maths, science, Kiswahili, English and life skills. Each club  – there are 126 in total – has a wind up radio and a trained mentor who reinforces the content of the programmes. Each child is given a free kit containing string, a dice, flash cards, shells and coloured blocks, all sourced locally. Currently over 6,250 children in Zanzibar are benefiting from RISE clubs.

Daphne has been working with the RISE scriptwriters to ensure the content and style of the radio programmes mirror what’s happening in classrooms.

“She has taught us games and songs to put into our scripts,” says Sabrina, one of six scriptwriters. “She has also helped me to write the mentors’ guides, which will help the mentors conduct the lessons alongside the radio. I have learned that there are different ways of praising children. In the handbook we tell the mentors to use words like ‘good’, that’s right’, ‘you got it!’ and to use an action like a thumbs up.”

The future for pre-school education

From 2009, children enrolling at primary school will only be able to do so if they’ve received some form of pre-school education, be it in a classroom or in a RISE club. VSO volunteers like Daphne will continue to play a crucial role in ensuring that Zanzibar’s teachers are well equipped to make those early years of education interactive, informative and inspiring. 

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

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

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

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

How did you come to be involved with VSO?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

What did you do before volunteering with VSO?

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

What made you decide it was the right moment?

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

What were your expectations of Ethiopia?

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

Explain a little about the organisation you work with.

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

What is your role?

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

What do you feel is your greatest achievement?

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

Would you recommend volunteering to others?

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

A taste of Africa leads to a sabbatical with VSO

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

Adapting to life in Malawi

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

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

Improving the quality of education

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

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

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

Challenges

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

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

Caroline’s impact

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

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

Coming home

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

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

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.
  

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.”

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.

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

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

We went to recover the boy from Mukono and he told us the story: 

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

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

Help from the ANPPCAN

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

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

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

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

Speaking out

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

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

 All names have been changed.

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

I graduated as an engineer and went straight into management consultancy.

I spent about six years managing big technology projects. Then I spent another six years working in the city where I project managed mergers and acquisitions for an Australian bank. In the late 90s, early 2000s there was a downturn in the market and we had to make about 4500 people redundant. It was a tough time, really difficult to go through. At that point I decided I needed a career change: I wanted to do something different with the skills I’d acquired as a consultant and in the city.

At that time my wife Kristenne was working in the third sector.

She asked me on occasion to volunteer at the charity she was working at. It was really good to meet people working in that sector, to find out what drove them and what their values were. I found that really compelling.

I left the bank and found a brilliant job as director of an arts charity looking after the legal and copy rights of visual creatives. Working with the chief executive and the other directors, we increased the charity’s turnover from two to eight million. I then started a Masters in voluntary sector management and became chief executive of King’s College London Student Union.  

Doing VSO was always in our minds. 

I remember watching a VSO video about ten years ago and thinking, ‘one day we’re going to do something like this.’ Kristenne and I have both progressed in our careers and we’ve decided it’s time to do something different, challenge ourselves in a new way, use our skills and knowledge outside of the career structure we’re used to.

Our VSO journey so far has been challenging but extremely positive.

Everyone has been amazingly helpful from day one. I thought VSO’s assessment day was tough. It really makes you think about why you want to volunteer, and if you’re a couple doing it together it really makes you think about your relationship and how going overseas will affect it. The questions were very pointed but pertinent; selectors were really professional but warm and friendly at the same time.

Meeting other potential volunteers has been great – we’ve made really good friends. Five of our P2V (Preparing to Volunteer) course colleagues were also on our SKWID (Skills for Working in Development) course so it has felt like a real little family!

I roped in my friends to help me with my fundraising.

My ex-city colleagues and I rode from Greenwich to Hampton Wick, crossing every single bridge and ferry crossing all the way - that was 29 river crossings and about 40 miles of cycling. With my colleagues at King’s I did a six-hour table tennis marathon: I played every person who works with me for 15 minutes. I was pretty tired after that! It was a great way of remembering everyone and doing something collectively to raise money.

In Rwanda I’ll be working with the National Federation for Disabled People (NFDP).

It’s a campaigning and advocacy organisation that represents all the Disabled People’s Organisations in Rwanda. There are around 800,000 people with disabilities in the country and there’s a massive amount of work to do in terms of getting them access to education, welfare, healthcare. The NFDP is tasked with changing law and cultural perception. 

My placement is going to start off with recruiting the executive director, which will be great. I can help the board of trustees think about the kind of director they want and the relationship will be formed right from the start. Then we can work together on governance, mentoring and coaching and building management systems. We take for granted some of the stuff we do in organisations in the UK, so it’ll be really interesting to see how transferable and relevant those tools going to be and how much adjustment I’ll need to make.

I’ve been thinking about how VSO will fit into my career.

It has taken us nearly a year from registering with VSO to actually going overseas. During that time we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about development issues, reading about the history of international development and the effect it has on local economies. For me it has really struck a chord. When we return to the UK, I think a career in international development for me would be the most ideal next step.

Her expertise will be put to excellent use improving the care available to people who are living with mental illnesses as a result of years of civil war and the 2004 Tsunami.

Here she reveals her hopes and fears about her upcoming placement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why did you decide to volunteer with VSO?

I’m a member of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists, which offers a one-year fellowship opportunity with VSO. I like the fact that the work VSO volunteers do is sustainable. Some other organisations seem to arrive, get the job done, and then leave.

Tell us about the work that you are doing.

I am here to help improve the skills of two doctors and a small team of midwives and general practitioners at Soe Public Hospital, so that they will be better able to respond to emergency obstetric cases. It’s important to me that I use everything as an opportunity for teaching. I could do everything myself, but then nothing will change once I’m gone. I do training sessions twice a week, on things such as forceps delivery.

What are some of your biggest achievements?

Before I arrived, none of the doctors in the hospital could do caesarean sections. But I’ve been gradually training them, and now we have two doctors who can do caesareans. They’re at the operative stage, but they still need to learn when to actually do the caesarean. So I’m gently pushing them into decision-making.

Another thing is that the ultrasound laboratory wasn’t being used before I arrived. The midwives and doctors didn’t know how to use the machine, and were scared. I’ve been teaching them how to use it, and how to observe the foetus. They all crowd round the ultrasound machine when I’m teaching them, and they’re all so eager to learn! Now, we do four or five ultrasound scans per day.

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced?

I’ve had eight babies die at the hospital since I’ve been here. I’ve also had one maternal death since being here. I couldn’t prevent it, as the mother was in a coma when she came into the hospital. I’ve never had to deal with that in the UK.

What skills will you take back to the UK?

Some things I’m doing here are things I’ve never done before back in the UK. For example, I’ve had to deal with five eclampsia seizures here, which is more than I’ve ever done. I’ve only seen two in the UK in the last six or seven years.

By volunteering I have gained a completely different experience. It’s not just teaching, but also managerial experience. I have to manage the obstetrics unit, which is a job that consultants and managers would do back in the UK. I feel I now have more management skills, and that I’m more self-sufficient and decisive.

What’s your advice to obstetricians and gynaecologists considering volunteering?

You won’t change the world overnight, but little changes help. If you sustain just a few procedures, then you’ve made a difference.
 

Found abandoned in a forest

Sifa had a traumatic start in life. At just a few years old she was found abandoned in Nyungwe, a dense forest in the far south west of Rwanda. Nobody knows how long she had been there, but it is clear she had spent much of her short life surrounded by animals rather than humans. She walked on all fours, ate grass and sticks, and was terrified of people, curling into a foetal position when anyone came too close. At times her eyes rolled upwards, back into her head, and left alone she had only a vacant expression.

Staff had no training in caring for vulnerable children

Sifa was taken to a centre for disabled children, but there her life barely improved. As is the case in many such centres in Rwanda, staff had received no training in caring for vulnerable or disabled children, so did not know how to look after a child who had such complex problems. She was locked in a room – fed and clothed, but with little other care or attention.

Sifa remained in that room until the centre closed three years later. She was transferred to a similar centre, Ngwino Nawe, where the situation repeated. Now about seven years-old, she was still walking on all fours and staff had made no progress in socialising her. They saw her as a lost cause.

Sifa meets VSO volunteer Antonia Eastman

It was at this point that VSO volunteer Antonia Eastman met her. She had come to Ngwino Nawe to carry out a needs analysis as part of research into centres that include Deaf children. She remembers first seeing Sifa: “She was just huddled in the corner, very afraid. It was pitiful.”

Ignoring the staff’s assurances that she was beyond help, Antonia began to spend time sitting with her each day. She sang to her and gradually began to work at engaging eye contact – something Sifa had always shied away from. After a time, she began massaging her arms and legs to soothe and relax her. “It was human contact,” says Antonia, “something she wasn’t at all used to”.

Sifa begins to respond and staff carry on Antonia’s work

To everyone’s amazement, slowly Sifa began to respond. When Antonia left the centre a few weeks later, she urged staff to continue the things she had started. “The fact that they had seen a progression was great – they were so excited,” she says.

Six months on and Antonia has been back to Ngwino Nawe twice. With each visit she has witnessed an incredible change in Sifa. “There’s been huge strides,” she explains. “A while ago her eyes were just dull, now there’s curiosity there – like she wants to get to know you. She smiles and she joins in songs by clapping. She’s also learning to walk and is clearly trying to speak, or to make word-like utterances with her voice.”

It’s a miracle!

Staff at the centre are amazed at what they have achieved with Sifa. “It’s a miracle!” says Rosaline, one of girls who has been working with her. “Antonia realised Sifa needed time dedicated to her, and she taught us how to behave with her. We now sit down when we talk to her, and we give her things to play with so she doesn’t just lie down all the time.”

Hope for Sifa’s future – and the future of other vulnerable children

VSO has now identified the need for a long term volunteer to continue working with the staff at Ngwino Nawe and at other centres for disabled children in the area. “The new volunteer will build on what I’ve started,” says Antonia, “the need to put each child as an individual at the centre of their own learning and development.”

As the staff gain a greater understanding of working with vulnerable and disabled children, Sifa’s future will get ever brighter. They have recently discovered she is a gifted drummer, with incredible natural rhythm. The smile that lights up her face as she plays, shows just how far she, and the staff at Ngwino Nawe, have come.

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.

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

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

Making sustainable changes

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

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

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

An unimaginable horror

In the spring of 1994, five year-old Olive Okobasingiza was playing outside her house, when a militant opened fire on her family. Her mother and brother were killed, her sister was injured and she was shot in the arm.

Olive doesn’t know what happened to her father, as he wasn’t with them that day, but she never saw him again.

Found by soldiers, she and her sister were taken to a hospital, where doctors amputated her arm. With Rwanda in the grips of a genocide that would kill 800,000 people in three months, the two girls were alone and terrified. “I had lost everything,” she says.

Two miraculous discoveries!

Sixteen years later and it’s fair to say Olive has come a long way. In fact she’s been all the way to Greece. She’s also planning to go to India in September, and to travel to the UK in 2012. Because Olive is now a Paralympian. Or to be more exact – Rwanda’s first ever female Paralympian.

After that fateful day in 1994 Olive and her sister were taken to an orphanage, where they remained until peace was restored. They were then found by an aunt who had fled across the border into Tanzania during the fighting, and have lived with her ever since.

It wasn’t long after, that somebody spotted her running around with friends, and told her she could be an athlete. “They said I had the height of someone who can run,” she explains. “And that if I tried I could be an athlete.”

Challenging preconceptions

It was difficult to believe. In a country where nine out of 10 people are subsistence farmers, disability is seen as a curse that stops individuals making a contribution to their family, meaning many disabled people are made to feel useless. But Olive refused to conform to this. She began training, and at the age of just 15 represented her country in the 200 metres at the Paralympic Games.

“People are amazed by me – they are amazed a disabled girl plays sport! she says. “And that I represent our country! I tell people that being disabled does not mean you are not capable of doing anything.”

Support from the National Paralympic Committee and VSO volunteer Nic

Unsurprisingly Olive has become a role model for girls with disabilities in Rwanda. She is keen to get as many involved in sport as possible, which she is able to do through The National Paralympic Committee of Rwanda, an organisation which not only supports international athletes like her with training and travel expenses for big competitions, but also promotes disability sports at a grass roots level across the country.

With VSO volunteer Nic Clark now working to help strengthen the management at NPC, the president plans to increase its funding. This means it can continue to support Olive, and enable more young people with disabilities to discover that like her they are capable of great things.

 “Growing up with a disability is hard.,” she says. “You don’t have self-esteem. One thing I tell young people is not to look down at themselves and just to take that risk of trying to do something.” It’s a motto we could all learn a lot from. Olive has indeed come a long, long way since 1994 – and she’s still just 21!