Life at VSO

Penny Prestage began volunteering at a young age and knew early on in life she wanted to pursue a career in volunteer management, supporting charities to make a real difference. Now as the medical manager for VSO, Penny is supporting volunteers to have a safe, enjoyable and impactful experience. Here is her story.

Trojan has been working on the ACTIVE project in Rwanda,  supporting vulnerable and marginalised women, youth, girls, and people with disabilities, to become active citizens, empowering them to exercise their rights.

Catherine Mwangi has been working at VSO for the past nine years, implementing projects in Kenya that create meaningful change for some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in the region. Here is her story.

Shikha Shrestha from Nepal has worked at VSO for the past seven years. Across multiple roles, Shikha has helped design programmes that deliver impact and help the most marginalised people to lead their own development. Here is her story.

Teclah Ponde has worked at VSO for the past nine years. From originally coordinating HIV-prevention programmes within prisons in Eswatini, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Teclah is now managing projects in these countries from inception to delivery.

Margaret Njuki joined VSO in 2021 facilitating trainings and coordinating events. As a trained journalist with a background working for aid agencies she has now transitioned in to a communications and advocacy role. Find out more about Margaret and storytelling for good.

Ezekiel Esipisu has been working as the Global Head of Programme Development for the past nine years, ensuring VSO's programmes are people-centred, inclusive, resilient, and accountable to deliver impact.

Praveen Kumar Gurunath has been working with VSO for the past 18 years in various roles, and for the past five years as the Global Lead Advisor for Social Inclusion. Find out more about his experience at VSO.

As the Global Practice Area Lead for Education, Joyce Laker oversees VSO's work tackling the intersecting barriers that prevent children from accessing education and achieving their full potential. Here's her story.

Christina Kwangwari is the Lead Adviser on Gender Inclusion at VSO. Her main role is to support gender-related work, including capacity building, policy, and advocacy, and work to meet VSO's objectives.

In February 2023 Julia Lalla-Maharajh OBE was appointed Chair of the VSO International Board of Trustees. She had previously been a VSO Board Trustee and a VSO volunteer in Cambodia and Ethiopia. Read about Julia’s philosophy here.

Meet Rahim Hassanali, VSO's Volunteering Leadership Project Manager who's current role is to lead the development and global rollout of the world’s first Global Volunteering Standard on behalf of the International Forum for Volunteering for Development.

Meet Grace, VSO's Learning and Development Specialist who has worked at VSO for five years.

Gillian Claugher, Head of Public Fundraising in the UK, who has just celebrated her three year anniversary with VSO, gives you an insight into what life is like working in fundraising.

Papa Diouf, based in Cambodia, gives you an insight into what life is like as our Global Practice Area Lead for Health, providing leadership to VSO’s global health portfolio.

In this edition of Life at VSO, we're speaking to Ruchi Tripathi. Ruchi is a Global Practice Lead for Resilient Livelihoods located in the UK, after joining us in September 2020 during the pandemic.

In this edition of Life at VSO we speak to Purna Shrestha. Purna is a Lead Advisor for Education located in the UK with a journey that first started with us in 2004.