Happy International Volunteer Day!
In photos: The power of volunteering
As the year draws to a close, we want to highlight all the amazing work and achievements of VSO volunteers this year.
On the 5th of December each year, International Volunteer Day (IVD) celebrates the immense contributions that over one billion volunteers worldwide make towards making societies inclusive, cohesive, resilient, and sustainable. This year we're celebrating the theme of solidarity through volunteering and encouraging volunteers to act together and to act now for the future of our planet.
This year, 3,505 VSO volunteers contributed to creating a fair world for everyone, working across 28 countries to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). #TogetherActNow
Celebrate with us
The Volunteer Impact Awards celebrates the exceptional contribution of VSO volunteers from around the world in creating lasting change in some of the world’s poorest communities. Our fantastic finalists are nominated under the categories of health, education, livelihoods, and impact beyond volunteering, for their brilliant contributions to creating sustainable development. Join us on Thursday 8 December 2022, 9:30am (GMT) where we'll announce our winners.
Join us at the Volunteer Impact Awards
What does volunteering mean to you?
As we celebrate International Volunteer Day, we wanted to spotlight just a few of our many inspirational volunteers from across the world and ask them one important question: what does volunteering mean to you?
Watch: Donne Cameron, Executive Director of Programmes on the significance of volunteering
Our unique approach: blended volunteering
Blended volunteering is a flagship approach for VSO in the field, differentiating its work from other volunteer-involving organisations. It brings together volunteers from the local community and other parts of the global south alongside volunteers from the global north with the aim that their collective experiences can be synergised to maximise impact.
VSO and Northumbria University’s research looked at the way different types of volunteers work in a ‘blend’ to harness their collective knowledge, skills, and experience to support lasting, positive change.
One of the most critical findings of the study suggested that community volunteers are equal experts along with national and international volunteers and are equally contributute to developmental change. This perspective helps to decolonise how we think of the role volunteers play in international development and ‘localise’ development solutions.
Find out more about our research
Setting the standard for global volunteering
Last year, VSO was proud to play a leading role in launching the revised version of the Global Standard for the Volunteering for Development Sector, through our partnership with the International Forum for Volunteering in Development.
The Global Volunteering Standard helps organisations to be more responsible and effective by ensuring that primary actors are actively involved in the design, implementation and monitoring of projects and programmes designed to support them, meaning they are more responsive to their needs. Watch the video to learn more.
Highlights from our volunteers
Volunteers are at the heart of everything VSO does. We bring about change not by sending aid, but by working with volunteers and partners to empower people living in some of the world’s poorest regions. Hear directly from our volunteers what volunteering means to them.
“For me, social work is not just a career, it’s a calling”
Hear from Tugwell, a Social Accountability Advisor under the Speak It Loud project in Zimbabwe. He's using his 16 years’ experience as a social worker to help end violence against women.
Meet the volunteer providing psychosocial support to those affected by conflict
Kamal Jaga, 40, from the UK, volunteered on the VSO Psychosocial Support Project in Ethiopia, a country ragged by internal conflict that created an estimated 2.2m internally displaced people. Read his story.
My incredible volunteer journey - Dr Bob Campbell
Dr Bob Campbell has used his professional experience and skills to support VSO’s programmes in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, and South Sudan. Here reflects on his journey with VSO, it's most memorable moments, and the key things it has taught him.
Find out what's going on for International Volunteer Day where you are
We have events happening in Nepal, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya. Find out more using the link below.