Video: The Humble Mangrove Tree

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Did you know that mangroves, a mangled tropical wetland tree, are underrated climate change superheroes?

These remarkable trees protect coasts, ecosystems, homes and livelihoods, yet they are currently under threat. Check out our video which tells the impressive story of how VSO volunteers in the Philippines are harnessing the hidden power of mangroves, nature and community to create real sustainable change for families.

Watch the video

Our work in the Philippines

We’ve been working in the Philippines since 1964. Although the Philippines has made significant strides in reducing poverty, inequality and deprivation persists. With an average of 20 typhoons a year, rising sea levels and ocean acidification, the Philippines is often cited as one of the countries most at risk from the climate crisis. Learn more about how our volunteers are helping communities develop the techniques needed to build sustainable and resilient livelihoods in the face of adversity.

Learn more about VSO in the Philippines

Support us with a donation

Making briquettes for fuel from recycled materials.

Hosea Tumwine

£10 a month could help volunteers share life-saving information with local communities to help raise awareness of the climate crisis.

Sophea Chheun

£15 a month could help women set up a small business and have access to their own income with the help of a VSO volunteer.

Paul Wambugu/ Obscuramedia

£25 a month could help train remote communities in how to make the little water they have go further through soil conservation and pest management.

£10

£15

£25

£25 could help train young farmers in how to grow organic, climate-resilient crops to sell at markets so they can support their families.

£50 could enable a single mother to start up a small business, or market stall, so she can provide for her children today and in the future.

£100 could provide a community with a solar-powered irrigation pump, using green energy to enable farming to continue in drought-prone areas.

£25

£50

£100

The two volunteers empowering girls and young women in Mozambique

Nelma and Carmirene and are two volunteers working on VSO's EAGLE project in Mozambique. For Nelma and Carmirene, education is not just about school, it is about meeting people where they are and using the right tools to challenging harmful norms. Here are their stories.

Haway with her daugther Fatima* and community volunteer Siad working to build peace IPDHE project on the Kenya Ethiopia border

A Ripple of Change: How VSO Volunteers Are Transforming Communities

Every act of volunteering begins with a choice — a decision to act out of a desire to make a difference. Across the world, VSO volunteers are proving that one spark of action can ignite something much bigger.

Opening Doors to Safety, Education, and a Brighter Future

For girls in Karamoja, the poorest region in Uganda, being forced into early motherhood is all too common. This Christmas, you can open the doors to Safety, Education, and a Brighter Future.