About VSO...

VSO (Volunteer Service Overseas) is an international development organisation that works through volunteers. Instead of sending money, food or clothes to the developing world, VSO sends skilled professionals.

VSO volunteers come from a broad range of professions and they live and work in the community, earning a similar wage to their local counterparts. Volunteers work in partnership with local colleagues and communities and achieve positive change together. This facilitates genuine integration and sustainable change.

The average age of VSO volunteers has risen significantly in recent years; rather than school-leavers, today the volunteers are skilled professionals in their 30s and 40s.

Since 1958, more than 29,000 VSO volunteers have worked in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Eastern Europe. Volunteers are sent in response to requests from governments and community organisations. At the moment there are around 1,500 people working in placements in these regions.

VSO recruits volunteers from a large variety of countries, including the UK, Ireland, Canada, Kenya, the Netherlands, the Philippines and India. This international approach VSO to combine and learn from a rich variety of perspectives.

Read the stories of VSO volunteers here: http://www.vso.org.uk/resources/stories/index.asp

My fundraising begins...

I have been thinking about fundraising all summer, and I finally got organised today...

Justgiving.com was just the website I needed! My personalised page acts as a link between donors and VSO, allowing folks to donate online happy in the knowledge that their money will go directly to the charity.

Donations will help support volunteers in developing countries. Hopefully in the coming months I can report on how we fill the shelves in the Minna Community Education Centre Library.

This online donation page is a handy alternative for those of you I see far too seldom...

http://www.justgiving.com/minnaadventure

"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give."

Making progress...

Well, it has been a busy summer so far...

I had my first training (Preparing for Change) last weekend in Harborne Hall. It was great to meet so many other volunteers as well as some very odd ones during "encountering other cultures"!

I am looking forward to the rest of my training over the summer, and especially to meeting some more Nigeria-bound volunteers. It was great to meet Christiana & Nik who are headed to Lagos in October, it will be lovely to recognise at least 2 faces...