Voluntary Service Overseas is an international development charitable organization/charity with a vision for a "world without poverty" and a mission to "bring people together to fight poverty and marginalisation".
VSO delivers development impact through international, national, and community volunteers.
The focus of volunteers it to develop the systems and conditions for positive social change [2] As of 2018, VSO worked in 24 countries in Africa and Asia[3]
VSO currently works in the following core programme areas:
And through three core approaches that are relevant to all the areas:
I returned to UK 4 months ago after volunteering with VSO and, through them, with Save the Children devising courses for teacher trainers to help them train primary teachers how to include children with Disabilities or with Learning difficulties in their classrooms. An amazing two years! I spent the first 6 months gaining trust, learning the culture of the Myanmar teacher training team I was assigned to and unlearning everything I thought I knew. I had to begin at the beginning and was assisted by visiting community schools, talking with community members and with disability self help and pressure groups. Having gained a better understanding of the realities faced by teachers, administrators, children and their families only then could I begin to work with the teacher training team to develop meaningful training programmes for teachers and community leaders. As Gandhi says (something like....) "if you want to find yourself, lose yourself in helping others. Thanks VSO and Save the Children. Chris
