VSO volunteers awarded with honours by His Majesty King Charles III

In 2023, Peter received his Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to International Development.

Peter has dedicated over 25% of his life to volunteering with VSO, which first began with a placement in Borneo as a young man in the 1960s. His journey didn’t stop there, with his most recent placement seeing him work in Tanzania at the age of 74.

Peter started his volunteering career as an agricultural advisor in Borneo, where he worked with local agricultural officers and local communities to improve food production, and later established the first rural agricultural research and training station in Sarawak. Peter’s dedication to establishing important relationships and building trust with the community would characterize his approach to overseas volunteering over the next five decades.

Following his time in Borneo, Peter went on to volunteer as an agricultural teacher in Papa New Guinea in 1999. Here he introduced sustainable rice farming to highland communities and supported the development of a new national curriculum.

Peter carried out five separate placements in Papua New Guinea over the years, where he continued to provide support and capacity building for education leaders.

In more recent years, Peter volunteered in Cambodia with VSO to develop a vocational education improvement plan in partnership with the Cambodian government. But his work didn’t stop there.

Later in Tanzania he became a Vocational Education Advisor, improving the quality of vocational education in the country and helping to improve job prospects for young Tanzanians. 

While his passport may have many stamps, Peter has had an equally successful and colourful career in the UK. Most notably, Peter worked for the National Education Department's School and College Inspectorate as the lead for Her Majesty's Inspector for many years, leading the renewal of vocational and technical education in secondary schools through identifying and sharing best practice.

Later Peter was appointed as Director of Education and Training provision for students living in Durham County. Peter is has been a governor for several schools in North Yorkshire and continues to provide coaching and mentorship remotely to vocational education lecturers in Tanzania and Papua New Guinea.

Chris Evans MBE

Chris was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to international development through the introduction and promotion of sustainable farming practices in rural Nepal.

Chris first volunteered with VSO in 1985 in the rural district of Jajarkot in Nepal where he helped farming communities to improve their permaculture practices and grow crops more sustainably. The communities in Jajakot are some of the most marginalised – lacking access to key resources such as education, health care, and food security.

Chris founded a training centre which grew organically into a grassroots NGO called the Jajarkot Permaculture Programme with a membership of 12,000 farmers across four districts.

Three decades on, Chris is working tirelessly to promote permaculture practices. He is working closely with the Himalayan Permaculture Centre (HPC), which is run by trained and motivated farmers from Surkhet district in Nepal, to implement regenerative and sustainable rural development programmes in Nepal.

Back home in the UK, Chris is now the co-owner and director of Applewood Permaculture Centre, a 20-acre smallholding and training centre focused on teaching students around the world permaculture methods and adapting them to their cultural landscape.

Chris is now an agroecology e-volunteer with VSO – working with many VSO countries to design and deliver agroecology methods in response to the climate and food insecurity crisis. Read more about Chris’s VSO journey here:

My permaculture journey: A sustainable approach to small-scale farming