Blog

Returned volunteers from the UK share some of the unexpected things they learned from their VSO experience, from the practical, to the bizarre, to the profound.

Paul started his business by volunteering to clean his local hospital and streets for free. Since taking part in a VSO project, he now runs a successful garbage collection, cleaning and composting business.

As the world’s leading organisation that uses volunteering to tackle poverty, VSO is especially interested in understanding how we can best ensure that people of all sorts of backgrounds can access meaningful volunteering opportunities, writes Philip Goodwin, Chief Executive of VSO.

Low pay. Lack of respect. Being asked to achieve the impossible with not enough time, resources or training to do your best. Teachers around the world reveal the challenges they face – and why they keep at it despite everything.

Open the door of classrooms around the world and you’ll find a surprising range of challenges – as well as some truly incredible teachers dedicated to changing children’s lives.

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, tens of thousands of people live with a sea of plastic waste on their doorstep. They're suffering disease, death and indignity. One volunteer is determined to make a stand on behalf of his community.

A volunteer placement that began more than a decade ago continues to benefit children with special education needs in Vietnam and has laid the foundations for a special relationship between two extraordinary women.

Over the last year, organisations working in aid and development have been rightly challenged over their failings in dealing with abuse and harassment. In response to the scandals, the UK government is holding an International Safeguarding Summit in London in October.

Watch what happened when we brought two British VSO volunteers together who volunteered in Ghana to find out how different their experiences were – 60 years apart.

Rwanda is truly a nation of volunteers. A commitment to working with your community towards a common purpose is engrained in its national spirit, and the role that volunteering has played post the 1994 genocide is a lesson we can all learn from writes VSO CEO Dr Philip Goodwin.

In Nepal, suicide rates among young married women are very high. Devna* shares her experience of a surviving a forced marriage, and how she and her family came to be involved in a VSO project to reduce levels of violence in families in Baglung.

Every day, approximately 386,000 babies are born. Of these, over 90 per cent will be born in countries where there still isn’t enough access to medical care, leaving them at risk of illness, disease and death. But support from UK aid is changing this, providing vital services in maternal and neontatal care.