Voluntary Services Overseas (Guyana)

What is VSO?

VSO is an international development charity which works through volunteers. We use the skills and experience of our volunteers to help tackle poverty in the developing world. Founded in 1958, VSO is now the largest organisation of its kind worldwide and has 2000 volunteers working overseas. We are constantly adapting our programmes to meet new challenges and opportunities.

What do we do?

VSO sends qualified and experienced volunteers to work alongside communities in 74 of the world's poorest countries. We focus on sustainable development rather than short-term disaster relief. Volunteers work overseas for two years on a local salary. They share skills and knowledge with local people to ensure their work continues in the community after they have left. Volunteers are aged between 21 and 68 and come from a wide variety of backgrounds and nationalities.

Why do we do it?

VSO believes...

volunteers working at a grass-roots level tackle poverty where the need is greatest.

when volunteers pass on their knowledge to local people this has a lasting positive effect on a community's welfare and prosperity.

returned volunteers can help change misinformed or distorted Western perceptions of the developing world.

Lee Scholey - a former Education VSO working at Covent Garden Secondary School

A Two-way Process

VSO is open to professional people from many different occupations. Of course, every volunteer shares the VSO aim to improve lives in the developing world, but everyone in their own particular way wants to gain something, whether personally or professionally, from the experience.

And they do. You only have to talk to returned volunteers. Many will enthuse how fascinating it was to explore a different culture at first hand. Others will point to the friendships they have made. But many will also tell you how their professional talents have been stretched, and how they have learnt new skills that will significantly enhance their career prospects on their return home. If ever it was true that 'you get out what you put in', VSO is proof positive.

VSO currently recruits volunteers of any nationality who are living in the EU, Canada and the United States. In addition we are currently running pilot programmes recruiting volunteers from Kenya and the Philippines.

Camillis McElhinney - a former IT VSO working at NCERD.

Inge Groenewegen - a former Health VSO working as a Physiotherapist.

Tackling Disadvantage

Our approach is not to send food or money. Instead, we are actively working for a more equitable world by sending people out to share their skills at the heart of communities where skills are needed most. We send men and women from a wide range of professions who want the chance to make a real difference in the fight against poverty.

Ours is a very individual 'people to people' approach to development. Our overriding goal is to help individuals learn from each other - and consequently benefit the communities and countries in which they live. But above all, we are realistic in our expectations. We purposefully harness our resources to long-term objectives and focus on sustainable development rather than the short-term relief of certain problems.