VMM Short Term Volunteering

Short-term International Volunteering Don’t just think about it, do it.

Talk to VMM about your ideas – whatever your interests, we’ll have a placement that suits both you and the communities we work with.

A MESSAGE FROM THE VMM CHAIR AND CEO

WHAT IS VMM?

Of all the travelling experiences you could choose, the opportunity to volunteer in Africa is truly special. It’s a chance to look at life from a completely different perspective, to learn and share your skills and knowledge in a way that benefits yourself and others. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then why not take the next step and volunteer with us?

You don’t have to be a professional with years of experience to become a short-term volunteer with VMM. You just have to be ready for a journey that really will change your life, and those of the people you meet.

We work on all kinds of projects across the continent, from educational initiatives to building and engineering works. Whatever you do with us, we’re sure it will inspire you throughout your lifetime, and in whatever career you choose.

As Chair and CEO of VMM, we have met some of the most inspiring and dedicated people of our lives. It really has been like entering another world, where making a difference is far more important that talking about it. If you’re are looking to do something that makes life a little better for someone else, we hope to meet you soon too.

The Volunteer Mission Movement is an international development and volunteering organisation. Our vision is to help create ‘a world where we live in the shelter of one another’. Our mission is ‘to share who we are and not just what we have’, and we have a good time enjoying what we do.

We currently work in nine African countries, playing our part to deliver the aspirations of the international Sustainable Development Goals. As a faith and values based organisation, we work to help our grass roots partners in Africa take care of the needs that local people tell us are most important to them. Projects tend to cover education, health to community development initiatives.

We have partnerships with church, civic and community organisations. If we can’t employ someone locally for a position, we recruit volunteers from across the globe. Whilst VMM was established as a faith group, we embrace volunteers from all backgrounds, and work with people and communities regardless of religion, politics or social status.

Joanne with students of Primary five at St. Noa’s.

Best wishes, Doug and John Douglas Nisbet Chair VMM John Denny CEO VMM

Interested in taking things further? Get in touch with a member of our team to get your journey started: Van Garber (UK): van@vmminternational.org or call +44 (0)151 291 3438 Joanne Mulligan (Ireland): joanne@vmminternational.org or call +353 (0)1 873 4562 Keith Hitchman for school and college faith-based collaborations. keithhitchman@vmminternational.org

Our front cover photo is of our volunteer Joanne with Joella, a student at St. Noa’s Primary School in Nansana.

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Students of Primary six playing football at St. Noa’s.

Louise working through English comprehension with students at St. Noa’s.

WHAT ARE OUR OPPORTUNITIES? Over the past 48 years, we’ve placed over 3,000 long-term volunteers, which has led to some astonishing results. Now we can offer those kind of opportunities to you. We help people of all ages to step into communities and get stuck into projects of real value to the local people. On this mind-opening journey, we’ll support you every step of the way, as you gain a new perspective that will inform the rest of your life.

Our work is built on a large network with strong, well-established relationships.

The communities we work with have asked us for people like you and thanks to the strength, reach and safety of our network, we can offer short-term placement opportunities to individuals in all stages of their careers. So whether you’re a school leaver or university student, are looking for a career break, or are retired and ready for a new challenge, we can help you find the kind of experience you want. And if you love it – as we’re certain you will – we can help you explore long-term volunteering opportunities too.

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Break time at St. Noa’s.

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WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM A PLACEMENT? We believe that the right support before, during, and after a placement, is key for the continued success of overseas volunteers and the work that they do. Before beginning your journey, VMM will make sure you’re fully prepared for every part of your overseas placement - from language and cultural differences, to making sure you’re ready to cook and clean in a whole new way.

As part of this, we follow the Comhlámh Volunteer Charter that sets out seven principles of good practice in volunteering for global development:

BEFORE YOU GO

1 Reflect. Think about your motivations and expectations.

2 Prepare. learn about your host and organisation.

WHEN YOU’RE VOLUNTEERING

3 Respect. Be open to local culture and customs.

4 Adapt. Be professional and flexible in your placement.

5 Stay Aware. Take due care of your safety, health and finances.

AT HOME

6 Share. Channel your experience and knowledge gained overseas.

Although we’ll be there to guide and support you throughout, you will be encouraged to make key decisions about your trip, ensuring that you make the most of your experience. Then when you are actually out on your placement, everyone in the VMM team – from staff in the UK, to our partner organisations and long-term volunteers in the field – will ensure that you never feel alone or isolated.

You can certainly expect to gain a great deal from a placement with us. As part of the VMM family, you’ll aways be looked after by the safety and security of our long-term partners as well as receiving a warm welcome from the local community, making it a fun and friendly environment to work in.

You will meet a whole range of new people, from many different backgrounds.

You’ll learn, understand and embrace a new culture, and share your knowledge and life skills with local people to ensure a long-lasting and positive effect for all. But most importantly, it will change you and your view of life, as well as your attitudes towards other people.

During your placement, you can expect to develop invaluable skills in leadership and team building, as well as providing hand on experience particular to your field of interest. Both of which will be impressive additions to your CV. And no matter what your beliefs, our placements provide the ideal situation to practice your faith and/or your humanitarian values in a fresh context. We strongly encourage anyone who shares our mission and values to become a part of our projects, whether they practice a faith or not.

When you return home, VMM will be here to welcome you back, and invite you to attend our debriefing sessions to discuss your experience and thoughts with our friendly, qualified team.

7 Commit. Be responsible and responsive throughout the cycle

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WHERE TO GO AND WHAT TO DO? We take pride in the long-lasting relationships that we’ve built over the years with our many partner organisations. Through this relationship network, we now have short-term placements available within Malawi, Ghana and Uganda.

MALAWI Network for a Better World (N4BW) in Sitima works to reach the poorest families and provide sustainable routes out of de-humanising and avoidable poverty. Their work spans community health education, distribution of life-enhancing items, improvement of primary and secondary school standards, micro-business schemes, and micro-environmental/agro schemes.

Placements with N4BW include working in schools through to helping build the capacity of local social enterprises and startup businesses.

NORTHERN MALAWI We offer volunteer placements in Mzuzu, where the focus is on childrens’ education, responding to climate change, HIV Projects, child protection, food security and youth programmes.

One project in food security aims to provide small livestock and seeds to vulnerable communities. You could help our long-term volunteers deliver sessions on child nutrition, working with local people to maintain a balanced diet in difficult circumstances.

Another of our projects is in response to major deforestation caused by the demand for firewood.

You could help in the promotion of an environmentally friendly and sustainable solution to the problem by using clay stoves and briquettes.

You could also work with communities in the creation of tree nurseries.

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UGANDA Caritas Kampala (CK) in Uganda is a faith-based, non-profit organisation that works with communities at grass root level, regardless of religion, race, culture and political affiliation. The main beneficiaries of CK are the poor and marginalised, discriminated communities, and victims of human rights violation.

Many of them are subsistence farmers, growing crops like coffee, maize and beans as their staple food, and those engaging in micro enterprises.

VMM have lots of short-term placements with CK in primary and secondary schools, and projects in and around Kampala. St. Joseph’s Primary School and St. Noa’s Primary School, both located in Nansana near Kampala, are two schools that our volunteers have visited in the past. With help from you and other like-minded volunteers, the school can improve its administrative capacity in order to provide a higher standard of education, alongside teacher training, one-to-one help for the students, and a range of after-school learning activities.

One Brick at a Time (OBAAT) in Uganda. As a skills exchange programme between the UK and Uganda, OBAAT has completed a number of life-changing, locally identified, construction projects and through its key strategic partnerships has established itself as a reliable, trusted and consistent NGO. Committed to sustainable development, OBAAT’s main objectives are education and health building projects identified by the local community.

OBAAT has a range of partners to ensure best practice, and a significant impact on health, education, sustainable construction and wealth creation in both Uganda and the UK. OBAAT has a need for skilled tradespeople and those who are happy just working hard as a labourer. There is also an opportunity to carry out admin work in OBAAT’s office in Fort Portal.

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Uganda Hands for Hope Hands for Hope is a non-profit organisation working with the residents of Kampala’s informal urban settlements. Priding themselves on their ‘hands-on’ approach to their work, they assist the most vulnerable by providing opportunities to acquire the necessary skills to help themselves and their community, focusing mainly on the needs of local women and children.

Their work is incredibly varied, with programmes in education, health, livelihoods, and distributions, among others.

GHANA Village by Village Ghana This is a small UK-based charity, whose mission is to reduce the needless suffering and deaths of children living in poverty in remote rural African villages. This is done in a variety of ways, such as providing rainwater harvesting facilities to the poorest village schools, providing toilet facilities to the poorest schools, introducing school hygiene education to schools, digging wells in villages to provide clean drinking water, and providing scholarships to children in the poorest villages.

Village by Village have an excellent working partnership with Ghana Health Service and Ghana Education Service, which enables them to successfully carry out such a wide range of projects.

OBAAT construction project.

PROFESSIONAL PLACEMENTS FOR ALL AGES Short and longer term placements in other countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan and Zambia, are a possibility if VMM believe that your skills could be beneficial to one of our projects.

These opportunities are varied and apply to all age groups, so please give us a call to discuss them further.

Village by Village seek volunteers to work across all their projects in Ghana, including construction at all skill levels, agricultural and educational work.

Phoebe and Louise teaching at St. Noa’s.

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Students at St. Joseph’s participating in a circuit race set up by volunteers.

WHO ARE OUR VOLUNTEERS? Our short-term programme allows volunteers of all ages to work directly alongside local VMM volunteers and co-ordinators for a period of 3-6 weeks, on a range of community projects in a variety of ways. Many of these opportunities are aimed at ages 18-25 but we also have more specialised projects for those with a lifetime of experience.

Each VMM volunteer to date has had an untold positive impact upon the lives of people in the marginalised regions where we work. This is what some of our current volunteers have to say:

Nerea Monge, a volunteer with VMM for the last two years, has recently taken up a volunteering post as a Pharmacist at St. Charles Lwanga healthcare centre in Kenya. When talking of her experiences, she says that “part of volunteering means availing yourself and your skills where needed. The beauty of it is serendipity … my voluntary experience has been coupled with love and a few challenges.

Things take time here; that is probably the most important lesson I have learnt.”

Emily Hosford, a VMM Child Safeguarding Mentor, discusses her time as a volunteer: “For the past eight months I have been working to promote a safer environment for children and vulnerable adults in Uganda and Kenya. I have been supporting child protection officers (CPOs) in their work, helping them to identify safeguarding needs in their organisations and communities, and advising on future child protection steps. I have the honour of working with so many of these people who work against the odds to improve the lives of children and other vulnerable people. Their dedication motivates me in my work and helps me see that my efforts are part of a bigger picture of social action. Every day, I also see evidence of how people here cherish children and want what is best for them. This helps me believe that positive change is possible.”

Phoebe Pennington was a volunteer on our pilot short-term programme in Uganda this summer. “As I plan to study Education and International Development at University this coming year, this placement gave me a great opportunity to gain a first-hand experience of development work in the area of primary education. Volunteering at St. Joseph’s and St. Noa’s Primary schools in Nansana allowed me to share my skills with the teachers and students, but also gave me the chance to learn and develop at the same time. I hope, in the future, to carry out more volunteering work across Africa as my time in Uganda was inspirational.”

Phoebe during her placement in Kampala, Uganda.

Emily, VMM’s Child Safeguarding Mentor.

Nerea at her healthcare facility in Kenya.

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WHAT DO YOU GET FOR YOUR MONEY? Although volunteers are required to fundraise for their trip, VMM provide a great deal of support in doing so. For the short-term placements, the cost of the placement varies depending on where you are going, what you are doing and the time of year. On average, VMM asks that each volunteer fundraises a total of between £1,200 to £1,800 or the equivalent in Euros. This covers: – all our placements include safe and secure local • Accommodation accommodation (hotel, B&B, hostel) in the volunteering country.

– all meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), prepared by the • Meals local community, are provided for by the partner organisation.

– VMM will organize travel insurance for all volunteers • Insurance going overseas. This insurance is of extremely high quality.

Training – all volunteers, before going overseas, will be provided • with training by VMM to ensure preparation for the trip.

Placement – your placement is organized by VMM in conjunction • with the partner organization, and all duties/activities to be carried

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If you’d like to find out more, you’ll find our Strategic Framework for 2016-18 on our website at www.vmminternational.org “It is not a matter of charity or good deeds. It is a basic obligation to justice. What we have to offer is what we have been given freely. We live with the people. We become part of the people. Our sharing becomes a journey we walk together towards liberation, community and reaching out together for growth and fulfilment.”

Edwina Gateley, VMM Spirit and Lifestyle 1981.

ORGANISATIONS WE ARE PROUD TO BE PART OF:

out by volunteers will be set out Support – all volunteers receive around the clock support before, during and after placement by VMM, partner organization, and our long term volunteers in the field.

Extra costs for the trip include flights, visa fees and vaccinations.

These are your responsibility.

WHO TO TALK TO:

Phoebe practicing her netball skills with students at St. Noa’s.

To request more information on our placement or to request an application form, please contact either our Liverpool or Dublin offices: Van Garber (UK): van@vmminternational.org or call +44 (0)151 291 3438 Joanne Mulligan (Ireland): joanne@vmminternational.org or call +353 (0)1 873 4562 Keith Hitchman for school and college faith-based collaborations. keithhitchman@vmminternational.org

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WHO TO TALK TO: To request more information on our placement or to request an application form, please contact either our Liverpool or Dublin offices: Van Garber (UK): van@vmminternational.org or call +44 (0)151 291 3438 Joanne Mulligan (Ireland): joanne@vmminternational.org or call +353 (0)1 873 4562 Keith Hitchman for school and college faith-based collaborations. keithhitchman@vmminternational.org