VSO is an international development charity that works through volunteers. VSO's vision is a world without poverty in which people work together to fulfil their potential.

VSO promotes volunteering to fight poverty and disadvantage, working in the poorest countries where we can make a significant contribution and where it is safe for us to have programmes. In these countries, we have a number of development goals in Education, HIV and Aids, Secure Livelihoods, Health and Social Well-being, Disability, and Participation and Governance. We maintain a Programme Office in each VSO country and staff there work in partnership with local organisations, and increasingly with the people whose interests VSO aims to serve, to agree and then deliver a programme of development.

At the heart of this work supporting local organisations is VSO’s international volunteering programme, which includes long term, short term, youth and exchange volunteers. The international volunteering programme supports partners to develop placements which deliver their work and meet their objectives, and identifies volunteers from other countries to fill these placements. During their placements volunteers are therefore employed by the partner organisation in the country where they work. The role of VSO is to broker their employment with the partner organisation and to offer support in this employment by, for example:

• Helping the volunteers understand what the employers require in the placements
• Providing prior training required by the employers so that the volunteers can work effectively in their placements and within the context of the country concerned
• Supporting both the volunteers and the employers in-country to maximise the mutual benefit of their partnerships
• Making available to the volunteers certain financial and other types of support to enable them to take up their employment.

Tackling Disadvantage at "Grass Roots" Level

VSO has a very individual "people to people" approach to development. Instead of sending food or money, VSO send women and men from a wide range of professions who want the chance to make a real difference in the fight against poverty. These volunteers work in partnership with colleagues and communities to share skills and learning and jointly achieve change.

VSO also works to address the structural inequalities and barriers that prevent people from exercising their rights. VSO uses its experience and its supporter networks to work for changes in policy and practice - rich and poor countries - that reduce disadvantage.

VSO is by far the largest independent volunteer-sending agency in the world and has more than 40 years of experience of working with volunteers. Since 1958 VSO has sent out more than 29,000 volunteers to work in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Pacific region and, more latterly, Eastern Europe in response to requests from our overseas partners. At the moment VSO has around 1,500 volunteer working in placements in these regions.

Click here to know more about VSO and its work in fighting global poverty and disadvantage ( link to www.vso.org.uk)

Click here to read about VSO's India Program office.