Following the presentation of our 2021/2022 Annual Report, we proudly highlight some of our last year’s results, giving an insight into a year that was once again dominated by the impact of COVID-19. How did that affect our Volunteering for Development approach?
VSO’s programmes have not been paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead activities were redirected to respond to the pandemic, aiming to reduce the impact for our primary actors. For instance, by enabling the poorest communities to gain access to COVID-19 information and services and to help small businesses to cope with the restrictions and uncertainties as a result of the pandemic. Due to travel restrictions, this work relied heavily on National and Community volunteers and less so on the usual mix of local and international volunteers. In the second half of the financial year international travel became possible again, although quarantine requirements and local travel restrictions were still in place in many countries.
Overall, 32 professional volunteers were recruited and onboarded by VSO Netherlands to contribute to VSO’s programme implementation.
Six of these provided remote advice in areas such as rights to education, livelihoods research and staff development. Remote volunteer placements are not just a COVID-19 adjustment where travel is not possible, but also an efficient way of supporting our work in cases where direct partner engagement is not essential or where work supports multiple countries.
Thirteen volunteers supported country programmes and partners, mainly in the field of education: building capacity of regional education management teams in Cambodia, numeracy and
literacy education through tablet technology in Malawi and introducing a new numeracy and literacy curriculum in Rwanda.
The power of our collective action
We are grateful to all those individuals, institutions and companies who have worked with us in the last year. Together we have shown we can work with the most vulnerable to change our world for the better. This is the power of our collective action! Read our annual report and find out what more we have achieved in 2021/2022.