PHOTO: Tim Lovell

Heres Tim from VSA Mr Mwango (left), Deputy Principal of Chodort Training Centre, Zambia, points out VSA volunteer Tim Lovell to one of his electrical contractors.

VSA works in partnership with people in the Pacific, Asia and Africa, contributing the skills and energy of New Zealanders to achieve locally identified, locally relevant and locally delivered development.
In 2011 our volunteers worked with over 100 partner organisations in three regions and 13 countries. Here is a snapshot of just some of the work achieved in partnership

Carpentry training
Choma, Zambia VSA volunteer Tim Lovell helped train young carpenters while on the job converting old and obsolete shipping containers into useful spaces internet cafes, libraries, classrooms and even a bank. Tim worked with nine carpentry production workers who had all completed a one-year carpentry course with his partner organisation, Chodort Training Centre. The Centre offers quality skills training so that graduates of the school are well prepared to either run their own businesses or become highly skilled employees.

Productive skills for prisoners

Port Vila, Vanuatu A project initiated by VSA volunteer Keith Hambrook, Art Adviser with Vanuatus Department of Corrections at Port Vilas low-risk mens prison has given detainees a sense of pride, and offered them the chance of a productive future. The project started off as a simple fish on a fence art project. Keith helped detainees at both the mens and womens lowrisk prisons produce beautiful, hand-painted wooden fish that were attached to fences at the prisons. The project has since taken on a life of its own, with visitors to the prisons so taken with the art installations that detainees are now making wooden decorations for sale. Male detainees have also started selling their paintings created using housepaint on plywood and have just produced a 2012 calendar for sale. The long-term aim is to make the art programme self-funding.

Food processing
Arusha, Tanzania VSA volunteer, Anne Perera, has identified new food materials that can be processed to provide another source of food and income for Tanzanians. She demonstrated how to do this during a series of workshops she ran for her partner organisation, Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO). SIDO supports small and medium size businesses throughout Tanzania. Some food components, such as orange peel, banana blossom, green peel and stem, were previously thrown away or fed to animals. Now Anne has shown how these can be used or preserved for later use to increase incomes and food availability. This in turn could significantly help reduce food wastage in a country often threatened by food shortages.

Sustainable tourism
Malekula, Vanuatu The Malampa Travel Call Centre opened in August with help from VSA volunteer Howard Iseli, making it easier to book holidays and kick-start tourism on Malekula Island. The call centre is now the one place on the island with reliable internet, phone and email facilities where visitors can book accommodation and activities. The first bookings made through the call centre included one for a large group of European travel agents. Without the call centre even calling a tourism operator direct can be hard, because of the islands very basic telecommunications infrastructure, says Howard. Its an exciting step forward for tourism operators on Malekula. Howard is one of six VSA volunteers working as tourism advisers supporting sustainable tourism throughout the six provinces in Vanuatu.

Rural women in small business

Dili, Timor-Leste A marketing survey carried out by VSA volunteer Tanya Wilkinson and members of the womens organisation, HAFOTI (Hamahon Feto Timor), is helping the women develop ways of increasing their incomes. Tanya is working as a Marketing Adviser with HAFOTI, an organisation that helps train rural Timorese women to make and sell products to earn additional money for their families. Tanya knows that even small changes can make a big difference to the quality of the womens lives. Just helping members use a simple invoicing system means they can now accurately record what they are selling and keep track of the money coming back to them.

Community library
Arawa, Bougainville A project to build a community library in the former capital of Bougainville is now entering its build phase with the help of VSA volunteer Barry Binding. In October Barry helped develop a project management plan for the building and prepare the site for construction. He is returning to Bougainville in 2012 to spend six months supervising the building process. The Bougainville library or stori haus will be built by trainee carpenters from Arawa Carpentry. VSA helped set up Arawa Carpentry in 1999 as part of the reconstruction process following 10 years of civil war. The library project is the inspiration of Wellington writer Lloyd Jones, whose novel Mister Pip is set in Bougavinille. It aims to restore community confidence and pride and provide a great asset for the people of Bougainville.

Knowledge sharing
Honiara, Solomon Islands VSA volunteer Renee Yap has helped create the first online database of provincial legislation, making it easier to find the information needed to seal good governance in the Solomon Islands. While on assignment as a Legal Adviser with the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, Renee noticed how hard it was for employees to find provincial legislation. Often vital information needed to understand the legal system was hidden in files in dusty rooms, almost impossible to locate. Renee spent a lot of her assignment pulling together the legislation and created, for the first time, an online database that lists all the information in one place, accessible to anyone. Now anyone working out of the nine provinces can access the database and get the information they need to help seal good governance in the Solomon Islands. As Renee says, Information and knowledge sharing is a big issue in the Solomon Islands. To find a way to publish the information and so share it was something I really wanted to do while I was volunteering. A clerical officer will continue to update the information.

Family-centred nursing
Quy Nhon, Vietnam A family-centred care approach, introduced to Binh Dinh Province Hospitals neonatal unit with the help of VSA volunteer Anne de Bres, is helping nurses provide the best care to the babies. When Anne began working as a Nurse Educator in 2008 she observed an extremely noisy, busy unit. The nurses worked hard but they struggled to give the best care to the babies. Along with the head nurse, Anne introduced a family-centred care approach where family members were encouraged instead of deterred from sitting at their babys bedside, providing supportive care and alerting staff to any concerns. When she returned to the hospital in 2011 to provide follow-on training Anne found that family-centred nursing practices were now a routine part of care. And although neonatal admission rates at the unit have increased since 2008, mortality rates are steadily decreasing.

Building nursing capacity

East New Britain, Papua New Guinea A PNG $2.1m ( NZ $1.15m) grant to construct a new nurses home and refurbish the existing one at St Marys Hospital in Kokopo, was secured through the collaborative work of hospital staff and VSA volunteer Phil Dolby. Phil, a Management Adviser with the Catholic Archdiocese of Rabaul which runs the hospital, and his PNG counterparts spent an intense five months working up the detailed proposal. The new nurses home will be used by single nurses who make up 43 per cent of the nursing staff. It will increase the number of beds for nurses from 28 to 63, enabling St Marys to employ more nurses and reinstate the practice of rotating them between the main hospital and its rural clinics. Working in rural clinics helps nurses develop the clinical skills and knowledge they need to work without the support of doctors.

Child-friendly schools
Takeo, Cambodia VSA volunteer Michael Sheppard helped introduce child-friendly projects at four schools in the Cambodian province of Takeo. One project involved designing and building an adventure playground using local materials. Michael, a former woodwork teacher, shared his carpentry knowledge with the children while they helped build their own playground. The other projects involved refurbishing libraries at two of the schools, and constructing a new toilet block for an urban school with almost 1,000 pupils that had only four toilets and no hand-washing facilities. Michael, who was on assignment as a Primary Education Adviser, spent most of his time working at the schools with principals, staff and teachers in their classrooms helping develop child-friendly teaching skills as part of the Cambodian Governments Child-Friendly Schools initiative. He was able to carry out the specific projects thanks to a generous donation from two VSA supporters.

Developing cultural and play-based teaching

Atafu, Tokelau VSA volunteer and Teacher-Trainer, Siitia LauviAnae, helped her Tokelauan counterparts at Matauala School take a more cultural and play-based approach to learning instead of their more traditional rote teaching style. Siitia used many different ways to demonstrate the effectiveness of cultural and play-based learning, but perhaps the most successful was the vaka canoe races she organised for all early primary school children. Tapping in to the fishing and sailing traditions of village life, students learnt about materials and construction by building a hand-sized canoe and then racing it. The concept caught the imaginations of parents and grandparents alike, with the village coming out to support the races and encourage their children in their learning. The event developed into a whole community event.

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM KIRIBATI

TIMOR-LESTE TANZANIA BOUGAINVILLE

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

TOKELAU

SOLOMON ISLANDS VANUATU SAMOA

ZAMBIA

TONGA

SOUTH AFRICA

In our 2010/2011 financial year:

139 exceptional VSA volunteers (+ 22 partners and two children) shared their skills in 151 assignments. Our volunteers delivered an amazing 87.9 years of assignment activities with 106 partner organisations mostly in the area of economic development, social development and education. The age of our volunteers ranged from 21 to 75; 53 per cent were men and 47 per cent were women. We increased the number of VSA assignments in Melanesia by 10 per cent and re-engaged with Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati.

Fifty two of our volunteers returned to New Zealand after a life-changing experience and many joined one of our nine branches, continuing their engagement with VSA and spreading the word about our work. The number of skilled New Zealanders who signed up to VSAs database of prospective volunteers increased by 67 per cent.

Find out more about VSAs work and how you can support us by visiting our website: www.vsa.org.nz

Te Tao Twhi Volunteer Service Abroad Inc is a registered charity (CC36739) under the Charities Act 2005