Volunteer Stories
Read about the wonderful work our volunteers are doing in the
field, and some of their amazing, crazy, sometimes hair raising,
inspirational stories.
In January 2011, 59-year-old Christine Ross joined her husband Wally, while he was on a one-year assignment with AVI as a VET Adviser - Bricklayer with the Namibian Training Authority. Here she tells her story from the partner’s perspective:
During the 1970s the Khmer Rouge ravaged the population of Cambodia in a brutal regime of social engineering and genocide. Thirty-one years later, ANU graduate law student, Lyma Nguyen, is finding that the path to justice is difficult.
Returned volunteer Catherine Craig writes about her experience working in Ho Chi Minh from October 2009 until November 2010 as a Special Needs Teacher, with the Loreto Vietnam-Australia Program.
Learning Vietnamese can be tricky, writes Catherine, but her and her husband Peter enjoyed their assignment so much they're returning to Viet Nam in February 2012.
Maureen McInroy writes about the challenges and the delights of teaching English to Vietnamese students in a classroom with no glass in its windows on a busy street, while on assignment for AVI.
Maureen worked between August 2007 and January 2011 at Hue University, College of Foreign Languages in Hue City, Viet Nam.
Volunteer assignments often teach the volunteer more than the volunteer can teach others. Paul O’Hare writes about the joys of bicycle commuting in Viet Nam, teaching enthusiastic students English, and, believe it or not, karaoke.
Paul worked teaching English for Specific Purposes in the hospitality industry in Hue, Central Viet Nam, from August 2009 to January 2011.
Returned Volunteers David and Christine Cloughley share their experience working with an NGO in Bali, Indonesia, and recount that the relationships they formed continue long after their volunteer assignment ended.
AVI / VSO volunteer Mar Knox looks back on her volunteering
experience in Ghana, working with her partner Mark for a
media-based NGO, RUMNET.
AVI volunteer Denise McArthur reflects on her volunteering
experience in Syria working on a breast cancer awareness program
for the Palestinian community.
Retirement left Glenys Davies restless and in need of a challenge. She owned a home in Perth, her children were grown and independent, and she had both energy and a set of useful skills honed over her career. Just as she had at the start of her career, Glenys Davies went looking for a challenge.
While there has been progress, there's still a long way to go in
improving maternal health worldwide.
Tamara Jolly reflects on her experience working as a volunteer
in Malawi.
Lauren Jones, working with the Namibia Training Authority, on
organising the 8th International Vocational Education and Training
Association (IVETA) Africa Conference. By all accounts a huge
undertaking and a roaring success.
Brooke Arnold, AVI/VSO volunteer in India, being interviewed for
the Asia Pacific journal of Advance Asia.
VSO volunteer Health Manager, Melinda Soos, shares her
experiences of living and working in regional Mongolia.
Five Aussies, a nun, a priest and a skipper take an amazing
Easter trip around the remote west coast of Bouganville, PNG.
Di Brown, working as a Nurse Educator at Sanglah Hospital in
Bali, introduces patient-centred care and a nursing handover
card, changing attitudes, improving care and garnering the
attention of the Indonesian Minister of Health.
You may remember Kerry from her previous AVI assignment, working
with young Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Kerry has now begun a
new assignment in bustling Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam, working as a
Fundraising Development Advisor with NGO Education for
Development.
A new challenge, sense of adventure and great support from AVI
has brought me to Viet Nam to work as Fundraising Development
Advisor with NGO Education for Development (EFD).
Teacher Katie Robinson has recently returned from a two year
volunteer placement in Ghana, West Africa, where she worked towards
improving the education of children with special needs. Here
she shares with us professional and personal challenges and the
major life changes the experience of volunteering with Volunteer
Service Overseas (VSO) has brought about.
The Future is You(th). Jan Cornall provides an inspiring
overview of Festival Mata Air, 2009. AVI volunteers Rudy Ardianto
and Vanessa Hyde began the festival in 2006, setting up a local
NGO, Komunitas TUK which runs environment focused community
programs throughout the year.
Dissatisfaction with working life in Melbourne led fundraiser Charlotte Shaw to take her skills to Africa as an international volunteer. Here, she shares with us the professional and personal challenges, and the major life changes the experience has brought about.
The Global Volunteer, parts 1, 2 & 3. Cheryl Malloy takes us
through her volunteering experience in Vanuatu, from preparing to
go to getting the work done. A great insight into the volunteering
experience.
The Difference a Cake Can Make - Tamara Jolly explores the
friendships formed, the experiences shared and the lessons we can
all learn from the humble cake.
The life of a volunteer is a life of adventure!
Sometimes we find adventures and sometimes they find us. At
least that is what I think happened to a group of volunteers in
Timor Leste recently.
Join AVI volunteer Anne Halloran for a fascinating ride on the
Tour de Timor.
Read Elaine Harrison's story who is currently a primary school
teacher volunteering in Namibia; Katima Mulilo under the AVI-VSO
partnership program
AVI volunteer Ben Walta leads a high altitude, perilous journey
into Shangri-La and Landua's Mei Xiang cheese factory and yak farm,
where a sustainable development project has merged with the
traditional Tibetan way of life.
Laughter, tears and scotch and vodka have been the ingredients
of a successful volunteer placement for AVI/VSO volunteer, Kim
Yearwood. Find out more about her life in Mongolia.
When Aussie's think of Bali they think of "The Island of the
Gods", "Land of Sun and Surf", "Shapelle Corby", even the Bali
Bombings of 2002 and 2005 or they may even think of their next
holiday destination, but behind the images seen by the two week
tourist is quite a different story, there is extreme poverty and a
stretched health system.
On her VSO assignment, Vanessa Dunstan used her primary school
skills to achieve Guyana's professional development vision to
tackle severe teacher shortages.
AVI returned volunteer Trish Vogel's is a recipient of the 2009
Emergency Services Medal for her outstanding work at the SA
Ambulance Service.