About Us: VSO and Youth Volunteering
"When I think of youth volunteering I think of shared values, of a commitment to fighting poverty; a sense of global citizenship; the importance of work that is worthwhile, respect and admiration for new cultures; the power of learning, adapting and growing. Youth volunteering isn't just about three months spent in Sri Lanka or Nigeria or Nepal or Malawi – it's about empowering young people to see the world in a different way"
Marg Mayne, Chief Executive VSO
Youth work in VSO is growing, recognising that youth are central to development. VSO is committed to addressing the issues facing young people living in poverty and supporting youth to be active in development and have their voices heard. VSO is supporting youth around the world to take action on development through volunteering in their own country or overseas through our national and international youth volunteering programmes.
VSO currently supports young people to take action on development through volunteering on the following programmes:
• International Citizen Service (ICS)
• Long-term international volunteer placements are open to anyone aged over 18 with the relevent skills
• Youth national volunteering
To ensure young people are considered in all our we work we have made the following 4 commitments:
1.To ensure a holistic approach to youth programming, recognising that youth are integral to our mission and to development as a whole.
2.To invest in programmes to support young people, especially poor and marginalised youth, to take action and participate in development.
3.To work for and with young people to reduce poverty and to enable equal participation in development by young people as active citizens.
4.To ensure meaningful participation of young people in shaping our work.
Through our work with young people we aim to get young voices involved in policy and decision making, get young people better access to services, change the attitudes of communities, leaders and government officials to better value the contribution of young people and help build and support young people to be effective agents for change.
