VSO supports you throughout your adventure!

To enable you to volunteer and give your best during your placement, VSO provides all its volunteers with a comprehensive package of practical, personal and financial assistance, before and during their placement, as well as after returning home. This consists of:

* Financial support before and during volunteering. VSO believes you should neither lose money nor make a profit from volunteering. Keeping this in mind, you will receive a living allowance, based on a daily rate, which is designed to meet your reasonable living costs incurred and some expenses so that you, as an individual, are not taking money out of your own pocket as a result of volunteering. Some of this is available as a preparation payment before you leave for your placement to help you cover any costs you might incur as you get ready to go overseas. The rest of the allowance will be paid at intervals while you are in placement. Part of this allowance will be paid by VSO, to enable you to volunteer and cover expenses such as preparation payments and social contributions in your home country while you are volunteering overseas. Another part of the allowance will be paid through the organisation where you will be volunteering, to cover day-to-day expenses. Please note that this living allowance is generally the equivalent of a local salary in the country where you will be placved as a VSO volunteer. It will be enough to cover your basic expenses while overseas, but you will not be able to save or send money back home to support your family or cover any other financial committments you may have at home (such as loans).

* Personal support and training. Before you go overseas VSO will provide extensive training to prepare you for the changes that you will experience and for your work in development. Please note that this does not include specific professional skills training. Once overseas, the local VSO office will meet you on your arrival and organise further training and briefing. Your most regular contact will be with your employer and they act as your primary means of support. Your local VSO office will help with major personal, medical or security problems. Once you are invited for an Assessment Day, VSO will give you a contact list of returned volunteers from your professional area so that you can fully brief yourself. You will also have various online networking opportunities with other VSO (current and former) volunteers. Please check the Application Procedure as well for more details about the training sessions.

For their placement, VSO volunteers receive the following financial package:

Also, VSO will cover some of your selection and pre-departure expenses like:

• VSO can reimburse up to £70 of your travel costs* to the UK (*some conditions apply), in order to help you to attend The Assessment Day at VSO's main office in London, as well as the two compulsory pre-departure Training sessions in Birmingham. Please note: As a charity with limited financial resources, as of the 1st of June 2009 VSO asks its volunteers to cover the first 30 pounds of their travel costs to the UK.
  
• Accommodation and meals will be provided to you for the entire duration of the training sessions in Birmingham. However, you will be responsible for ensuring your accommodation and meals for your participation at the Assessment Day, except for lunch on the day of the assessment. VSO will help you choose suitable and affordable accommodation in the proximity of their office.
• Medical examinations, immunisation, visa and other preparation costs incurred before departure will be reimbursed by VSO (except for the dental examination, which is nevertheless compulsory).

Fundraising

As a charity with limited resources, VSO encourages all its volunteers to support its fight against poverty and injustice worldwide by trying to raise funds for our common cause. Fundraising is all about asking people for support. Contacts in your family, workplace, social circles and local community are key to making your fundraising easy and successful. You’ll be amazed at how many contacts you have and the possible ways they can help.

If you are to be selected as a VSO volunteer, you could, for example, talk to people in your social circle about VSO's work and ask them to donate 2% of their income tax to VSO (via Pro Vobis, Romania). Or you could set up a small web page or blog describing VSO's work in Africa or Asia and ask visitors to donate and spread awareness. You could hold a birthday party and ask your friends and colleagues to bring the money instead of gifts, and donate it to VSO. You could organise a barbeque evening for your aquaintances and, as an attendance fee, ask them to chip in for this cause. Just remember to keep your fundraising interesting and fun, so there’s something in it for your donors as well!

Your fundraising could help VSO to make the world of difference to disadvantaged people around the globe. or example:

£36.40 can keep a VSO obstetrician in Indonesia for a week.

£158 can keep a VSO health specialist teaching 33 future doctors in Malawi for a month.

£500 can train and provide initial funds for 10 HIV+ women to set up their own business.

£948 can keep a VSO doctor providing treatment to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission in Uganda for six months.

We strongly encourage and support all our volunteers to fundraise as part of their VSO experience. We also encourage them to support our cause by spreading awareness about issues like global poverty, disadvantaged countries and international development, and about the opportunities they have to get involved, either by volunteering their skills or by supporting the cause in other ways.

Please note: Fundraising is encouraged but not compulsory. If you are unable to fundraise, your overseas placement will not be affected! However, we appreciate your willingness and any effort in this direction, as part of your commitment to VSO's goals.

For more information and fundraising tools, please visit the VSO UK website at www.vso.org.uk/act/fundraise .