vsa vista issue 1 2011

VSA’s window on the world of development issue one 2011

A cAn-do Attitude to food processing in Tanzania

RepAckAging VAnuAtu: rural tourism takes off

tAlking the tAlk in Papua New Guinea

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2 vista issue one 2011

Te-na- koutou o Te Tu- ao Ta-wa-hi

Volunteer Service Abroad works with people in the Pacific, Asia and Africa,

adding the skills and energy of New Zealanders to strengthen communities

striving for change.

About VSA VSA (Volunteer Service Abroad) is a home-grown Kiwi volunteering organisation and

has placed more than 3,500 skilled New Zealanders on volunteer assignments

overseas since 1962.

We recruit ordinary New Zealanders to achieve exceptional work with our partner organisations. Our work is locally identified,

locally relevant and locally delivered.

We are an independent charity and are non-governmental, non-religious and

non-political.

Become a VSA volunteerGo to www.vsa.org.nz to find out about

application criteria, to register your skills, or to see what assignments are being advertised.

Become a VSA supporterWe send people not money, but we need

money to send people. Visit www.vsa.org.nz to donate or to find out about becoming a

VSA member.

Join a local VSA branchPhone 0800 VSA TO GO (0800 872 8646)

for details of the branch nearest you.

Te Tu-ao Ta-wa-hi Volunteer Service Abroad Inc is a registered charity (CC36739) under the

Charities Act 2005

The New Zealand Government is proud to provide significant support through the

New Zealand Aid Programme for New Zealand volunteers who work in a development

capacity overseas.

Kia ora

Te Tu-ao Ta-wa-hi Volunteer Service AbroadPatron: His Excellency The Right Honourable Anand Satyanand, GNZM QSO, Governor-General of New Zealand

President: Gavin Kerr, QSO Kauma-tua: Awi Riddell (Nga-ti Porou), QSM Council Chair: Farib Sos, MNZN Chief Executive Officer: Deborah Snelson

Te Tu-ao Ta-wa-hi Volunteer Service Abroad, 32 Waring Taylor St, PO Box 12246, Wellington 6144 AOTEAROA/NEW ZEAlAND

Tel: 64 4 472 5759 Fax: 64 4 472 5052 Email: [email protected] Website: www.vsa.org.nz

Vista is the official magazine of Te Tu-ao Ta-wa-hi Volunteer Service Abroad Incorporated. Please note that views expressed in Vista are not necessarily the views of VSA. Editorial and photographic submissions to the magazine are welcome. Please address all queries and submissions to the Editor, Vista, at the address above.

Please ensure all material is clearly marked with your name and address.

© VSA. All rights reserved. ISSN 1176-9904Reproduction of content is allowed for usage in primary and secondary schools, and for tertiary studies.

Vista is printed on environmentally responsible paper. It is chlorine free and manufactured using farmed eucalyptus trees.

In mid May, Wellington couple Val and Birnie Duthie set off for Kiribati to start VSA assignments as English as a Second Language Trainers at the Marine Training Centre in Tarawa.

It’s been a while since we sent volunteers to Kiribati, which is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific; our last volunteer returned from there in March 2006. It’s exciting to be re-establishing our relation-ship with Kiribati, and also with Samoa and Tonga. This reflects our

decision, announced earlier this year, to focus our work in the wider Pacific, and phase out our programmes in South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

But what really excites me is that while teaching English might not seem an obvious way to promote economic development, that is what the Duthies’ assignment will do. They will be working to improve the English standards of staff and students at the Marine Training Centre, which trains young I-Kiribati so they can get jobs in the international marine shipping industry. The remittances they send home are a vital part of the Kiribati economy. Learning how to speak English improves their employment prospects – which in turn contributes to Kiribati’s economic development.

To me, it’s a great example of how we can use international volunteering in clever and creative ways to meet New Zealand’s development goals. Creativity lies at the heart of VSA’s new strategic intent, which was approved by our Council at its meeting in May. We want to broaden our reach and offer innovative volunteering opportunities so more New Zealanders can share their skills in developing countries.

One way we plan to do this is by increasing our short-term volunteering programme. Short-term assignments help meet the changing needs of our partner organisations. They also recognise the reality of life in the 21st century – not all potential volunteers are able to commit to a two-year assignment.

We’re also in the process of setting up a new unit to explore and develop partnerships with New Zealand businesses and government organisations, particularly those working in agriculture, engineering, financial management and small business. We are in the early stages of discussing how these partnerships will work, but one possibility is that VSA will act as a “broker”, developing volunteer assignments for staff from the organisations we have partnered with.

One thing we do know is that the appetite for international volunteering is as strong as ever, and that volunteering is well and truly entrenched as an effective development tool. We want to capitalise on this enthusiasm, and make VSA the “face” of New Zealand’s development programme. It’s about real people playing real roles to achieve tangible, lasting results.

Deborah Snelson, CEO

contentsvista issue one 2011

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CoNVSATIoN News, views and happenings

FeAtuRe VSA volunteers are helping Ni-Vanuatu living in rural areas get a bigger slice of their country’s tourism pie.

FeAtuRe Adele Broadbent looks at the latest challenges facing volunteering organisations like VSA.

From The Field A can-do attitude to food processing in Tanzania.

From The Field Talking the talk in Papua New Guinea.

BookS & BITeS A VSA volunteer’s award-winning passion for the food of lao PDR.

GrowING SuppoRt The latest news from our fundraising coordinator Karla Paotonu.

COVER: VSA volunteer howard Iseli (left) and his wife Jacqui cross a river with Paul ravun, who guided them on the three-day man Bush Trek on malekula Island in Vanuatu.

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VSA’s staff have been on the move – both at our Wellington office and in the field.

At the end of April, all our Wellington staff moved onto one floor as part of our cost-efficiency drive. Previously we occupied two floors of the Dunbar Sloane building in Waring Taylor St. We are now in the process of finding tenants to sub-let the vacant floor.

We have also had some staff changes in the field. Camille Kirtlan, our Papua New Guinea country programme manager

– pictured here schmoozing with Extreme Fishing star Robson Green, who judged the recent Miss Billfish competition in Kokopo while he was filming in PNG – has now finished her two-year

posting in PNG. She has been replaced by Hannah Stewart, who previously worked as Pacific programme officer in our Wellington office.

Hannah’s husband Michael has accompanied her to Kokopo and has now started a VSA assignment as a teacher trainer at Vunapope International Primary School.

Camille has returned to Wellington to take up a position as programme officer supporting our volunteers in Timor-leste and Polynesia. She will also be responsible for VSA’s Asia and Africa programmes until they finish on 31 December 2011 and 31 March 2012 respectively.

Karen Horton will finish her posting as Cambodia country programme manager at the end of June, and will take up a posting as country programme manager for Timor-leste at the beginning of August.

Calendar boyPapua New Guinea volunteer Antony Rewcastle has been immortalised in a 2011 calendar drawn by one of the boys in the Papua New Guinea village of Toimtop, where Antony works as an eco-forestry adviser.

Clarence Vomne, 11, drew Antony undertaking a variety of exciting activities, including flying to PNG from New Zealand, building a chicken house, cutting a big long snake, and diving for fish.

Clarence has exercised a certain amount of artistic licence in putting together his calendar: “No, I don’t have pink speedos,” Antony told us when he sent through the images.

Visit www.vsa.org.nz/blog/clarence-s-calendar to see the full calendar.

Students from South Wellington Intermediate had fun with rugby player Neemia Tialata at a photo shoot for this year’s VSA Project Friendship, which runs from 15 to 21 August.

Neemia and the students feature in the publicity material for Project Friendship 2011, during which New Zealanders buy colourful, hand-woven bracelets to support the work of VSA.

Getting up close and personal with a well-known rugby player gave the students a chance to ask some important questions – such as how much money you earn playing rugby.

“Good question,” Neemia replied. “You can earn a lot of money, so it’s pretty good.”

Project Friendship 2011 will once again focus on youth. The money raised will support VSA volunteers working with young people who are educating other young people, working to look after their environment, or bringing communities together through sport.

countdown to pRoject FRiendShip

On the move


CoNVSATIoN

Best-dressedMembers of the Bulls rugby team in East New Britain are playing in North Otago uniforms this season, thanks to returned volunteer Bill Kingan and the North Otago Rugby Union.

Bill coached the Bulls while he was on assignment as a farm business adviser at the PNG University of Natural Resources (formerly Vudal University). He was impressed by the team’s enthusiasm and commitment, but he was less impressed by their uniforms – a borrowed set from another club.

“They were really faded and worn.”

When Bill returned to Oamaru in October last year he approached North Otago Rugby Union chief executive Colin Jackson to see if they had any spare rugby jerseys. As it turned out, they had a complete set of North Otago representative uniforms available, including jerseys, socks and shorts.

The smart new red and yellow uniforms – along with some training manuals and DVDs – were officially handed over to the team at a ceremony at the university in March.

“However they play this season, it will make them feel good,” says Bill.

VSA’s Mister Pip connectionVSA’s experience working in Bougainville has been useful for the producers of the movie Mister Pip, which is being filmed in the village of Pidia during June.

VSA first became involved in Mister Pip, which is based on the novel by lloyd Jones and stars British actor Hugh laurie, last year. Bougainville country programme manager Murray Benbow helped broker a ‘village deal’ with Pidia, which will see locals playing bit parts and carrying out other roles.

Murray’s work in Pidia was important in making sure that filming was carried out in Bougainville, rather than in the Solomon Islands.

“Now that filming is about to start I feel very proud that VSA and I had a small but vital role to play in it being filmed in Bougainville,” he says. “I’m sure the making of this movie will advance the cause for peace and the reestablishment of Bougainville in the minds of the international community as an island of peace-loving and intelligent-minded people.”

VSA’s involvement with Mister Pip has continued this year. VSA provided background information about Bougainville to the production team, and in late May VSA’s medical adviser Jenny Visser left Wellington to spend five weeks in Bougainville as the film doctor. She will live on the ship that is being used to accommodate the cast and crew during filming.

The film crew’s arrival in Bougainville has generated a lot of excitement, but it had a special significance for Rosemary Hall, whose husband Dave is on assignment with VSA in Arawa. The container which was used to transport the film equipment also contained about 500 books for a local primary school where Rosemary helps with English tuition.

Rosemary is helping set up a library to cater for the wide range of age groups at the school.

“Friends and service groups in New Zealand very generously donated over 500 books, but the cost of postage was a big hurdle in getting them to Bougainville,” she says. “We are really grateful that the film crew were able to bring the books with their equipment.”

Cambodia-based volunteers had a chance to meet former VSA patron Dame Silvia Cartwright (fourth from left) at a drinks party hosted by Dame Silvia in Phnom Penh in April. Dame Silvia was patron of VSA during her time as Governor-General. She is now one of the international judges sitting on the Cambodia War Crimes Tribunal based in Phnom Penh.

Farib Sos (left), chair of VSA’s Council, helped organise the drinks evening on a recent trip to Cambodia. “It was a good chance to celebrate the Kiwi-Cambodian connection,” he says.

About 45 people attended, including current and former volunteers and their partners, as well as several young Cambodians who studied at New Zealand universities.

Children from the village of Pidia in Bougainville, where Mister Pip isbeing filmed.


CoNVSATIoN


The first meal the tourism students at Torgil Rural Training Centre in Vanuatu cooked at the centre’s new training restaurant was simple – corned beef hash, rice, pawpaw, cucumber and spring onion.

But their local customers thoroughly enjoyed it.

“The students love to cook,” says VSA tourism and hospitality coordinator Linda Bennie, who helped set up the training restaurant earlier this year. “We run the restaurant every Thursday lunchtime. It’s really good experience for the students to learn how to cook a meal, how to set a table and serve food. What we do is very basic – things like learning how to serve from the left, and the importance of smiling.”

Linda, who works with 11 first-year and six second-year tourism students at the training centre on the island of Ambae, is on assignment with her husband Jim, who is working as a tourism business adviser.

The couple, who previously ran a hospitality training school in Wellington, are among six VSA volunteers now working in the tourism sector in Vanuatu. Most of them are based on Vanuatu’s ‘outer islands’ – the larger of the 80 or so islands that sit north of the country’s most densely populated island, Efate.

Tourism accounts for around 40 per cent of Vanuatu’s GDP, and has been a major factor in turning the country of 247,000 into a ‘Melanesian success story’. Last year, almost 100,000 tourists flew into Vanuatu – up from 58,000 in 2000 – and another 140,000 arrived by cruise ship.

Tourism is vital to Vanuatu’s growing economy. Ruth Nichol looks at the work VSA’s volunteers are doing to help rural Ni-Vanuatu develop small, sustainable tourism ventures to supplement their subsistence lifestyles.

FeAtuRe


But the lack of tourists hasn’t stopped the couple from getting on with their assignments. Last year, Linda successfully found short work-experience placements for all her first-year students at resorts on Santo – a four-hour boat ride away. One has now been taken on as a trainee chef at Village de Santo, and the resort owner is so impressed with the training at the centre she has promised to employ another student.

Meanwhile, Jim has developed a new tourism curriculum that will be used at all of Vanuatu’s 28 rural training centres. He is now turning his attention to the tricky question of how to get more tourists to visit Ambae.

Linda is confident that tourist numbers will eventually rise – and that the visitors who make the journey won’t be disappointed.

“Even though it can be difficult to get to Ambae, once you do it’s really fantastic.”

It’s a similar story on the island of Emae, just north of Efate, where VSA's Vila-based tourism business adviser Mereana Mills has helped run tourism training programmes since she arrived in Vanuatu late last year. Despite being close to Port Vila, and having attractions such as Cook Reef – “it’s like a sandy beach in the middle of the sea” – few tourists visit Emae.

Mereana says part of her role is to help local tourism operators keep their expectations realistic. On the one hand, they need to provide the kinds of services international tourists expect – a flush toilet (or a good-quality long-drop), clean sheets, a shower, and an evening meal. On the other, simply providing those services is no guarantee that tourists will want to use them.

“There’s been this mentality that, if you build a bungalow, tourists will come, but that doesn’t always happen,” she says. “It’s a case of trying to manage expectations while lifting the game in terms of the quality of the services that currently exist.”

She believes the domestic tourism market is just as important as international tourism when it comes to generating income for rural communities.

“One of the opportunities on Emae, for example, is local people

Karen henry outside a typical Vanuatu bungalow.TOP: Local style in the bedroom of a Vanuatu bungalow. BOTTOM: The training restaurant at the Torgil rural Training Centre.

They are attracted by the beautiful scenery, the world-class snorkelling, the bush walks, the active volcanoes, the famous ‘land divers’ of Pentecost Island, and – for the more macabre-minded – the former cannibal and World War Two plane-crash sites.

Until recently, most tourism ventures in Vanuatu were foreign-owned, but local operators are becoming increasingly common. Many Ni-Vanuatu now run tours and treks, and a growing number have built small bungalows or guest houses – local-style accommo-dation that ranges from very simple to relatively luxurious.

However, despite the huge increase in tourist numbers over the last decade, the vast majority of them only visit the capital, Port Vila, on the island of Efate, and the islands of Santo to the north and Tanna to the south.

“Tourism is a big priority for the Vanuatu government,” explains VSA’s Vanuatu Country Programme Manager Diane Thorne-George. “The aim is to try to create a more equal spread of tourism throughout the country – at the moment most tourists are only going to Vila.”

According to Peter Swain, VSA’s Pacific programme manager, at present there are few opportunities for Ni-Vanuatu living in rural communities to make some cash to supplement their subsistence lifestyles.

“The work that VSA’s volunteers are doing is helping all Ni-Vanuatu get a bigger slice of the tourism pie, and to get cash flowing into remote communities. Like many Pacific nations, Vanuatu faces rural depopulation and urban overcrowding as people leave their villages and go to town. The jobs created by small, local tourism ventures help to reverse that trend. Responsible, sustainable tourism has a good future in Vanuatu, and VSA volunteers are laying the foundations.”

The challenges the volunteers face vary according to where they are based. So few tourists visit Ambae, for example, that Linda and Jim Bennie didn’t actually see one until four months after they arrived.

“There are lots of guest houses on Ambae, but unfortunately no guests,” says Linda ruefully.

“Like many Pacific nations, Vanuatu faces rural depopulation and urban overcrowding

as people leave their villages and go to town. The jobs created by small, local tourism

ventures help to reverse that trend.”

FeAtuRe


going there for a particular reason – staff from the local cellphone company, or from government departments; expatriates exploring island life. As part of our training we point out that they are tourists too, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to get the same level of service as international tourists. It’s also a safe way for local operators to practice their training for when they do have international guests.”

Appearing on a popular television show is one way of boosting your profile with international tourists. That’s been the case for the island of Malekula which featured in a 2009 episode of Intrepid Journeys starring Dancing With The Stars judge Brendan Cole.

“Malekula has also featured quite prominently in Lonely Planet,” says VSA’s Howard Iseli, who has been working as a tourism business adviser on the island since September last year. “It means there’s some awareness of it as a destination – as far as we can tell we get six or seven tourists here a day. We’re also lucky to have daily flights from Vila.”

However, tourists find it difficult to get the information they need to book accommodation and activities on Malekula, such as the three-day Man Bush Trek that featured on Intrepid Journeys. Even calling a tourism operator direct can be hard because of the island’s very basic telecommunications infrastructure.

Howard is now involved in a project to set up a call centre in the tourism office in the town of Lakatoro to coordinate bookings.

“For the first six months we’ll be in test mode. It will basically be me and Edna, the local tourism officer, with a phone and a laptop with internet access. We will have a dedicated website, and tourists will be able to email their interest and we will take their calls and bookings. Then we’ll train a Ni-Vanuatu to run the call centre, which will be owned and overseen by the local tourism association, and self-funded through commission fees.”

Howard feels positive about the future of tourism in Malekula.“I think the time is now right for Malekula to take the next step. We

have the unique tribal cultures of the Big Nambas and Small Nambas, and a nucleus of products now reaching an acceptable standard.”

Things are even further ahead on the island of Santo, which is Vanuatu’s second biggest tourist destination. That means that Santo-based VSA volunteer Karen Henry is in the relatively luxurious position of working with local tourism operators to develop and market products to an existing customer base.

“Things are going reasonably well in Santo because we have established networks coming from New Caledonia and Europe, as well as lots of Australians and New Zealanders. But we certainly need a lot more tourists to make a difference to the rural tourism operators.”

Since she arrived last May Karen has helped local business owners create brochures and fliers to display at the local tourist information office and distribute to visiting cruise ships. More recently she has been helping to promote a new two-day trek due to open in June. She is also helping organise the inaugural Big Bay Cultural Festival, a one-day celebration of local culture being held at Big Bay on 17 July.

“Sometimes small local tourism operators

feel they can’t compete with the big expat

companies, but they can – they can easily create

what tourists want using local materials and

local products.”

Local guide Paul ravun with howard Iseli (front right), his wife Jacqui and an Italian tourist on the man Bush Trek.

“It’s about offering a soft adventure experience to tourists who want to get off their comfortable beach chair and explore their surroundings, and experience the local culture.”

Karen has recently started working on a new programme to provide tourism training to bungalow and guest house owners on Santo and the nearby island of Malo. She will support the partici-pants as they work through their training modules.

“It’s a bit like business mentoring,” she says. “It gives them a chance to think about the future of their business. We will also be looking at things such as what is going on in the tourism industry, where tourists come from and how they get there, and what their expectations are in terms of service.”

Like Howard, she feels positive about the future of tourism in Vanuatu.

“Sometimes small local tourism operators feel they can’t compete with the big expat companies,” she says. “But they can – they can easily create what tourists want using local materials and local products.”

FeAtuRe

Volunteer teacher richard mackay with a pupil from the recorder club he set up at the Government Secondary School in Serian, Sarawak. The photo was used to advertise VSA’s 1967 school leavers programme.

Volunteering for development has undergone many changes over the last 50 years. Adele Broadbent looks at the latest challenges facing organisations like VSA.

VSA’s first volunteers Ivan and Molly Short were big news when they arrived in Thailand in July 1963.

The couple disembarked from an Air Force Hercules in Bangkok to be met by the New Zealand Ambassador, military personnel and Thai officials – and “lots of flashbulbs”. Articles about them appeared in several Bangkok newspapers, as well as in New Zealand.

During the 20 months the Shorts were in Thailand they were minor celebrities. So were thousands of volunteers from other Western countries who, inspired by the idealism of the 1960s, headed off to work in what was then known as the ‘Third World’.

As American Bill Moyers, who helped found the Peace Corps in the United States, observed in a recent magazine interview: “To volunteer for the Peace Corps in the early 1960s was to be Don Quixote and Galahad cast in one volunteer. It was romantic. It was that we were celebrities. The Peace Corps was the newest celebrity in the New Frontier.”

Almost half a century and more than 3,500 VSA volunteers later, the celebrity status is gone, and the idealism has been tempered by the recognition that achieving real change can be a long, slow and sometimes difficult process.

The nature of volunteering has changed too. In the early days, VSA volunteers taught in classrooms or filled hands-on roles in agriculture. They were often untrained young graduates or, in the case of the school leavers programme which ran from 1965 to 1975, inexperienced 17 and 18-year-olds. Today’s VSA volunteers are experienced professionals who work alongside their communities. Instead of teaching children in a classroom, for example, they mentor or provide in-service training to other teachers or principals.

These changes in volunteering partly reflect changes in global attitudes towards aid. In the last half-century, theories about what will work to create long-lasting development in the world’s poorer nations have changed with the political fashion of each era. Originally it was about modernising developing nations, just as the West had done. Then it was about getting rid of state control and privatising state assets.

More recently, with the signing of the Paris Declaration in 2005, “ownership” has become one of the five pillars of good development. Developing countries are now encouraged to lead their own development strategies and run their own development programmes in partnership with donor countries.

Many would argue that along the way the big donors – mainly

The changing face of volunteering

the governments of OECD countries – have carefully placed their money, and controlled how it has been spent, according to geographical alliances and historical ties.

Now, with worldwide recession, concerns about climate change, and a swing to more conservative political policies, aid and development programmes face uncertainty. At times of financial stress governments become less altruistic, and more pragmatic about where they spend their money. In this environment, volunteering for development faces interesting challenges as it continues to evolve in the context of the ever-changing needs of the billion-dollar aid and development sector.


FeAtuRe

resources, policy changes at government level, and ongoing research. So for the volunteers’ work to lead to sustainable change, organisa-tions like VSA need to be working alongside governments, private enterprise, and communities.”

However, like most in the sector Snelson sees long-term volun-teering as the most effective model; she says it will continue to remain at the core of VSA’s work. This stand is backed by recent research looking at the effectiveness of long-term (a year or more) volunteering for development carried out at Murdoch University in Perth. It concluded that long-term volunteering fills a niche not covered by large donors and projects.

Peter Devereux, a lecturer in sustainable development at Murdoch University, interviewed international volunteers and other stakeholders in 80 countries, looking at long-term volunteering and its characteristics, contributions and recognition. He found that effective, long-term international volunteering for development builds connections that bigger programmes cannot.

“International volunteers highlight the importance of local accountability, respect for local values and knowledge, the appropriate pace and character of interventions, and the need to remain engaged despite difficult conditions – all fundamentals of capacity development.”

This evolution can be seen in recent changes at VSA, which announced earlier this year that it is expanding its short-term volunteering programme to meet the changing needs of its partner organisations and provide more skilled New Zealanders with the opportunity to volunteer.

Many similar agencies around the world are doing the same. A recent report on international volunteering by Cliff Allum, the chief executive officer of British volunteering organisation Skillshare International, identifies short-term volunteering as one of the major changes in volunteering in the last decade.

His report, New Developments in Programme Models, suggests that this interest in short-term placements has come partly from the growing relationship between volunteering agencies and the corporate sector.

VSA’s Australian counterpart, AVI, has been one of the pioneers in developing these new relationships. In the last few years, it has re-evaulated its partnerships, and used its skills in recruiting and briefing for cross-cultural professional contact to open up new part-nerships and opportunities.

This has resulted, for example, in a partnership with the ANZ bank to provide volunteering opportunities to ANZ staff throughout Asia and the Pacific. Among the projects being piloted as part of this new partnership is one in which ANZ staff in Papua New Guinea work as volunteers with the national university to help improve student administration processes.

VSA, too, has started exploring partnership opportunities with a wide range of private sector and government organisations. This may eventually see VSA acting as a “broker” for organisations keen to develop short-term volunteering opportunities for their staff.

Cliff Allum’s report identifies other significant changes in volunteering. These include the development of ‘south to south’ volunteering, in which volunteers in developing countries come from other developing countries. This has happened in his own organisation which has, for example, recruited Nigerian doctors to work in Mozambique. He says south to south volunteering has developed partly in response to the realisation that volunteers from developing countries often have experiences that make them more effective than their counterparts from developed countries.

Online or virtual volunteering is another growing area in the sector, as is ‘voluntourism’, the growing volunteering tourism industry which encourages those with disposable income to pay to spend their holidays volunteering in parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

The popularity of voluntourism reflects the continuing appetite for volunteering. But according to VSA’s chief executive officer Debbie Snelson, it can make it difficult for the public to understand what volunteers working in development actually do, and where they fit.

These changes have been watched with interest by the Interna-tional Forum on Development Service (known as FORUM), the leading network of international volunteer organisations. Snelson has chaired FORUM for the last two years. She says it has been an excellent mechanism for members to share ideas about different ways of involving volunteers in development programmes, and getting a wider range of people volunteering by building relation-ships with sectors not traditionally seen as development players.

“NGOs in our area are aware that eradicating poverty requires systematic change not just in skills but sustainable financial

ABOVE: Volunteer margarette Cantwell working with preschool coordinators from the Vanuatu eli Jaelhud Asosiesen (VeJA). margarette’s assignment finished last year.

RIGHT: VSA’s first volunteer Ivan Short on assignment in Thailand in 1963.

‘South to south’ volunteering has developed partly in response to the realisation

that volunteers from developing countries often have experiences that make them

more effective than their counterparts from developed countries.


FeAtuRe


Tanzania-based volunteer Anne Perera wasn’t fazed when a power cut meant she couldn’t use her blender in a juice-processing demon-stration she was running for a group of women in the kitchen of her Arusha home.

She just grabbed some cheese graters and showed the women, who belong to a community organisation called Zinduka, how to grate mangoes and pineapples and squeeze the pulp through a piece of muslin to create juice. Then she went ahead with the rest of her demonstration as planned, helping the women adjust the pH level of the juice to below 4.5, then bottle it and heat it in a water bath on her gas stove.

It’s the kind of can-do attitude that has seen Anne, who is on assignment as a food and nutrition adviser, running village-based classes on how to cook banana blossoms.

Bananas are a staple food in Tanzania, but Sri Lankan-born Anne was surprised to discover that Tanzanians do not eat the blossoms – the conical flowers that form at the end of every bunch of bananas. Instead, they feed them to their animals or throw them away.

In Sri Lanka, banana blossoms are a common cooking ingredient.

“They are a completely familiar food for me,” says Anne. “They’re used fresh throughout Asia, and you can buy them in cans at most Asian food stores.”

When she saw the banana blossoms that

grow abundantly throughout Tanzania, her immediate thought was that a useful source of sustenance was going to waste.

“Having been brought up in a developing country, I identify the needs in a slightly different way,” she says.

Anne’s banana blossom cooking demonstrations have been quite a hit. She even gave an impromptu demonstration at a training-for-trainers course on food processing she helped run in Arusha in January this year.

The course was attended by trainers from her partner organisation, the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO). SIDO trains local would-be entre-preneurs to manage small food processing businesses. It has trainers based at 25 training and production centres throughout Tanzania. They help the entrepreneurs get to grips with modern food processing technology and comply with national hygiene and food standards.

The purpose of the course was to provide the SIDO trainers with information about different ways of processing food. Food processing is seen as central to improving Tanzania’s food supply – without it, huge quantities of food get wasted. It’s estimated that 70 percent of Tanzania’s fruit harvest, half of the milk it produces and 40 percent of grain and fish is wasted because it cannot be processed and preserved for later use.

Food for thought“My starting point is: let’s see if we can

reduce that,” says Anne, a longtime food technologist and nutritionist.

Anne showed the SIDO trainers how to dry a wide range of fruits and vegetables using a wooden solar dryer designed by her husband Conrad, director of Auckland University’s food science programme (who was visiting from New Zealand), and made by a local builder. She also showed them how to preserve fruit such as pineapples and mangoes by boiling them in sugar syrup, then pouring them into hot sterilised jars.

And she introduced them to candied orange peel; she believes that candied peel made from Tanzanian oranges has the potential to become an export product.

In the meantime, she’s happy to share her knowledge about food processing with whoever wants it. Recently, for example, she worked with trainers at fellow VSA volunteer Mike Allard’s partner organisation, Global Service Corps, focusing on drying food as a way of preserving it.

“Everyone is so enthusiastic and keen to learn – it’s a very humbling experience.”

Picking banana blossoms. Anne Perera (centre) demonstrates how to cook banana blossom.

Laying carrots out to dry on the solar dryer.

FROM THE Field

Talking the talk

Alice Keeling (left) with colleagues at a teacher trainer’s workshop. Alice Keeling with Ravi, Lena and David.

Former UniVol Alice Keeling, who spent 10 months last year working as a special needs programme assistant with Callan Services for Persons with Disabilities in Papua New Guinea, celebrates some of the new words she’s added to her vocabulary.

All volunteers would agree that living and working in a new country is a complex and multi-sensory experience – the sights, smells and sounds are all new and different. My UniVol assignment at Callan Services for Persons with Disabilities involved living, working and sharing through many different modes of communication – tok pisin (pidgin English), English, tok ples (the local language) and sign language. Some of the phrases, symbols and signs I learned really stand out, and will always remind me of my time in PNG.

Em oriat All frustrations, delays, stuff ups (bagarups) or changes to the plan were meet with a reassuring em oriat. We think New Zealand is laidback with its ‘she’ll be right’ attitude. Living and working in PNG has introduced me to the em oriat attitude. Literally ‘It’s alright’ or ‘It will be alright’ (present or future tense), this one little

phrase captures many of my experiences working in PNG. Right from my first few clumsy weeks, jamming the photocopier (mi bagarapim fotocopier pinis) and forgetting the morning prayer (sori mi lus tingting!), my frustrations, embarrassments, and dilemmas were smoothed over with a soothing em oriat. And you know what? It was alright. How did they know? I certainly wasn’t sure on more than one occasion.

Em nau My time in PNG was full of observations, ideas, revelations and inspiration … followed by utterances of em nau. It’s the phrase I remember learning in my first conversations with my colleague, a warm faced Tolai man for whom a smile or a laugh was never far away. Translating as ‘That’s right’, ‘I agree’ or ‘exactly’ em nau reminds me of all the high points, the deci-sion-making, the bright ideas and exciting discussions I had. It still gives me the same warm fuzzies of agreement and mutual understanding – especially when it meant I had made myself understood in tok pisin.

Pinis Form your hand into the universal ‘thumbs up’ and then shake your thumb from side to side – this is the Melanesian sign for pinis or ‘finish’, (as in Pikinini go pinis – ‘the children have gone’). It was one of the first signs in Melanesian sign that I learnt, along with words like children, school, teacher, work, house, flower, garden, vegetable, and pig. My Melanesian sign language is still limited and punctured with natural signs or facial expressions, but it

helped me learn tok pisin as I learned both the word and the sign simultaneously. What a great way to learn a new language: with accompanying visual cues!

Missis In New Zealand Missis is a slightly derogatory term for your wife or girlfriend, which meant I couldn’t help being slightly offended the first few times I was referred to as missis – whether it was ‘morning missis’ by some cheeky teenager on the street, or ‘excuse me missis’. I came to understand that while it is partially a colonial remnant, it was also a mark of respect and politeness, especially if the person didn’t know me. I never quite got quite used to it, and I much prefer ‘aunty’ which was adopted more and more as I got to know people and their families.

Iau ro Lastly, you can’t come to East New Britain without picking up the universal ‘see ya later’. Right up to my last day of work I still got giggles from my colleagues for shouting Iau ro m’catch (catch you later) as I left the office.

The UniVol programme is a collaboration between VSA and Otago University’s Geography Department and Victoria University’s Development Studies. UniVols spend 10 months on assignment with one of VSA’s partner organisations in the wider Pacific. Applications for the 2012 programme close on 30 June 2011. For more information visit our website, www.vsa.org.nz


From The Field

Former VSA volunteer Dorothy Culloty’s passion for the food of lao PDR has been recognised at the prestigious Gourmand World Food Cookbook Awards.

Her cookbook, Food from Northern Laos: The Boat Landing Cookbook, was judged runner up, best Asian cookbook in the 2010 awards, announced in Paris in March this year.

Dorothy spent three and a half years on assignment for VSA as an adviser with the Rural Research and Development Training Centre in Vientiane in lao PDR, finishing in February 2008. She was accompanied by her husband Kees Springers, a photographer, who took the photographs for the book.

Dorothy was one of 32 volunteers who went on assignment to lao PDR between 1988 and 2010. VSA suspended its programme there late last year as part of our move to focus our work in the wider Pacific area. The last VSA volunteer to work in lao PDR, Ken McIntyre, returned in December after two years teaching English to government officials and mentoring English teachers at the lao PDR Institute of Foreign Affairs. He has recently started a new assignment in Timor-leste.

Dorothy, who now lives in Thailand, has been passionate about the food of lao PDR for many years. Before her VSA assignment she produced nine postcards of lao PDR recipes, as well as a lao PDR and English guide to the vegetables of lao.

She describes the food of lao PDR as the ultimate in ‘slow food’.

“In laos, the local fresh markets and forest provide an abundance of local produce, harvested or gathered the same day. ‘Slow food’ is what lao food is all about – it’s food that is locally and sustainably produced, and always fresh.”

The recipes in the book are based on those made at the Boat landing Guest House and Restaurant, an eco-lodge in luang Namtha, a province in the north-west of the country. They feature ingredients such as chilli wood and snake gourd, as well as more traditional Asian ingredients such as lemongrass, fish sauce and fresh coriander.

To find out more or to order copies of the book, visit http://www.foodfromnorthernlaos.com

passion for the food of Lao PDR

An award-winningSteamed green beans with roasted garlic, ginger and herbs

INgredIeNTS

250g green beans, topped and tailed; use long, string or French beans

12 cloves garlic; roast the entire head before peeling the required cloves

1 piece ginger, thumb-size, roasted and peeled (if not using sesame seeds)

2 – 3 T sesame seeds (if not using ginger)

2 – 3 T light soy sauce

1 t salt

2 t fish sauce

2 T mint leaves, chopped

2 T coriander leaves and fine stalks, chopped (or sawtooth herb)

2 T spring onion, white stalk and greens, finely chopped

1 T Vietnamese mint (optional)

MeThod

Slice the beans diagonally or halve them. Steam the vegetables for a few minutes until lightly cooked. Remove to a mixing bowl.

Dry roast the sesame seeds until golden if using. Remove them before completely browned. Set aside to cool.

Put the peeled, roasted garlic cloves and salt in a mortar. Slice the roasted ginger if using. Add to the mortar. Pound the ingredients together until well-integrated. Tip this mixture over the beans.

Add the soy and fish sauce and gently mix into the salad by hand. Add the chopped herbs. Add the dry roasted sesame seeds if using and gently mix in by hand.

Transfer the mixture to a serving dish. Serves two to four depending on the number of accompanying dishes.

VArIATIoN: Be a non-traditional hedonist and use both sesame seeds and ginger. The taste is great! For a lowland lao flavour, use 1 T dill instead of Vietnamese mint.


BookS & BITES

when the world CallsBy Stanley meisler (Beacon Press, 2011)

Reviewed by Don HigginsWhen the World Calls is a meticulously researched, compre-hensive and very readable history of the Peace Corps from its inception under John F. Kennedy through to the early days of the Obama Presidency. Stanley Meisler is ideally placed to write such a history. A former foreign and diplomatic corre-spondent for the Los Angeles Times and one-time deputy director of evaluation and research for the Peace Corps, he knows the politics of the organisation and of Washington. And the politics of the two have always been intertwined.

The Peace Corps was founded in 1961; its founding director, Sargent Shriver, was President Kennedy’s brother-in-law. later Presidents varied in their opinions of the organisation. Johnson tolerated it, Nixon loathed it for allowing its volunteers to openly protest the Vietnam War, Reagan was wooed by its director, Carter divided it and Obama’s choice of director was controversial.

The Peace Corps has had 18 directors over its 50-year life, each of them a Presidential appointment. It is an agency of government, and although it was conceived as being independent of both US foreign policy and other government aid agencies, it has undoubtedly been used by various administrations to advance US interests in the countries it works in. Meisler is candid about this, while clearly admiring of directors who fought to keep the organisation as free of interference as possible.

But this is more than just an insightful look at the politics of the organisation. It also features the stories of some of the 200,000 returned and current volunteers. Given the speed with which the organisation grew – from zero to 15,000 volunteers in five years

– there were always going to be assignments with questionable benefits. And given the number of volunteers, most of whom were young and with little experience of life outside the United States, there were going to be a number of highly visible failures. But after reading the book I felt that, in the main, these were people who were committed both to the ideals of the Peace Corps and to the communities in which they lived and worked, and they did what they could to make a difference.

If I have one criticism about this book it is the mawkish tone Meisler takes in the chapter devoted to whether or not the Peace Corps ultimately does any good. His usual fluency eludes him here and I wonder if this is because he has not been a volunteer himself. But this is a small quibble about an otherwise fascinating book. The history of the Peace Corps offers some object lessons for anyone working in development or involved in running a development agency.

Don Higgins is the deputy chair of the VSA Council. He was a VSA volunteer in Papua New Guinea and later the Cook Islands during the1970s.

You can post copies of photos (please don’t send originals) to:

Alana mcCrossinGraphic Designer VSA, PO Box 12246 Wellington 6144

You can also email a low-res version to: [email protected]

We’re looking for photographs from returned volunteers to put together an exhibition to celebrate VSA’s 50th anniversary in 2012. We want to use the photos to tell the story of VSA’s work over the last 50 years.

We’re looking for more than just a good photo – we’re looking for a great VSA story to go with it.

If you have a photo or two from your VSA assignment that you’d like to share, send us a copy, along with a brief summary of the story behind it.

Celebrating 50 years of VSA in photos

President John F. Kennedy and Peace Corps founding director Sargent Shriver address the first departing group of Peace Corps volunteers in the white house rose Garden, 1961. Photo courtesy of the Peace Corps.

BooKs & BITES


Gift-wrapped kiwis take flight

VSA’s newest fundraising appeal, Gift wrap a kiwi this Christmas, raised

almost $11,000 – the equivalent of 603 volunteer days. Those who

donated to the appeal to support a Kiwi volunteer overseas received

a plantable kiwi Christmas decoration to send to their families and friends. The

largest donation was a generous $3,000 – thank you! – and the average donation was $62. We plan to make this year’s Christmas appeal even bigger – watch this space.

From: Karla Paotonu, VSA Fundraising Coordinator

To: All VSA supporters

subject: Fundraising update

Hi Everyone

As I write this it’s been three months since the Christchurch earthquake struck; my thoughts are with

all those who are struggling to rebuild their shattered lives.

The way the rest of New Zealand responded to the earthquake is heart-warming proof of just what a

generous country we are. When Japan suffered even more devastation just a few weeks later, Kiwis

opened their hearts yet again.

With so much need at home, it can be hard to stay focused on the needs of the communities VSA

works with overseas. But like the people of Christchurch, many of the partner organisations we work

with are helping to rebuild their communities following natural disasters; many are also dealing with

the aftermath of civil conflict.

I’d like to thank everyone who has already donated to VSA this year. If you’d like to support our work,

use the donation form attached to this page. Just fill it out and post it to us – you can use the Freepost

option but a stamp saves us the cost of postage!

Attached is a quick update about our recent fundraising activities.

Thanks for your support.

Karla

Karla Paotonu

VSA Fundraising Coordinator

www.vsa.org.nz

rebuilding communities in the Pacific

At a time when the needs of communities in Christchurch and Japan have been at the top of everyone’s mind, our community of supporters has continued to be generous. Our March appeal has raised $10,000 so far – with the highest donation of $1,200 coming from a Christchurch couple who told us to “keep up the good work”.

This year’s March appeal focused on VSA’s work rebuilding communities coping with the aftermath of natural disasters and civil conflict. It highlighted the work of volunteer Wendy Roger, who was on assignment at the Arawa Women’s Training Centre in Bougainville. Wendy is one of many volunteers who have worked in Bougainville since VSA set up its programme there at the end of a decade of civil conflict in 1998.

$2,000 fundraising target for volunteers

VSA has introduced a new volunteer fundraising policy encouraging all volunteers to raise at least $2,000 before they set off on their assignments. The new policy applies to all volunteers selected after 1 May 2011. The money raised will help pay the costs of keeping all VSA volunteers on assignment, rather than to fund individual assignments.

local VSA branches have welcomed the new policy, saying that supporting the fundraising activities will be a good opportunity for them to get involved with volunteers before they depart.

Watch out for a VSA volunteer quiz, movie night, auction or sponsored walk in your area as our latest batch of volunteers start raising money to support the work of VSA.


GROWING SuppoRt

Become a volunteer...Share your skills and get the experience of a lifetime back. Check our website www.vsa.org.nz for current vacancies.

Become a VSA uniVol volunteer...If you're a university student studying at least 300-level papers in development studies, you could become a VSA UniVol and spend 10 months working in a developing country.

Become a supporter...Make a donation. We send people not money, but we need money to send people. Help VSA send more volunteers to share their skills and make a positive difference in the world.

Become a peer educator with Restless development...If you are aged 18 to 28, you could live and work alongside young local educators in Nepal or Uganda.

Te Tu-ao Ta-wa-hi Volunteer Service Abroad Inc is a registered charity (CC36739) under the Charities Act 2005

Contact us on 0800 8728646 or visit www.vsa.org.nz

vsa vista issue 1 2011

Documents