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M A K I N G A D I F F E R E N C E
Clockwise from
top left: VSO
operative Susan
Grainger, works as
a natural resources
adviser for the
Carood Watershed
Management
Council; a
classroom in
Hagonoy, Bulacan;
volunteers (in
green) in Hagonoy
teach lessons
in solid-waste
management the
fun way; a student
walks home from
school
world, to bring our own contributions to
where they are needed. The VSO base
in the Philippines was called
Bahaginan
—
a word that means “to take part”.
The trip to Iligan wasn’t my first
long journey to witness VSO’s work. In
2008,
I’d also left the country to serve
as a VSO Bahaginan volunteer myself,
to work in South America. When I
returned to the Philippines in 2010, I
continued to work with VSO. This time
around, my goal was to document their
work in my own country.
In the 40 years that VSO had been
working in the Philippines, the nature
of volunteering and of VSO itself had
evolved with the times. Working as it
did in the postcolonial setting of the
1950
s and 1960s, the original vision
of VSO was to give something back to
the rest of the world, while also shaping
young men as future leaders of the
UK. By the 1960s, the focus was on
sending volunteers with professional
qualifications; with the postcolonial
mindset gone, too, volunteering
became more about sharing skills
towards common goals.
When VSO Bahaginan was set up
as a recruitment base in the 1990s,
the Philippines became a pioneer
in sending volunteers from one
developing country to another. Soon
after that, VSO Philippines was also
instrumental in setting up a national
volunteering program for the rest of the
organisation, paving the way for local
volunteers to give back to their own
countries.
In 2010, VSO reduced the number
of foreign volunteers in the Philippines.
This wasn’t entirely a bad thing, as it
signaled confidence that we Filipinos
can now take care of ourselves. The
work left behind by the foreigners was
taken on by the partner organizations
that VSO has supported over the years
—
helped along, when necessary, by
Filipino volunteers.
Inspiration
everywhere
The project to document the good that
was being done by volunteers took us
to different parts of the country and
helped us understand the incredible
scope of work that is still being
accomplished in the name of our
common goal. In Cebu, for example,
we spoke with representatives of people
with disabilities and learned how their
advocacy has helped make Cebu City
a particularly PWD-empowering city:
not only were there designated (and
