VSO NEPAL, LOOKING BACK TWO YEARS ON

As many of my friends and relatives will know, I completed International Citizen Service (ICS) in Lamjung, Nepal two summers ago. I can’t say that every experience was what I expected. I hope that by sharing my experience it will allow people who are considering going abroad as part of ICS to gather all the facts around the experience before they decide to go.

I very much realise this is just my experience.

Fundraising

VSO asked us like raise money for the trip we were about to take which is similar in many ways to other volunteering trips and events that people do. I was asked to raise £1500 by promoting and creating awareness for VSO. While I knew this money would be used for flights, food and accommodation for the trip, the VSO fundraising team did not want to confirm this with me. This was the first thing I found a little strange about VSO.

I was only given two months to raise the massive target of £1,500 whilst doing my second year summer exams for my degree. I had never raised this amount of money before. After already raising £500 in the first month, a hefty amount for someone still in education I felt like I had come a long way. But, I was constantly shouted at and berated over the phone by a VSO employee, Josie, whose calls I would try to avoid. She would accuse me of ‘not trying’ and kept telling me if I didn’t raise all the money I would not be allowed to go on the trip, which was something that I didn’t know prior to fundraising.

It was coming to the end of the two months and I had been struggling to keep up with the fundraising efforts with university exams on the horizion. Josie had me crying on the phone in the library cafe, home and even one time walking into uni. She told me that all my efforts would have gone to waste because I had not done ‘enough’ to raise money. I found out in those conversations, panicking in the library that if I could not find another 300 pounds (I was at 12,000) that all the money raised would not be returned to my friends and family that donated and I would be going nowhere. I was stunned at how this charity had behaved towards me. I was overwhelmed with anxiety. Finding out these details one after another, the whole experience felt fishy, and more and more I felt used by them.

I had raised/made £1,200 pounds and had just finished a difficult year of university. I had exhausted all of my options for fundraising for VSO and all of my energy for doing more. In all honestly didn’t think I could do anymore. I didn’t want to do it anymore or go on this trip with a charity I no longer trusted.

In spite of being told I would not be able to go on the trip if I was short. I was called by Josie and was told I needed to go to VSO’s ‘training’ weekend in Wales. An eight hour trip up North.

On this trip I found out VSO had asked me to raise almost double the amount than the other volunteers since I had checked a box that stated my family’s household income exceeded a certain threshold. VSO assumed I could ‘fundraise’ double the amount as compared to other volunteers through the same fundraising activities. I was being exploited as someone with a higher family income to pressure my family and friends to give me money not raise it, with the volunteering trip as the stakes I was to loose if I didn’t comply with this.

I had been used to living an adult life. I was used to living on my own and working part time to support myself. VSO used my parent’s income as an assumption of my wealth, despite me being adult working part time to earn money needed to live way from home.

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VSO and the ICS programme had left me in an impossible situation. This was an overwhelming feeling that a lot of us had before going on the volunteering trip, whether it was from being badgered and harassed over the phone or not being told vital information. I found that things like not knowing what climate I would be in for example, very unnerving to prepare for a three month trip away.

I feel grateful for all the lifelong friends I made on the VSO, Nepal trip and the beautiful children that I met and ran workshops for, who truly showed the true wonder of Nepal to me.

However, I think VSO need to change the way it organizes the International Citizen Service. I hope that the charity can learn from the feedback of volunteers so that those wanting to contribute in the future can have less stressful and more happy experience than I had.