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Where we do it > Kenya - 5 minutes with
Could you briefly explain VSO Jitolee’s role in Kenya?
Jitolee became one of VSO 5 federation members in 1999. At that time, VSO’s aim was to provide trans-national volunteering opportunities to the south. Along with The Philippines, Kenya was identified as a pilot country. We work in three main areas.
Firstly, we are focussed on creating opportunities for East Africans - mainly Kenyans and Ugandans - to volunteer in countries where VSO has programmes. Our volunteers work in a range of areas including HIV & AIDS, business management and community development.
Secondly, we promote volunteering within East Africa through our National Volunteering programme, which we do through a range of ways. One example is by working with partners, helping them to develop and implement volunteering programmes.
The third area is around global education and advocacy. We create awareness of global issues that affect people and we do this by forming local and international partnerships that help us to articulate these global issues. One way in which we do this is by involving returned volunteers who come and share their experiences of volunteering work abroad.
Why is National Volunteering so important in Kenya?
National Volunteers are important as they come from the same context as the institutions and organisations that they are working with, so they are familiar with the issues at a local level. It is particularly important for VSO Jitolee because it’s a commitment to work with local organisations and the local community to help them realise their development needs. Through National Volunteering programmes we are able to mobilise local resources without depending on external resources. This empowers people to participate in issues that are critically important to them.
National volunteering is different from the traditional VSO programme. It allows us to work with partner organisations to build their capacity and competency, so that they can directly recruit and place volunteers themselves. The second main difference concerns scope. National volunteering employs a variety of methods with which to deal with development challenges. For example, we organise study tours that allow other counties in the south to learn from our partner organisations. Organisations come to Uganda from outside East Africa - and even outside Africa - to learn about various issues that surround HIV & AIDS, an area in which Uganda has been particularly successful. We want to export our knowledge to other countries and the study tours provide a forum for us to achieve that.
What are the main challenges for VSO in Kenya?
We are faced with quite a lot of challenges here in Kenya. Most importantly, we are operating in an environment that doesn’t have a legal framework that supports the growth and development of volunteerism. The work of volunteerism is not highly valued at government level. Nobody at government level realises how much volunteers are contributing, even though studies have shown that national volunteering, as part of a civil society, contributes a lot towards national development.
A second challenge is the lack of organisations that can manage volunteers professionally. This is one reason why we are focusing our attention on giving volunteering a more professional status. Volunteers, historically, are seen as a cheap source of labour, they are misused and often not recognised. One effect of this is that a lot of people who are able, and qualified to volunteer are discouraged.
What have been Jitolee’s main achievements?
Jitolee has achieved quite a lot with both the International and National Volunteering programmes. To use National Volunteering as an example, we have formed a number of partnerships with local organisations and contributed to the promotion of volunteering in Kenya. In working with other organisations, we have been able to lobby the government to put in place the appropriate legal and policy framework that will allow volunteering to grow. We still have some distance to go, but we are making some headway and being heard. This takes time and a lot of work, but we have managed to break the ice.
We have also formed corporate partnerships with whom we work to provide formal employee volunteering opportunities for their staff. We’ve worked with Coca Cola, General Motors and United International. Our role has been to develop placements and do the matching for these organisations. We also help to build their capacity so that in the future they can to do it themselves.
What do you see happening in National Volunteering over the next few years?
I certainly expect to see a lot happening around there. There’s a growing interesting in volunteering on the whole whether it’s international placements or local volunteering so I expect that in the near future we’ll have the legal framework in place. We hope to see a lot more people interested in contributing as national volunteers and that organisations will be conducting their voluntary work in a more organised and professional way and that this encourages more people to join National Volunteering programmes.
Does 'Jitolee' mean anything?
Jitolee is Swahili for “giving of yourself” which is the closest we could come to “volunteering”. It actually means giving yourself in terms of your time, in terms of your resources, and in terms of money. The giving of yourself for the benefit of others.
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