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Media releases > Volunteer for Love
(10 February 2006)
Are you tired of decoding the personal columns, whizzing around speed dating and battling through the maze of Internet dating? Then try your luck at finding lasting love this Valentine’s Day with VSO.
Following recent research VSO, the international development charity, has discovered that over the last 50 years hundreds of its volunteers have found love overseas. Sharing skills with people in some of the world’s poorest countries can, it seems, lead to lasting changes in the lives of volunteers long after they’ve returned to UK, in ways they could never have imagined.
Sharing a flight to Nigeria in October 2001, Indira and Tim Elcock, currently living in Bradford, had no idea how much their lives would be changed by VSO. Tim explains:
“Although we were on the same flight we didn’t actually meet until we landed in Abuja and realised we were both heading to the VSO offices for our induction, but I still like to say it was ‘love at first flight.’ During our training we spent a lot of time together but nothing romantic happened as we were both heading to different ends of the country – me to the southwest as a Primary Teacher Trainer and Indira to the northwest as a Project Coordinator with the Ministry of Women’s affairs.
Thanks to regular VSO catch-ups in Abuja and the Internet our friendship took off over the next six months and we eventually got together in March 2001. Living hundreds of miles apart was difficult but I think the distance made any time we did get together really special and in January 2003 I popped the question. Luckily for me Indira said yes.
We got married the following January back in England and returned to finish our placements with VSO later that month. We were still living at opposite ends of the country but I managed to get a transfer and we spent our last year in Nigeria separated by a mere 13 hour bus journey, every mile of which we both got to know very, very well.”
Perhaps the number of who find love is not surprising given that the majority of VSO volunteers are single when they leave, but volunteers don’t always fall for one another. Sometimes love can turn up in the most unlikely places as Sally Daw from London found out.
“I arrived in Gambella, Ethiopia in September 2002 where I worked in a management position for a HIV & AIDS charity. Gambella is remote so when I became friendly with one of the secretaries at my office and she invited me to a party I said yes. There was a big group of her friends there and Adbu was one of them. He claims it was love at first sight but at first he annoyed me!
I became very friendly with the group and spent most of my free time with them. Abdu and I gradually became friends and after about 4 months things became more romantic between us. Before I left to return to the UK we decided to get married and Abdu joined me one month later. We were married in March 2005 and held our reception at an Ethiopian restaurant in London, it was really special and best of all some of the people I’d volunteered and worked with were there”
Volunteering can have a positive impact on the lives of thousands of people overseas and, it seems, on the lives of the volunteers as well, but as Neera Dhingra, spokesperson for VSO puts it, it can’t all be about the love:
“Volunteering with VSO is undoubtedly an incredible experience. Volunteers have the opportunity to work and live in a completely different environment and learn new skills. Although we have seen hundreds of couples brought together by VSO the prime motivation for anyone looking to volunteer should be a genuine desire to share their skills with colleagues in developing countries. That said though, volunteers finding love thousands of miles from home definitely does happen and no-one can deny that it’s a very romantic bonus.” Editors' notes- For more information on Sally, Tim and Indira contact Leona Daly in the press office.
- VSO is an international development charity that works through volunteers. At any one time around 1,500 experienced professionals are sharing their skills with local colleagues in some of the world’s poorest communities, working together to find realistic solutions to the problems they face.
- VSO volunteers live and work at a grassroots level, living in accommodation of a similar standard to their local colleagues and receiving only a local living allowance.
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