What you'll need
To become a VSO volunteer, it’s vital you’re experienced in your professional field and able to train and advise colleagues in your area of expertise. You need to be prepared to work creatively, often with few resources. Sharing your skills, you’ll help build confidence to change lives and make the world fairer for all.
Becoming a VSO volunteer is a unique challenge. To make sure that it’s one you’ll enjoy, and that we provide our partners with the best support possible, we look for a range of things in a potential volunteer.
Volunteer requirements
There are some basic requirements you will need to fulfil in order to volunteer with VSO. You must:
have a minimum of two years experience in your professional field in a skill area where we have roles available. Most countries also need an official qualification (usually a degree) to secure a work permit
be ready to volunteer within the next 12 months.
The basic requirements may vary depending on the skill area, role length and the requests we receive from our overseas partners. Please check our skills pages for more information.
You will also need to:
be willing to work for a modest living allowance and to live in conditions similar to those of local colleagues
be prepared to invest time in self-briefing and training before going to your placement
be willing to learn the basics of the local language of where you'll be working
pass our medical clearance requirements and criminal records checks.
Soft skills required
It is also important that you are able to demonstrate some of the softer skills needed to be effective in an overseas environment. These include:
self-assurance, as most placements involve training others
flexibility and adaptability, so that you can identify the approaches that best suit your colleagues’ particular situation
a flair for solving problems, as unexpected challenges are common in low-resource environments
the ability to work in a team, so that you can ensure the change you bring is championed locally after you leave
sensitivity to the needs of others, so that you can understand the most effective ways to achieve change
a desire to learn and help others learn, so that you and your colleagues can devise the strongest solutions together
a positive and realistic commitment to volunteering.
You might not have had an opportunity recently to use these qualities, or are uncertain where your strengths lie, so we run assessment days where we can get to know you better and understand what you could bring to a placement.
Volunteers with dependents
We appreciate that many potential volunteers will be in relationships, or will have families. We will do our best to find roles for volunteers with dependents, and we’ll provide medical support and advice, but it may take longer to find suitable overseas roles.
Volunteers with a disability
If you’ve got a disability, it may be more difficult to identify a suitable role for you, as we may need to make adjustments to your potential living or working environment. However, we’re committed to investigating all possible options, and we’ll make every effort to find you a placement.
If you meet our requirements, we’ll do our best to make it possible for you to volunteer. We encourage applications from all sections of the community to ensure we can deliver the wide range of expertise our partners are looking for.
