It is VESL’s tenth birthday this year – doesn’t time fly! What better way to celebrate than to look to the future and set out a plan to take VESL into the next chapter of its life. We have decided to re-structure the organisation and have created a new full-time role of Programme Manager which we [...]
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New 2011 Photos
We’ve been able to collate photos from a number of our 2011 volunteers and have just added 4 new photo galleries… Kerala 2011 Thanks go to Elaine Abili & Kath McGuire for their photos from the summer of 2011. Elaine was helping to develop a new project in Southern Kerala for 3 months from June [...]
VESL Volunteer Featured in Gap Year Travel Guide
Alex Quinn has been featured in a 2012 Gap Year Travel Guide… Alex is one of our long term volunteers in Northern Thailand on an 11 month project that began in Autumn 2011. Alex has been teaching English in a local primary school and also supports a special needs school near Chiang Rai. In [...]
A review of 2011
2011 has certainly been a busy year for VESL… here are a few highlights from the year : Kerala We had great success with our new programme working in schools within fishing communities in Kerala (South India). All of this year’s volunteers did a magnificent job in helping to lay down the foundations of this programme. [...]
Effects of Short-term Volunteering on Qualified Teachers
The Society of Educational Studies (SES) funded VESL to undertake a research project looking at the effects on attitudes and practice of teachers undertaking voluntary projects overseas. ‘Global Educators’ Report Summary Schools and teachers are increasingly being asked to use a global outlook in the classroom, and to appreciate the issues of identities and diversity [...]
Student Leader Projects Underway
We’ve received a great response from universities to our new Student Leadership Programme. After receiving several notes of interest from past volunteers we were been able to establish Student Lead Projects within MMU, Keele, Edge Hill, Aston and Birmingham Universities and things are looking very encouraging for 2012 (fingers crossed). The past volunteers who are [...]
VESL Volunteers Profiled in Adult Gap Year Guide
Two of VESL’s past volunteers in India and Sri Lanka have been profiled in Susan Giffith’s new book, ‘Gap Year’s for Grown Ups’
Past Volunteers Join VESL
We’re extremely pleased to announce that two past volunteers have joined the VESL team; Kath McGuire will be producing new content for the volunteer blog and Caroline Abbotts will be helping to produce a newsletter for us…
New 3-12 month Volunteer Projects
“Things are amazing here, better than I ever could have imagined. I feel like I’m fitting in well with my host family and I’ve made lots of friends, and seen so much already. I am really enjoying my project, working in the special needs unit is fun and the kids are fantastic.” – Alexandra Quinn, Thailand Volunteer, 2011
Maltby Academy raise over £700 for Active Global Citizens Project
The students of Maltby Academy, near Rotherham, have raised over £700 for our partner charity (VeSSS) in India. The Year 10 students organised a non uniform day and cake sale to raise the money. The students were inspired to raise the funds after attending a VESL ‘Active Global Citizens‘ workshop (backed by Global Community Links) which was [...]
Successful Thailand Teacher Workshops 2011
Congratulations to all the VESL volunteers who ran the teacher workshop programme in Northern Thailand this summer. The five volunteers, Dick and Dee Wardell, Sarah Greenwood, Laura Heathfield and Lisa Gornall all did a fantatstic job and were warmly praised by all the teachers they worked with. The team ran a series of two day [...]
Active Global Citizens
VESL was pleased to be awarded a grant by the British Council / DFID to run a Global Community Links Programme between Dec and August 2011. VESL, alongside its partner NGO in Southern India, VeSSS, ran a series of workshops for young people across the UK. Nearly 300 young people attended the workshops which were run [...]
VESL becomes a member of UKOWLA
VESL has become a member of UKOWLA, an organisation that helps to promote global links in Education. UKOWLA is a consortium member of the DFID through the Global School Partnerships led by the British Council with support from VSO and Cambridge Education Foundation. By supporting UKOWLA we hope to be able to develop links with the organisations across Asia, support school partnerships and encourage UK [...]
Active Global Citizens Programme
VESL was very pleased, alongside our link organisation in Kerala (VeSSS), to receive a grant from UK Aid to run the a VESL devised initiative called ‘Active Global Citizens Programme’. The Active Global Citizens programme encourages past VESL volunteers to run a workshops for young people in the UK. During these workshops young people will [...]
