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VSAConnect is the organisation to keep VSA alumni in touch with VSA and each other.
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VSAConnect Nius

The bimonthly enewsletter of VSAConnect

Welcome to VSAConnect



Dear VSAConnect members,
 
I’m delighted to be able to welcome you to VSAConnect’s first enewsletter and hope that it will be the first of many interactions between you and VSA Connect, on line and in person.
Over the last 50 years VSA has supported over 3,000 kiwi volunteers to work with partners across Asia, the Pacific and Africa. In the last financial year  our volunteers worked on 166 assignments in the wider Pacific, the highest number in our history. They and you have each contributed in unique and special ways. I hope that VSAConnect will give you a new opportunity to connect with each other, a chance to share that collective yet very different past, to rediscover people and places.
 
Hopefully, it will also give you the opportunity to follow development trends and issues, as well as comment, and hear about today’s VSA volunteers as they follow in your footsteps and share your vision of a better, fairer world.
 
I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the launch of VSAConnect at Congress on 9 November, and over the months ahead.
 
With warm regards and best wishes
Gill
 
Gill Greer CBE, MNZM
CEO VSA

In this issue

- What is VSAConnect?
- Return to Vanuatu

- Helen Clark
- Focus on Tonga
... and much more.

Connect

Membership of VSAConnect

Membership of VSAConnect is free to all returned volunteers and their accompanying partners. Just email VSAConnect with your name and email address, and an invitation will be sent with a request to complete and return a simple enrolment form.

Development forum

Send us your development information, articles, papers, events and comments; or respond to the information in this enewsletter.

In other news

Member news

Susan Hinkley, Volunteer Legal Adviser with the Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre in Bougainville in 2009-2010, has been appointed as Volunteer Code of Ethics Adviser with the Solomon Islands Built Environment Professional Association in the Solomon Islands for a period of six months from October 2013.

Karen Roberts, Community Volunteer Adviser with Child Welfare South Africa in Grahamstown, South Africa in 2009-2011, is now Volunteer Projects and Communications Officer with UN Women in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

Send us your news of VSAConnect members, including those who have taken on another assignment, joined a development organisation, received a New Zealand honour, or passed away.

Latest news from VSA

2012/13 year a record!

VSA had volunteers engaged on 166 assignments in the wider Pacific in the last financial year, compared with 150 in 2011-12 across the Pacific, South East Asia and Africa (and 121 in 2008-09).

VSA recruited for 142 new assignments, compared with 108 in 2011-12 (and 96 in 2008-09).

1974 school leavers' get-together

Do you remember these 1974 school leavers? They are Deb Cranko, Frank Visser, Trudy Hutton-Baas, Jane Savage (nee Rice). More details and pictures from their reunion at Waimarama last month will be shown on our online platform. You will be able to view these if you sign up as one of our testers.

Volunteer highlights


Send in your volunteer highlight (no more than 70 words) with a photo.

Try a new recipe

If you're looking for a recipe to feed a crowd you could try the elephant stew from Been There, Ate That, a collection of more than 50 recipes from members of VSA's Top of the South (TOTS) branch.

Most of the recipes are based on dishes that volunteers ate while they were on assignment (with a few notable exceptions such as the elephant stew) and they include some interesting anecdotes.

Been There, Ate That costs $15 (plus $2 postage and packaging). To order a copy contact Sandy Stephens or Eric McPherson.

Film review

Fire in the Blood
by Joanne Lentfer

From the recent New Zealand Film Festival, Fire in the Blood is an excellent documentary detailing the stranglehold large pharmaceuticals had on the world through their patents and the resulting “genocide” in southern Africa in the late 1990s–2000s.

Quoting from the Festival Programme: “An intricate tale of 'medicine, monopoly and malice', Fire in the Blood tells how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments aggressively blocked  access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of Africa and the global south in the years after 1996 – causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths – and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back.

Shot on four continents and including contributions from global figures such as Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu and Joseph Stiglitz, Fire in the Blood is the never-before-told true story of the remarkable coalition which came together to stop "the Crime of the Century" and save millions of lives in the process.

A must see. View the trailer on YouTube.

Fancy another assignment?

Boat Building Adviser, Bougainville (2 years)
Support the Tseroge Boatbuilding Project to improve the level of training provided to students and community members.

Gender, Budgets and Planning Officer, Vanuatu (2 years)
Work with UN Women to assist with the planning and implementation of new budgets to support the Gender Justice Programme.

Infrastructure Adviser, Solomon Islands (2 years)
Support the planning and delivery of education infrastructure projects to improve the access, management and quality of education in the Solomon Islands.

Legal Adviser, Bougainville (1 year)
Support the development of a legislative framework that protects customary land rights in Bougainville.


Applications close Monday 21 October.
Go to VSA's vacancies page for more details and many more assignments. Enquiries welcome.

What is VSAConnect?

VSAConnect is VSA's Alumni Association for its returned volunteers and their accompanying partners. It aims to be an active and vibrant alumni community where you as a member can contribute towards building a groundswell of support for VSA across New Zealand.

VSAConnect members will be connected through a bimonthly enewsletter (this is the first!) and an online platform. Other activities will include speaking opportunities for returning volunteers, local get-togethers, connecting with fellow volunteers and sharing development knowledge.

The VSAConnect online platform with log-in and password access directly accessible from VSA’s website is now being developed and tested. It is intended to be the foremost forum for returned volunteers to stay in touch with VSA, reconnect with returned volunteers and find out what they have been doing since returning to New Zealand, obtain their up to date development news and information, discuss topics of interest through online forums, share photos and stories, find out about upcoming events, and participate in development-focused advocacy campaigns and online polls.

Please help us test our online platform

We have decided that the online platform needs further testing before all VSAConnect members are invited to enrol on it. We need up to 100 online testers who are willing to trial and suggest improvements to the platform. This is a chance to share your knowledge, and help influence its future capabilities!! Please email us now on vsaconnect@vsa.org.nz if you can help us with this.

About this enewsletter

This first edition is designed to be viewed either in email or in your browser (if photos are not showing, click the "View this email in your browser" link at the top right-hand corner). It can also be printed straight from email or from your browser. Future editions will probably be bimonthly and shorter, with links to items on the online platform.

Please send us your feedback on any item in this edition, or send us new material for the next issue.

Returning to Vanuatu

Miriam Wood (2007 UniVol) returns to Wan Smolbag

I often wondered after coming home from my assignment what happened to the friends I had made – were they still employed? Did they get married? Did they complete their training? My gut feeling was that I remembered a lot more about my VSA experience than they would have remembered about me (did they remember me??!).

Five years after leaving, I was wondering whether my assignment had made any difference to my partner organisation.

So it was with much excitement that I decided to visit Vanuatu late last year. Just to check it was still there! I know not many people either get the chance to visit their place of assignment or want to after they leave but it was a great thing for me to do.

Five years on and the Wan Smolbag (WSB) Youth Centre has just flourished. It was a real highlight seeing the library we had started bigger and better than when I’d left. The music room has been transformed into a recording studio with a full mixing desk and 10 bands. The youth field has been upgraded and new classes like pottery have started up. Both the girls and guys national hockey teams are involved in overseas tournaments - of which WSB was the birth place of Vanuatu hockey. It was humbling to go back and know that I was just one volunteer in a long line of people who have invested so much into this one place but also really satisfying to see a grassroots organisation take off and become so well established.

I was able to meet up with my old friends and while our lives are so different it was a real privilege to share a little bit more of life with them. I left Vanuatu with a renewed love for the place, and also a sense of closure to my whole assignment experience. I knew the most lasting work I had done, was the quality of my relationships with my new friends.

He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! (What's the most important thing in the world? It is people, people, people.)
Send us your story about going back to where you volunteered (preferably with photos).

Helen Clark on the global development agenda


Former New Zealand Prime Minister and now Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme says that the debate about what happens to the global development agenda after 2015 is in danger of “going to sleep” unless the world makes a real effort to keep the momentum going. Speaking at a VSA function to mark the Live Below the Line fundraising campaign, Ms Clark said that there had been a ferment of activity and public consultation about what would happen after the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is reached in 2015.

“Phase 1 has now run its course, and the High Level Panel appointed to look at this issue has produced its report,” she said. “There is now a danger it will end up in the dustbin – there has to be a way of keeping this very useful debate going.” However, with two years still to run there is a danger the momentum will be lost.

More than 150 people attended the VSA conversation, the subject of which was The Future We Want: The Millennium Development Goals and Beyond. They included 25 student leaders from nine Wellington secondary schools, along with former VSA volunteers and representatives from organisations such as MFAT, UNICEF and Family Planning International.

Before the event began the audience was given a 60-cent lunch  to help promote Live Below the Line, an annual fundraising event in which participants live on $2.25 a day – the equivalent of the extreme poverty line – for five days. VSA is one of eight partners supporting Live Below the Line 2013, which ran from September 23 to 27. You can still sign up and take the challenge right up until November 1st.

View video clips from the event on the VSA website.

Visit the Live Below the Line website for more information.
Big Mama's Yacht Club: a local institution in Tonga.

Focus on Tonga

Quick facts
  • The Kingdom of Tonga is unique in the South Pacific in being the only country never colonised by a foreign power. It is also the only surviving monarchy in the Pacific.
  • There are 176 islands but only 36 of the islands are inhabited. Around two-thirds of Tonga's 106,000 people live on the main island of Tongatapu.
  • Sunday is celebrated as a strict Sabbath, enshrined so in the constitution.
  • Tonga’s geographical location also makes it very vulnerable to natural disasters, including frequent cyclone activity.
  • The economy is sustained by agriculture, fishing and the money sent home by Tongans living abroad, many of them in New Zealand.
  • Migrating humpback whales breed and calve in Tongan waters from June to November.
  • There are some active volcanoes including Fonualei, Niuafo'ou, Late and Tofua.
Current assignments
  • Alan Struckman is a Post-Harvest Specialist with Tonga Export Quality Management Ltd, finishing in February 2014.
  • Alison Riley is on a UniVol assignment working as an Administration and Marketing Assistant at Langafanua Handicrafts, completing her assignment in December 2013.
  • Dunstan Brook-Miller is on a UniVol assignment as a Statistics Assistant at the Ministry of Commerce, Tourism and Labour, finishing in December 2013.
  • David Dally is a Human Resources Adviser for the National Reserve Bank of Tonga (NRBT), finishing in February 2014.
  • Paige Marshall is on a UniVol assignment as a Social Media and Administration Assistant at the Women in Sustainable Enterprise, finishing in December 2013.
  • Suzanne Dally is a Handicraft Training Adviser with Langafonua Handicrafts, finishing in February 2014.
  • Wendy Roger is a Hospitality and Tourism Trainer for the Tongan Business Enterprise Centre, finishing in February 2014.
Go to the VSA website for more stories and pictures on VSA in Tonga, including one volunteer’s boot camp experience.

Tell us about your Tonga experience and what it means to you!

Go and see

Mr Pip
Mr Pip, the movie shot on location in Bougainville which is based on the award winning novel by New Zealander Lloyd Jones, opens in theatres across the country on October 3rd. Mr Pip was filmed in the village of Pidia on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea, and in Auckland and Oamaru, between June and September 2011. In Bougainville, the beautiful white sand beaches, lush tropical rainforest, the exotic look of the village buildings and the blue seas and skies made an idyllic backdrop for the lyrical scenes of village life and the developing friendship of Matilda and Mr Watts. The beauty of this environment contrasts sharply with the jolting reality of the harsh wartime parts of the story that take place in the village. The Lloyd Jones novel was set in Bougainville during the 1990s when the island was torn apart by a war over copper mining and land rights, and most of the story it tells is very close to the experiences of the people there.

Auckland's VSA branch is screening the film Mr Pip as a fundraiser on Sunday 6 October. Contact Tanya Wilkinson for location and ticket details.
Beyond the Edge
The New Zealand Film Commission, VSA and the Himalayan Trust invite you to join the Governor General and the Prime Minister at the New Zealand premiere of Beyond the Edge, the film about Sir Edmund Hillary's journey to the summit of Everest. This is a gripping tale of adventure and daring that will have you on the edge of your seats.
All sales support VSA/Himalayan Trust programme to send volunteer teachers to Himalayan schools following in Sir Ed's footsteps. Buy now as tickets are limited.

The ticket price of $30 includes a glass of wine. Buy your tickets now on Eventfinda.

Reminder!
VSA’s Annual Congress

Registrations are closing for this year’s Congress, which will be held on Saturday 9th November at the Royal Society of New Zealand Building in Wellington. This year’s theme is “The Way Forward: New models for VSA." VSAConnect will be launched at 4.40pm, between the VSA AGM and the Annual Dinner. To Register; please post in your registration form, email Hanneke or phone 04 4725759. Please register before Friday 4 October.
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