Rachel's off to volunteer in Papua New Guinea for 2 years with VSO!

Rachel Barratt is raising money for Voluntary Service Overseas

Story

I am a UK-registered Dietitian and have decided to 'give up' 2-years of my life to share my professional skills and knowledge in Papua New Guinea (PNG), on a volunteer placement with VSO. I will be working on a project with the department of health and local hospitals to help develop nutritional education and standards of care, in a country that currently has some of the poorest health outcomes in the world.

So in September 2015, I will forgo my salary and comforts of UK life, to live in the heart of a local PNG community for 2-years helping to improve nutrition and health, and break down some of the barriers that trap people in poverty. And as part of my commitment to VSO, it is a requirement that I raise funds to support their work across over 30 of the world’s least developed countries.

In case you are not familiar with their work, VSO is a charity that fights poverty through highly skilled volunteers. VSO is different from most organisations that fight poverty as instead of sending money or food, it brings people together to share skills and knowledge. In doing so, it creates lasting change. By working with people–volunteers share their skills and knowledge in communities around the world, which has a long lasting impact on fighting poverty.

The money you give does not go to myself or my placement directly, but back into vital unrestricted funds for VSO to ensure that they can continue to send volunteers to communities around the world that need our help the most.

For example:

£20 will keep a volunteer midwife for a week in Sierra Leone training nurses to save mothers from dying in childbirth
£24 will enable a VSO volunteer to provide 2 weeks training to 28 nurses in Sierra Leone
£37 can keep a VSO obstetrician working in West Timor, Indonesia, for one week, safely delivering 12 babies
£40 can pay for specialised training in life-saving skills, such as resuscitation, that could help save two children who arrive at hospital close to death
£50 can help one HIV positive woman in Mozambique to start her own business and give food, shelter and hope to her family
£72 could help fund a team of VSO volunteers – GP, paediatrician and midwife – for a month in one hospital where staff have had no previous training
£150 can help VSO keep an education management adviser in Nepal for one month, planning education for the poorest children
£250 can help VSO keep a nurse in Sierra Leone for two and a half months, educating local health workers and communities to combat malnutrition, malaria and dysentery
£500 can train 10 HIV positive women in Mozambique to start their own business, giving them and their children income and hope.
£900 can help VSO volunteers set up a 6 month education programme for street children in Dhaka

I hope to keep everyone up to date with my progress on my VSO journey and life in Papua New Guinea so have set-up a blog to tell my story and share some photos etc (internet access permitting)...so head on over to https://rachinpng.wordpress.com and click 'follow' to be notified whenever I make a new post. And please keep following, doing what you can to help me raise the required funds (let me know if you have any ideas or events I could tag my fundraising on to), and encouraging anyone who knows me to do the same and help me out by donating to this worthy cause! Thanks heaps...love you all long time!!

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to VSO. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs.