Get thee to a nunnery.

Have just spent the weekend in a nunnery!

Well it used to be a nunnery - its now the VSO Training Centre in Birmingham. Somewhat run down but "homely" with a sort of old fashioned youth hostel atmosphere. Bring your own towel, share a room and the toilets/showers are a fair walk away.

I was there to take part in the Preparing to Volunteer course which was interesting, useful and fun. Lovely bunch of people, all going to different parts of the world. There was one other volunteeer who is going to PNG although I think he will be some distance from me.

Was quite astonished to discover that the average age of a Volunteer these days is 38 (I don't want to see any comments about this average being boosted by my arrival in the statistics!)

It was a great weekend . Continue to be impressed with VSO's pre departure training these days - such a change from the last time I did VSO as young volunteer.

Also discovered that Mt Hagen (where I will be working) is pronounced Mt "Hargen" not Mt "Haygen" as I used to pronounce it.

Most interesting out come of the weekend? I learnt that the Tok Pisin word for "broken" is "bugarup" (work it out!)

Training & Preparation

Have been very impressed with VSO's pre departure briefing/training so far. They make extensive use of the web to keep us informed and have a fine series of online training courses for new volunteers. The courses are "social" in nature - they encourage and require interaction between the course members and they have an active course moderator from VSO.

For those of you that care about this stuff they run the courses on the Moodle learning platform - pretty impressive too. Having spent a large slice of my life designing and building eLearning solutions it makes a change to be on the receiving end of an enjoyable and interesting online course!

Will be attending some "real world" weekend courses at VSO training centre in Birmingham soon.

Have also discovered wonderful website with extensive online translation for Tok Pisin (the main language in PNG) have a look if you're interested http://www.tok-pisin.com/

Eric is going away

When I was a young man (no jokes please!) I spent some time working with Voluntary Service Overseas in a small town called Geidam in the Sahel region of West Africa. It was a great experience.

A couple of years ago I went to India to take part in a VSO fund raising trek in the Himalayas, whilst there we met some of the VSO staff and volunteers working on Projects in India.

Having been bitten by the VSO bug once again I am off to Papua New Guinea in September to take up a volunteer post once more. My post is in Mt Hagen, capital of the remote Western Highlands Province, where I will be working with the Mt Hagen Handicrafts Group (MHHG). Now I'm not much good at making handicrafts but I do know my way round the internet and the project is to design & build a website so that MHHG can distribute its products to a wider market. MHHG is run by a group of women living with HIV and AIDS. As you can imagine they have a pretty tough life and their main concern is to put food on the table and to provide for their children.

So here I go!

My departure date is scheduled for 20 September (although subject to change!) and my project is all confirmed. Just need to sort out work permits, visas and immunisations.

I will be trying to raise some funds for this project before I go - so please don't ignore me!