14 Novenber VSO- Amy McGlashan @ 6.30 Meeting @ Westlands

14 Novenber VSO- Amy McGlashan @ 6.30 Meeting @ Westlands

VSO

Members of the Club were intrigued when, as an innovative way of opening her talk, Amy McGlashan introduced herself in Swahili.  Amy, who lives at Greenloaning and is undertaking a teacher-training course at Strathclyde University, was introducing her talk on her experiences as a Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) volunteer in Tanzania. This was not her first overseas experience: after leaving school she had spent a year as a volunteer in Uganda.  There she had experienced the problems being faced in the wake of HIV and Aids.  And it was her first experience of being directly aware of the very different circumstances in which people in such a county were living.

However, it was after completing a degree in Glasgow University that she decided to volunteer for a three-month placement with VSO.  Having been selected, she was placed on the VSO International Citizen Service programme in Bukoba in Tanzania.  During this period, she and a Tanzanian volunteer, also recruited by VSO, lived in a host home in the community.  Here she learnt to live in the heart of village life, where there were dirt floors in the houses, and the water supply was from a stream.

Amy’s role was to provide help with improving the children’s learning in the local primary school where children up to the age of 14 studied, hoping to pass the examination that would enable them to transfer to the senior school.  One of her responsibilities was to take four after-school clubs that involved environmental issues, participation in sports, children’s rights, and, particularly important to Amy, a girls’ club that looked at female issues, including gender equality and harassment.  In all these areas, her aim was to improve the young people’s self-confidence and their belief in what they could achieve. 

Looking more widely, Amy gave a very positive picture of what VSO programmes are achieving across the world, with support being given to more than half a million people through education; 175 thousand through health programmes; and 115 thousand through programmes promoting start-up businesses. 

Gordon Robb thanked Amy for an inspiring talk that had given members an  awareness of the support being offered to improve conditions in so many countries.