Wake up, go to work, teach, come home, watch Corrie, go to sleep. That idealistic goal you had of changing the world and making a difference feels like a lifetime away. You could never make a difference on your own. But you can.

Some of the world’s poorest people have an insatiable thirst for knowledge but find education systems failing them at every turn. VSO aims to change that. Qualified and experienced teachers who have never really lost their aim to make an impact are sought to share their skills in some of the world’s most beautiful but poor places such Rwanda, Namibia and Nepal to help train and support local education experts.

Sharing your skills means that whilst the area can start to develop their own education infrastructure, you can have a dramatic effect on the way they teach, learn and progress. Life is captured in the stories we can tell, and changing the way a country educates its young people and helping them to slowly bring themselves out of poverty is one that could be yours to tell the grandchildren.

Volunteers live in the areas where they work so if you really want to immerse yourself in another culture you could wake up one morning and find you are in the Maldives. But be prepared, you could find all your ideas about politics and life itself being challenged as you become more independent. Volunteering is not for the fainthearted – but this could be the most exciting and challenging time of your career.

Join VSO Director Judith Brodie and returned volunteer Marika Hegarty live online on Wednesday 20th June at 18:30 to talk about the different opportunities for volunteers.

JC: Hello and welcome to the Lifestyle Show brought to you by VSO, I'm Jayne Constantinis. Now have you ever had that feeling that you'd like to contribute to something, make a difference but you don't think that there's actually anything that you can do. Well there is, we're always hearing about third world debt in the media aren't we but what's not very much reported is that some of the poorest people in the world have an insatiable appetite for knowledge but their education systems fail them at every turn. Now VSO wants to do something about that they're looking for qualified and experienced teachers who want to give something back who'd like to share their skills in some of the poorest but most beautiful countries on earth like Ruanda, Namibia and Nepal. Well to talk about those opportunities and to hear what it's like actually being a volunteer I'm joined in the studio by Judith Brody who is the Director of VSO UK, and Marika Hegarty who's been a volunteer. Thanks for coming in to talk to us. Judith can just begin by asking you what is VSO trying to achieve at this time

JB: VSO is desperate at the moment to recruit experienced teachers to go and work in our education programmes overseas. We have education programmes in twenty one out of the thirty four countries that we work in so education is a huge area for us and a huge area of need in developing countries

JC: And why is there a particular need at the moment, have people stopped volunteering or there are more projects?

JB: What we've found is that every year the need for people to strengthen the education systems increases so every year we have to recruit more volunteers, so this year we're having to recruit more education volunteers than last year because the countries we work in recognise the importance of giving kids in those countries a great start and a great education, and they desperately need our help.

JC: So it's a sign of the success of the project

JB: It is.

JC: They just want more and more.

JB: Yes absolutely.

JC: We've got a clip now showing why some people might want to volunteer for VSO placement shall we have a look at that.

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