In just under two weeks I will be taking a Flight to Nigeria for three months. Thankfully I have handed in all my assignments for this year and am now able to concentrate on preparing for this challenge ahead of me. For anyone interested in volunteering overseas I will start by telling you how I got to this point of the program so far; First of all, I signed up to ICS/VSO sometime last year, had filled in a few forms and was invited to a selection day in London. Here we had team tasks, and I was interviewed, everyone was friendly and the food provided was actually pretty decent. After that I had to fill in even more forms, leading to a training weekend in Ashford… I won’t go into too much detail about this as it honestly wasn’t that interesting, but it did put a lot of worries/questions at rest. As I am going as part of a charity, it was also expected of me to raise money for VSO before I leave for Nigeria. To hit my target, I did a sponsored walk from Bromley to Brighton (approx. 50 miles) and ran a student raffle and quiz night at Brighton University student union bar. Again, thank you to everyone who donated! (you know who you are). The next step was a Skype call with the guys I will be working within Nigeria and the team I am going with, we could ask any questions and find out what we will be doing once we get to the country. There was a lot to take in from the hour-long skype call, however, from what I could jot down, I will be living with a host home in a small town (Gwada) northeast of a city called Minna. Here we will be taking part in a livelihood program, focused on agriculture. I’m still not certain what this entails, however, as much as internet permits I will update the blog and let you all know. One aspect of the program is ‘Young Farmers club’ which I am looking forward to, this will involve teaching the children of Gwada how to farm (finally all that time/experience spent on the allotment has paid off). While writing this post, I received an email from VSO inviting me to the Nigerian embassy to ‘get my fingerprints taken’ and have my visa approved. This is the last step before actually getting on the flight and means that VSO can now book the flights and give me a definite departure date, so was very good news to hear. All I must do now is actually pack, I have done a lot of research and looked over lots and lots of packing list all over the internet managing to put together one of my own (this will be attached to the post if you’re in need inspiration). If you feel there is anything essential or non-essential that I have missed, please feel free to send me a message! For now, this is all the information I can share with you all, the next post will be once I am in Nigeria, keep an eye on the website or Facebook page for any new posts over the summer. If you have any questions just drop me a message will be happy to reply. Hope you all have a great summer!
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AuthorThis blog is written by one of the owners of the site; Alex Hood. Currently studying English Literature at Brighton University and was given the amazing opportunity to work with VSO in Nigeria for three months over the summer. Archives
August 2018
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