Objective
The flagship international volunteer activity of SIF is the
Singapore Volunteers Overseas (SVO) programme. SVO’s mission
is to enrich lives by enabling Singaporean volunteers to support
capacity development in developing countries through sharing
of skills, knowledge & experiences. Our volunteers are skilled
professionals with the experience, skills, knowledge and aptitude
to serve as catalysts for change where they are assigned.
Modalities
SVOs serve in their host communities on the following modalities:
1. In-field SVOs who live and work with their
host communities for one or two years. Where they are assigned,
they focus on enabling their counterparts to strengthen their
individual capacities.
2. Short-term volunteers who live and work in
their host communities for 3-6 months, focusing on impact their
host organizations through service-delivery.
3. Specialist Team SVOs work on skills transfer
projects to build the organizational or institutional capacity
of a local partner through Training of Trainers (ToT) over a
duration of several years
4. Volunteers who conduct short duration skills
training workshops of up to 2 weeks to impact organizations,
institutions and individuals.
All SVO assignments are developed in close collaboration
with host agencies and volunteers, taking into account the needs
identified by the host agency and the capabilities of volunteers.
To facilitate the transfer of skills in a sustainable manner,
host organizations are required to provide local counterparts
to work alongside the volunteers.
Completed
and On-going Collaboration with Bhutanese Partners
From 2001 to 2003, two in-field SVOs completed their one-year
long assignments in IT network administration at Sherubtse College
and in marketing and advertising at Kuensel Corporation.
Since July 2004, a SVO IT teacher at NIE Paro
and a SVO accountant at Kuensel Corporation have been working
to strengthen the capacities of their host agencies in the teaching
of information technology and in accounting and financial practices
respectively. They will complete their assignments in July 2005.
From 2002, a team of Specialist Team SVOs from
tertiary institutions in Singapore has been working on a Training
of Trainers project to equip their counterparts at NIE Paro
with the capacity to develop and teach a B.Ed programme. The
project will be completed in 2006.
SVO is exploring the placements of other volunteers
in Bhutan.
