1. VSO ICS Volunteer Reference
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13 August 2013
Dear Sir or Madam,
REFERENCE FOR Aurora Justice
VSO ICS is run by Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and is part of International Citizen Service (ICS), funded by
the UK Department for International Development. The programme gives people in different countries a unique
opportunity to work together, to develop and share valuable skills, and to make a practical contribution where it
is needed in local communities.
This volunteer took part in a 12 week cross-cultural youth volunteering programme, where teams of up to 10
young people from the UK aged 18-25 will travel to a developing country to live and work alongside national
volunteers on with a range of community organisations.
The nature of this programme is extremely demanding. The volunteers on the programme live and work with a
counterpart from another country for the duration of the programme. Each pair spends the duration of the
programme working on local community projects and living with a local host home. In addition they are part of
a diverse team, both in terms of social and cultural diversity, making decisions that have to take everybody into
account. Volunteers therefore have to be very flexible and adapt to circumstances very different to what they
are used to.
At the end of each programme, the programme supervisor who accompanies the team completes each
volunteer’s reference, as it is the programme supervisor who has the most direct contact with the volunteer.
The supervisor submits these references to us at the end of the programme, which is also the end of their
contract with VSO.
If you have any questions about VSO ICS, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours faithfully,
Caoimhe Murray
UK Action Coordinator
VSO UK (based in Northern Ireland)
Telephone: 0287 126 7997
caoimhe.murray@vsoint.org
www.vso.org.uk/youth
www.facebook.com/vsoyouth
Follow us on twitter @vsoyouth

2. VSO ICS Volunteer Reference
- 2 -
VSO ICS Volunteer Reference
ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS
Volunteer name: Aurora Justice Volunteer ref:
Team number: VI014 Country: Nepal
Community:
Lamjung
Name/job title of staff member completing reference:
Yogesh Gyawali/ Programme Supervisor
Period of service: 20/11/2012-11/02/2013
Date of completing reference: Feb 2013
DETAILS OF SERVICE
Together with a British colleague, I have spent the 12 months as a Programme Supervisor accompanying the VSO ICS
youth volunteering programme in Lamjung, Nepal. During this time I had regular contact with Aurora during weekly team
meetings and during formal individual supervisions every four weeks. My counterpart and I would also visit Aurora’s
volunteer placement and host home to monitor her progress and development.
Volunteer Placement
Aurora spent four days a week volunteering in Tarkughat Community and Bir Bhakti School. The objective of the
programme was to raise awareness on health and hygiene to students and members of community and to provide
livelihood options to the community people.
Aurora alongside her counterpart worked to achieve several outputs within her placement. For all of the events, it was vital
for her to work directly with the community consulting not only the local mothers groups but also community leaders,
community health volunteers, agriculture technical assistant, school officials, teachers, and students. The events in the
school included initiating garden and kitchen gardening projects. She also planned and delivered lessons on health,
sanitation and environment related topics such as diarrhoea, hand washing, tooth brushing, and recycling. She was
instrumental in forming an environmental club in the school. The club members organised several events such as litter
picks, quiz contests, and drawing exhibition.
In the community, Aurora planned and helped organise litter picks and a workshop on nutrition with mothers group. She
helped make placards to support a rally that raised awareness against open defecation problem. She planned and
organised several on-farm related awareness workshops to improve the livelihood options for farmers. Improved farm yard
manure, multi-storey farming and kitchen gardening were the main topics that the workshops covered. She also helped a
couple of households built cattle urine collection pits.
Team Activities: Global Citizenship Day, Community Action Day, MPR
In addition to their volunteer placements, volunteers are required to facilitate Global Citizenship Days (GCDs) around a
chosen subject. These events cover local and global issues affecting the host community and may be of personal interest to
the volunteers. Aurora worked alongside other UK and Nepali volunteers to facilitate a GCD on Human Trafficking. Planning
the day involved a huge amount of research, communicating with the ICS group and drawing up a timetable of activities for
the day. Activities for the workshop included case studies, discussions, and video presentations to get everyone in the
group to participate. These activities enabled the group to: share knowledge and learn from one another.
Aurora was a member of the team of volunteers that planned and organised the first Community Action Day (CAD). Aurora
with ten other volunteers organised a day of health awareness and general health camp for the locals of Tarkughat
community. The day enabled people of all ages to come and seek free medical advice or sit in workshops to know drug
addiction, heart diseases, oral hygiene, and uterine prolapse. For the second CAD held in Bhoteodar area, she was
responsible for running hand washing drills with the children. She also helped the attendees find the doctors, who were
present for the health camp.
Aurora also led in organising and facilitating sessions in the Mid Phase Review, where she was responsible for reviewing
counterpart relationship.

3. VSO ICS Volunteer Reference
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SKILLS, ABILITIES AND PERSONALITY TRAITS
Headings Excellent Good Average N/A
Ability to work as
part of a team
Comments: Aurora not only contributed to meaningful discussions in team meetings and workshops, she also
treated everyone of her team mates with respect. The willingness to travel long distances to publicise the team’s
first CAD (Health Awareness Camp) is an example of her good team skills.
Ability to adjust to
new tasks, situations
and challenges
Comments: Aurora did very well to adjust to new and different environment and culture. She adapted to the slow
nature of community work by showing a lot of patience. She also showed a lot of flexibility and compromise to
forge an effective working partnership with her partner to achieve high quality results.
Ability to
communicate
effectively
Comments: The excellent relationships that she formed with her living and working counterparts are the direct
result of her excellent communication skills. She demonstrated good listening skills during team events and also
learned the basics of Nepalese language. Her good communication also resulted in building good rapport in the
community. This ensured good participation for her community based events and activities.
Ability to negotiate
and persuade
Comments: Community work often requires a fair degree of negotiation and persuading. She used incentives,
logic and reasoning to persuade locals to participate in her events. She also had to persuade their school to get on
board with the volunteers’ idea of initiating a kitchen garden.
Reliability,
commitment and
positive attitude
Comments: Aurora continuously demonstrated the desire to learn and excel in her work. She remained positive
despite the fact that early on a number of local people doubted her intentions. She worked hard and sometimes
she even worked during weekends. She is punctual and finishes the assigned tasks well within deadlines.
ADDITIONAL STRENGTHS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Aurora has excellent interpersonal skills. She keen and open minded to learn. Her motivation and enthusiasm
make her achieve more than what is required of her on a minimum. She is confident in handling tough situations
and is interested to work with vulnerable youth and children.
For the above mentioned reasons, I strongly recommend her for future employment at your organisation.