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Last month I represented ICS at the Global Youth Volunteers Forum in the picture-postcard German city of Augsberg. It’s unusual in that half its population are migrants.

Beth Meadows, 23, cares about ending period poverty. She’s been the lead volunteer with the Liverpool-based branch of national campaigning organisation The Homeless Period since they started up two years ago.…

In its seven decades of work it has prevented conflicts, delivered life-saving humanitarian aid to millions and improved the lives of the poor in all corners of the world.

It came into existence in 1945…

When Sarah Boateng, 24, left the UK to volunteer in her family’s home country of Ghana on a project tackling disability stigma, she didn’t expect a chance encounter to change her career path. Motivated and…

In the summer of 1958, 18-year-old Chris Tipple was about to leave for a trip to Ghana that would go on to define his personal and professional life.  

Chris…

In the UK alone, one in every four people has experienced a mental health problem in the past year. Yet despite this prevalence, the topic is all-too-often overlooked and misunderstood.

While the stigma…

Richard Wheatley, 23, from London, is functionally blind in one eye due to a brain tumour diagnosed at age five. But never one to be put off taking on a challenge, Richard has been using his skills in the…

Patience Bamelikuu, 26, from Ghana, had never played the Paralympic sport of goalball before her International Service ICS placement. What she didn’t realise was how much the sport would change her attitudes…

Nikita Slate, 19, from Leigh-on-Sea, has always refused to let her visual impairment dictate her youth. But a three month volunteering placement with International Service ICS’s goalball project taclking…

We're committed to empowering young people to contribute to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and continue their journey as active citizens after their ICS placement.

We had a goal - to support our…

Want to put the fun in fundraising? Use your hobbies and do what you love to smash your target. ICS volunteers Hailey Shaw and Chloe Bradbury used their different hobbies of football and dance to hang out with friends, reach people…

In Dhaka, public transport is an unpleasant – and often dangerous – experience, especially if you’re a woman or girl.

Bangladeshi volunteer Atika Shafa, 21, is part of a team of 10 ICS…

From those special moments shared with your volunteer counterpart, to celebrating breakthrough successes following weeks of hard work – there’s nothing that offers a better insight into the ICS experience than…

In Battambang, Cambodia, a lack of skills and jobs are forcing young people to migrate to Thailand. Volunteers on VSO Cambodia's ICS programme are changing that. They’re raising awareness of the places where…

What is a National Youth Engagement Network (NYEN)?

These are national groups of returned volunteers who are really enthusiastic about carrying on the work of ICS in their own communities.

The…

Lucy Ashton, 22, from Bolton, lives with a visual impairment which doesn’t always make life easy. When she went to volunteer in Sandema, north Ghana, on International Service ICS’ goalball project, REACT, she…

All around the world this month our focus has been on youth. 

We put on 13 events spanning three continents, celebrating the impact of 30,000 volunteers. We saw alumni interviewed on national TV about the…

Young people under 30 make up half the world’s population.

And the problems facing the world in the years to come will be ours to solve. 

From July through and past Youth Day in…

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”- Aaron Siskind, American photographer.

We're…

In the dusty town of Machakos, just south of Nairobi, disability is a dirty word.

Parents hide their disabled children at home, teachers are put off taking jobs at special needs schools for fear of…

We’re attending the Global Youth Volunteers Forum 2018 in Augsburg, Germany this October.  

The theme is ‘Youth Volunteers Shaping the Future’. We’ve chosen three volunteers - two UK, and one Kenyan - to…

Work with a charity abroad

International Citizen Service (ICS) is a UK government funded programme that supports young people aged 18-25 to volunteer with a charity overseas. 

The projects you will be…

Gladys Muthara, 29, and Susan Waruingi, 26, are Kenyan gender-based violence (GBV) campaigners. Thanks to the ICV Alumni Grant, they ran a year of workshops with teenage survivors of violence in the slums of…

In northern Ghana, stigma around disability makes life challenging for people with visual impairments. We decided to bring together a team of fully-sighted and visually-impaired volunteers to see what we could do…

Harrison Kariuki, 28, is a teacher and was part of VSO ICS’s all-deaf placement, Deafway, in 2016. Currently a volunteer at Kapsabet School for the Deaf in the west of the country, he's using sign language to…

Every year we a global series of events throughout July and August to celebrate International Youth Day - read more about 2019's highlights.

This year, our UK event, held in London on …

Volunteering isn't easy. And ICS definitely isn't a holiday.

On your placement you'll be pushed out of your comfort zone. You'll do things you never thought possible. But when your placement's over, you'…

Grace Munini, 59, lives in Loitokitok, southern Kenya, with her husband Ruben. Her four grown-up children now have families of their own, and she has opened her home to participants of ICS.

Mama Helen, as…

It's always about the people, isn't it? 

On ICS, you'll meet people on your team, in your host home, in the communities you work with and staff from a different part of the world. You'll see that somethings are exactly the…

ICS volunteer April Quigley absolutely smashed her £800 fundraising target to raise a whopping £1245 before her placement with Raleigh in Nepal. Check out how she did it and her top tips to help you reach your own goal.…

…

In 2017, VSO’s International Board recruited two Youth Advisers, young returned ICS volunteers with personal experience of VSO’s programming – Takyiwa Danso, 25 from the UK, and Felix Owino, 26, from Kenya – both…

The first thing you need to know about goalball is that it's not just for the visually impaired.

What is goalball?

It’s a team sport in which a ball containing a bell is thrown at the opposing team’s…

So you’ve created your JustGiving page, and now it’s time to share it... But wait, you’re feeling shy? Cheeky? Embarrassed? Nervous?

It's natural to feel this if you’ve never fundraised before, but this 5 step guide will…

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my experience as an ICS team leader and how it’s shaped who I’ve gone on to become. I’ve been a confident person for as long as I can remember – but I wouldn’t say being in a leadership role…

I spent 12 weeks volunteering in Cambodia this year. Here’s a glimpse from my time there in photos.

For almost 700,000 refugees, Cox’s Bazar in eastern Bangladesh is all they have to call home. For those arriving – with more than half being children – lasting trauma and a lack of education continues to define…

Fundraising can be a daunting experience (we hear ya!). But, we’re lucky over at ICS HQ because we get to hear stories of inspirational volunteers achieving the one thing they thought they couldn’t and hitting (or often exceeding)…

On July 24, 2018, The UK Department for International Development and the Government of Kenya will jointly host the first-ever Global Disability Summit in London.

ICS will be there ensuring that young…

More than a quarter of the world’s countries belong to the Commonwealth.

It’s a diverse network that spans the global north and south. It’s a unique platform that can influence decisions affecting a huge…

I live in Uganda. As a woman here, 60% of us have experienced violence in our lifetime. One in five of us have suffered physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in the last year. And one in four in…

It’s that time of year again! A year of skipping lectures to have a lovely lie in and putting off essays to the last minute comes back to bite. EXAMS!! But, fear not! With a little careful planning and creativity there’s no reason…

At 18, Keah Mcilwain was volunteering with ICS in Nepal when the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the remote village of Sotipasal, in the central district of Lamjung. Keah and her fellow volunteers…

Sign up below to register for tickets Global Citizen Live on 17 April at the 02 Academy Brixton in London.

Tickets are allocated on a first come first serve basis. 

 

Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately all…