By Etienne Kishibe
Nina Chung fits the bill perfectly. She runs Savvy Marketing, a consulting business. Her husband Paul Crooks, who also has a marketing background, owns a series of backpacker hostels in Canada. They are well-established. Chung speaks several languages.
They have no children, just a comfortable home in the Glebe with works of art from around the world gracing the walls.
And they want to move to Africa.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” says Chung, referring to volunteering in the developing world. “I had looked into it in my twenties, but now things were telling us this was the time.”
Chung and Crooks are exactly the type of entrepreneurs Voluntary Service Overseas, or VSO, is looking for. Under its new Business Partnership Plan, it’s trying to recruit business people for overseas aid work. Most of their volunteers are in the field of education, according to fundraising officer Cheryl McGrath, but she says other types are needed as well.
McGrath calls the business partnership a secondment plan, which allows business-oriented volunteers to serve six to nine month tours in developing countries – instead of the usual two years.
The shorter term makes volunteer work a less daunting prospect.
Under this program, VSO has sent three people overseas so far. McGrath says the organization hopes to send six more in the next nine months, making up a little under one tenth of the 75 or so volunteers expected for the year.
Chung and her husband, however, are willing to commit for a full two years. They’re hoping to go to Kenya, where they would help assess the needs of local small business communities. They’ll also be advising polytechnic schools on how to better target the needs of those communities.
Their application was complicated by the fact that they want to work together, so they still aren’t certain that they’ll be going this year, but they are hoping to leave for Africa in June. The moment their proposal is accepted, the couple isn’t looking back.
They’d have to sell their car, put their businesses on hold and arrange for their house to be looked after.
“We don’t get to choose where we end up,” says Chung. “We would have preferred to go somewhere in Asia, but we understand that most aid work is in Africa.”
Chung’s excitement about the prospect is palpable. She says she hopes to gain something herself, as well as give.
“It’s the exposure to an underdeveloped country. I would like to understand life without the things we take for granted, and hopefully offer something of value in return,” she says.
VSO provides its volunteers with training, travel costs and health insurance, but for the duration of their contract volunteers live at the local standard, earning a salary from their local employer.
Chung knows it will be a difficult adjustment, but she’s open-minded.
“It’s hard even to have expectations,” she says. “I have a set of experience that seems to be of value, and I understand there’s a great need for it.”
While Chung isn’t sure what her adventure will bring, she’s certain that it’s what she wants. She found VSO after she started looking specifically for volunteer work in the developing world.
Born in Guyana, Chung has family around the world. She has lived and worked in South America, as well as in East Bloc countries before the fall of the Soviet Union.
She says she feels her life has afforded her many opportunities that most people don’t have access to. Seeing and experiencing life “without air conditioning, recycling, garbage pickup,” she believes, is valuable.
“I believe I’ve lived a full and blessed life,” she says. “And I want to give back what I can.”