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Global Xchange is a partnership programme managed and delivered by Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), the British Council, and our many local partners around the world. The Global Xchange programme is a six-month exchange programme which gives young people from 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.
The program has been developed out of a highly successful VSO exchange program called World Youth. At a workshop in Leicester in May 2004, representatives of the British Council, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and Community Service Volunteers (CSV) came together to share experiences, identify common ground and map out the broad objectives of the new program
The project was introduced in Kazakhstan in September 2005. Two Xchanges had been made since then and have involved communities in the UK such as Torfaen in 2005 and Hounslow Borough in 2006. In Kazakhstan, the local NGO Alpamys from Taldy-Korgan had hosted the exchange.
Global Xchange works with teams of up to 18 young people with equal numbers coming from the UK and Kazakhstan. The participants are recruited, and the teams are formed to reflect diversity in terms of geography, ethnicity, ability, education and gender.
Together, in cross-cultural counterpart pairs, volunteers live with host families and work in host communities for up to 3 months in the UK and 3 months in Kazakhstan. They also work on a global citizenship projects specifically aimed at raising awareness of development and diversity within their host communities.
The program impacts most directly on the young people who volunteer, but its power extends to the families who host them, the community projects with which they work and the wider communities in which they live. For all participants in the program Global Xchange demonstrates the potential and promotes the values of active global citizenship.
This year the third exchange has been launched. The host community in the UK is Bishops and Harlow and in Kazakhstan – Shymkent. This year’s theme is focused on HIV/AIDS and disability issues. Nine Kazakhstani young people have been recruited on the basis of their leadership skills, flexibility, openness, willingness to learn and to contribute to the intercultural dialogue. On the 20th of March 2009 9 volunteers left for the UK to meet their British counterparts. In June the whole team of 18 young people will come to Kazakhstan to take up their voluntary work in Shymkent with the help of the South Kazakhstan Branch of Association of Business Women.
You can find memoirs of volunteers on their life and work in the UK in the newsletters below:
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