Watch the event recording
Event description
Volunteering and internships are a common way for those wanting a career in the aid and development to get a start. Australian volunteers have been giving time, money, skills and experience to help others across a range of countries for the past 60 years. Done well, volunteering benefits both the volunteer and the communities they serve, and builds enduring friendships. Currently overseas volunteering is curtailed by COVID-19, but there are still opportunities to meaningfully support in-country programs from Australia.
Come along to Women in Aid & Development’s next event to hear from speakers who are responsible for developing and funding volunteer programs, and those who have experience volunteering overseas and in Australia.
Find out how you can be engaged in meaningful volunteering, and the importance of avoiding short term unskilled or orphanage volunteering or ‘voluntourism’ that puts vulnerable children and communities at risk. Our speakers will also share how their experiences have shaped their career in the aid and development sector.
As usual, the night will involve a relaxed chat, with questions to follow and an excellent opportunity to network.
Guest speakers
Phetdavah Southonnavong
Phetdavah Southonnavong is the Laos Country Program Manager for the Australian Volunteers Program, where she leads the team in delivering all aspects of the program with both in-country and remote volunteers. Phet is proud of what she gets to do every day, supporting her team and supporting volunteers and the broader community through the practice of volunteering. However, it hasn’t been an easy journey for her, struggling in earlier years of her career as she applied for scholarships, only to be rejected as she didn’t have higher education credentials. With only a diploma in Teacher Training, this was not enough to be considered for a scholarship, but it did afford her opportunities to teach foreigners the Laos language, and in turn support her own education and learning.
Phet’s journey so far has taught her that even when stones are being thrown at you, if you can find a way to use those stones and lay them down in front of you, they can be the steppingstones to the life you want. Her resilience, empathy and determination are useful qualities when leading in today’s particularly challenging environment.
Phet is passionate about people. The volunteering space is centered on people-to-people links and building relationships so for Phet, this doesn’t feel like work. She knows when you support people in their journey it leads to their own capacity development, and flows on to their families, communities, and the world.
Fiona Goggins
Fiona is an international development, human rights and communications professional with experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors.
Before the pandemic she was on assignment through the Australian Volunteer's Program as Grants and Communications Coordinator at Tanzanian non-profit Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI), and continues to volunteer with the organisation remotely, along with Tanzanian based organisation Male Advocacy For Gender Equality (MAFGE) and the US-based International Institute for Human Security (IIHS).
Fiona has a Bachelor of International Studies (Globalisation), a Master of Human Rights Law and Policy, and is currently completing a second Masters in Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development through the ANU.
In 2017-18 she was a scholar at the Caux Scholars Program Asia Plateau, a peace-building and conflict transformation program in India, and was part of the organizing team for the "Just Governance for Human Security" in Caux, Switzerland in 2016 and 2018. A member of the Executive Committee for the 2018 conference, she was also Communications Manager and chaired a women's offshoot event, "The Pillar Peace-building approach: Women as Drivers towards the Sustainable Development Goals".
Fiona is passionate about gender equality, human rights, and the perpetual work of anti-racism and decolonisation of development spaces; she loves to read and occasionally blogs about travel, feminist things and a lifelong struggle with book hoarding.