Jan Baaroy’s Speech

Thank you so much for the Chinese government for accepting our presence, and to the Beijing

volunteer service federation for sending us the invitation. The title of this presentation is: best

practices and lesson learned in implementing international volunteering programs.

I. Best practices & Lesson LearnedI was given two questions to answer. What are the successful models for developing international

volunteering programs? And what are the main challenges to implement these? Before I'm going to

answer those two questions, let me be very brief about what FK Norway all about.

1. About FK Norway

It is an agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And the government gives it annually about 20

million US dollar to implement international volunteering programs. We have office with 40 staff in

Oslo. And we facilitated the sending and receiving of 650 volunteers every year. We are working with

250 different partners, organizations, or governments to send those 650 volunteers. A brief history

about us, in 1963, FK Norway was established. So we're quite old. And FK stands for "Fredskorpest",

peace core. So FK Norway, peace core Norway, that's the abbreviation.

2. FK Norway 1963 - 1999

From 1963 to 1999, FK Norway recruited and sent out volunteers every year. In 1999, the

government said," No, this should stop now. We need to do something. We need to be more innovative

and creative in our thinking, in how to bring this world slightly better." So they closed FK Norway,

and opened it up again in the year 2000.

3. FK Norway 2000 - today

They said:" we are going to open it again, open up FK Norway on 3 conditions. One, FK Norway

should not recruit, but provide founding to partners on doing the recruitment of volunteers. And all

volunteer programs should be, what we call "mutual", "reciprocal", which means if one organization

would like to send someone, they should also receive someone from their partner organization, which

means if one agency in Norway would like to send a volunteer to an organization in Thailand, they

should also receive a volunteer from that organization in Thailand back to Norway. That's a mutual

exchange. And the third principle, it should be relatively young people, between the age 18 and 35 of

age.

II. Q1: What are the successful or innovative models for developing international outbound volunteering programs?1. Examples of projects

Those blue balloons, let's say they are the partnerships, which FK Norway are supporting. They are

like, hundreds of different partnership with almost 200 different partners, smaller or bigger, a

minimum of two agencies in each partnership, up to 7 or 8 agencies, institutions, private businesses

or organizations. So to the questions from Paul, what are the successful models we are analyzing and

experiencing in this model, which is the reciprocal, mutual model? One, for me, to be a long term

partnership. If we are going to change the world, make the world a slightly better place to live, we

need to think long term. The institutions, from the government, from the organizations, and private

businesses, need to set common goals for their objectives. So one institution is discussing with

another one, and together they are setting some common objectives what they would like to achieve.

2. Total in China

And quite often we see that there is a driver in these partnerships. Let's say there is a partnership of 5

different organizations, 5 different countries. There might be one which is slightly more experienced,

have slightly more funds, or slightly more resources, and they are the drivers. It doesn't have to be like

that, but in many instances are. And what we have realized in our south collaborations, programs, is

that China is such a driver in the region to support and provide competences to emerging countries,

for which FK Norway is very happy and honored to be working with those agencies from China.

III. Our findings1. Local integration is very important

The second condition for the model is the mutual exchange, the reciprocal exchange, which means

that everyone in the partnership is sending one, and everyone in the partnership is recruiting one,

receiving one participant, one volunteer. So this is an outbound volunteer program, as much as an

inbound volunteer program.

2. The volunteers get lots of new skills

It is also the partners in the partnerships, the institution in the partnerships, who are recruiting the

participants. Because they are the one knowing what kind of capacity do we need in order to achieve

our common set, objectives and goals. So they ask each other, “Do you need administrative staff? Do

you need staff with financial skills? Or do you need staff with marketing skills?" And then the

agencies, the organizations in the partnership are circulating staff among themselves. Year after year

after year, up to maybe ten years, and there is always around 95 percent of the time, it's like 12 month

of volunteer work, which means that lets say you have a partnership with 6, 7 organizations over a ten

year period might change to up to a hundred people to build up that partnership.

3. Sustainability - returned volunteers contribute to capacity development

And the third condition for the model is proper monitoring. So every year we are issuing a survey to

all the participants, and all the partner context. And what we realized is, in as far as organizational

development is concerned, institutional building, it is the sending partner who achieved most, when

their volunteers come back and continue working in the organization. That's why it's so important to

let everyone sent. Because eventually, the volunteer who has gone abroad, he or she is come back, and

will they be devoted for the organizations they once were sent out from. From China, we have seen

from the year 2000, 105 volunteers were sent to China to various countries, in the region, and in the

world, through FK Norway. And through FK Norway, there have been 85 volunteers from China, and

currently 22 institutions in China which has been supported by FK Norway to do this kind of

exchange international outbound and inbound volunteering programs. When we see that the

participants, the volunteers achieve once that are back, through that year, they have acquire great

communication skills, they have acquire international understanding, culture knowledge, a large

professional network, personal confidence, and the ability to adopt to new situations. And this is the

new leader of the 21 century, which has been exposed to different cultures for a long time. And they

are coming back. Most of them, 85 percent says that they are going to leadership position in their

organizations once they are back to the sending organization.

IV. Q2: What are the main challenges, obstacles or bottlenecks in developing and implementing these programs?1. Getting through the first year

Before I quit the main challenges, the partnerships have been meeting is getting through the first year.

Once you have gone through that first year, it's much easier to do the following 2, 5, 10 years.

2. Being a good host

It's very important to be a good host. When you receive someone from abroad, this might be his or

hers first time ever to go abroad. And without proper integration in the work place and proper

integration in the community, they will not succeed and deliver their thoughts.

3. Engaging with the returning volunteers

Thirdly, the organizations need to engage with the volunteers once they are back, in order to enhance,

and get most out of it. Of course they have been investigated a lot in the volunteers, now they can

harvest from those seed they have been sowing.

4. Ensure equal partnerships

And last but not least, assure equal partnerships, everyone in the partnership is one equal terms, in

spite the fact, so much enrich each other. Thank you.