Written by: Alyssa Marie Villa
The Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA) mandated to serve as a clearinghouse for matters pertaining to international volunteer services (IVS), conducts bilateral programming meetings annually with partner international volunteer service organizations (IVSOs) to discuss and agree on volunteer assistance and deployment plans as well as explore other areas of collaboration towards mainstreaming volunteerism as a development strategy.
PNVSCA’s current partner IVSOs are the Australian Volunteers Program (AVP), France Volontaires (FV), Forum Civil Peace Service/forumZFD, Global Initiative for Exchange and Development, Inc. (GIED), Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), United States Peace Corps (USPC), and the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).
The bilateral meeting also serves as a venue for PNVSCA and its partner IVSOs to review the outputs and/or contributions of international volunteer assistance and look at opportunities for expanding its reach to other local partner institutions, geographic areas and sectors assisted.
Apart from this, PNVSCA also continues to collaborate with the IVSOs in making international volunteering a catalyst for national/local volunteering.
This January PNVSCA has meet with FV on the 15th, GIED on the 24th and with KOICA scheduled on the 31st.
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The author is currently the Volunteer Service Officer II of the Program Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PCMED), Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency.
Visit PNVSCA website (www.pnvsca.gov.ph) and PNVSCA Facebook (facebook.com/PNVSCA) for other stories and information on volunteering