We spent the first 11 days of our trip to Bangladesh in the capital city of Dhaka which, though dusty and busy, is full of wonderful bright colours. After a day of rest at the guesthouse and a long journey in a hectic traffic jam (they really are as severe as everyone had warned), we [...]

The last few days have been a blur of excitement, and I apologise now if this inhibits my ability to write coherently. After travelling for 12 hours with my new housemates for the next three months, I arrived in the 'Land of the Upright Men' - Burkina Faso. The moment we hit the runway at [...]

The UK's Foresight programme is intended to help government think systematically about the future. It helps to improve how we use science and technology within government and society. It does this by drawing on well-tested, scientifically valid techniques to inform those responsible for developing policy and strategy in government. The Foresight Migration and Global Environmental [...]

I'm a time-traveller. It is currently 2004 here in Ethiopia, as they use their own unique calendar. This is just one of a wealth of facts that have emerged during my first two weeks in this fascinatingly different community. The team has bonded extremely well both intra and inter-culturally. Yet one thing that has caused [...]

Not much has happened in my placement this week. Unfortunately the school has closed for two weeks due to the cold weather, which in my opinion is still much warmer than England's winter. I feel fairly lucky to have been placed in Rupandehi, as my placement is pretty close to Lumbini, the birthplace of the [...]

We arrived in Peru after a 3am start and over 16 hours of travelling; tired, but ready to begin our ICS journey. We have now just finished ten days of orientation where we have been staying at a retreat for priests and volunteers in the capital, Lima, before moving to start our placements in Villa [...]

Bamyan is a beautiful province in Afghanistan and home to the Hazaras, an ethnic Shia minority who make up 9% of the Afghan population. They are believed to be descendants of Genghis Khan's army and have distinctive features. My visit was to see further projects that the UK Government could support in agriculture. Most of the population are [...]

After spending two nights in Butwal, we were taken to our allocated communities on the 1st January - quite literally a new start to the year. In my community - Manpakadi - I was pleasantly surprised to find that many people can speak either broken or nearly fluent English. The community is fairly spread out, [...]

The opportunity to attend a COP (Conference of the Parties) event, and one that was hosted in South Africa where I grew up, was a dream come true for me - a once in a lifetime event I won't soon forget. I am still digesting all the information shared at the various 'side events' and associated [...]

The last three weeks of training in Nepal has absolutely flown by. I've learnt so much and got to know everybody really well in a short space of time; it's a shame that I'm not going to be working with them during the next two months. I've been allocated to the Man Pakadi community in the Rupandehi district bordering [...]