Is there a career after three years as a VSO in the tropics?

LISA KROLAK

Some of you might have read in this magazine about my experiences as a VSO Librarian[1] in Belize from February 1998 to March 2001. For those who do not, let me just quickly say that I have partly worked for Belize Teachers' College where I have managed the college library and set-up twenty-five school and community libraries, and partly at Belize's only socio-political NGO called SPEAR as the Information Officer. Working and living in Belize was both, a professionally and personally deeply satisfying experience and I hope that this article might encourage some of you to also consider doing VSO or to take up the challenge of working for another international organization.

The reason for writing this article was a coincidence during my visit to IFLA 2002 in Glasgow. It just happened that the stranger sitting next to me in a bus going between the IFLA venue and the Central Station was Isabel Hood, the editor of this magazine. As she has edited all articles that I have written for Impact while being sponsored by the Career's Development Group (CDG), she remembered my name and asked me to write a little article on what happened to me professionally after life in the tropics. I am more than happy to do this as I have been very touched by supporters of the CDG who raised money for my work in Belize. A great token of appreciation has been when the Library Association nominated me for the Cosmopolitan Women of Achievement Award and paid for me to attend the Award Ceremony in London in September 2000. Thank you all for that! 

Yes, for many people doing VSO is at least a career break. Just a few return to their old jobs, many find new jobs in their field, go study, change career or decide to settle in their new country. Being away gives you the distance to reconsider your life and the needed push to dare something completely new. I also considered changing career, but I decided to remain in the information profession if I should find an interesting job in the international or development field. So I started looking for jobs during my last months in Belize by checking the Internet, the Guardian Weekly, the professional newspapers and magazines and applying for relevant e-Mail Listservs. I also made sure that professional friends kept me informed. With e-mail staying in touch with home has never been that easy and I certainly did not feel cut off. The situation will be different for VSO's who live in areas with no or limited Internet access.

But don't picture me in some fancy Internet café, but for example in a village bakery in the Guatemalan mountains that happened to set-up some extra business with three computers for the tourists. While on a Spanish training course I have selected ten information centres in the development field in Germany that I would have liked working for. I have sent initiative job applications by e-Mail and received three replies.

One of them was by the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg (UIE), Germany. We communicated back and forth and they have asked me to send in my complete written application (not that easy when you are away from home, you don't have originals of your documents with you and there is no professional photographer to make a decent picture …). UIE invited me to an interview and I made the difficult decision to pack my things and leave Belize. The interview was successful and the job was offered to me the next day! Today I am the Head of the Documentation Centre and Library at the UIE, quite a good position considering that they were expecting years of management experiences that I did not have. Surely my experiences working in Belize was a key factor in getting the job. Apart from managing an international library I am also the co-ordinator of an international network of Adult Education Information Centres called ALADIN, a position that sends me working all over the world. I truly love the international and development perspective of my work.

While in Belize I have also applied and got selected to work for the United Nations, a process that took a whole year. First you have to send in an application form. When selected you are invited to a written examination and when you pass you will be invited to an oral examination. In my case both exams were at UN headquarters in New York. I made it through the whole process and was put on their rooster of available professionals in the field of library and information professionals. The interesting fact is that we were just a handful of librarians and I got the impression that there is a much better chance of getting accepted than in other professions. Unfortunately British citizens are at the moment not eligible to apply for the UN National Competitive Recruitment Exams as there are already sufficient British citizens working for the UN. I am German and Germany is traditionally underrepresented in the UN. If you are not British, you might want to check their website[2] to see if you are eligible to apply.

I was already working five months for UNESCO in Hamburg when I got offered a job at the Dag Hammerskjöld Library at UN Headquarters. The offer came on September 10^th, 2001 and I have asked for one day of consideration. Well, September 11^th with its attacks didn't encourage me to go and live in New York. Therefore I have declined the offer and turned down a lifetime job which would have paid double salary of what I am earning right now. I had taken the job if it had been offered to me while I was unemployed, but for personal reasons I have preferred to work for the UN in Germany. This highlights one problem with big international organizations such as the Foreign Service, the UN etc.: Their decision process can take so long!

I hope that I could get across that doing VSO was certainly a career boost for me, although enhancing my career was the last thing on my mind when applying for VSO. I was certainly pleasantly surprised to see how it helped me getting good job offers in the international library community. All five VSO librarians that I knew in Belize have found jobs when they returned to Britain and three of us are working now for international organizations.

The other point I want to get across is that if you are interested in an international career as a librarian, you certainly have a good chance as there do not seem to be many of us adventurous enough to live and work abroad. VSO is always looking for librarians and I could choose between five different offers from Africa, South America and Central America.

So go for it and Good Luck and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions regarding working overseas, doing VSO, applying for the UN or in general.