If you are over 21 and under 65 then you can apply for development worker jobs with VFA. The range of skills we're looking for is incredibly varied, covering a wide variety of occupations. However, whatever your field of work, you need not have a combination of a relevant professional qualification, just an aura for voluntarism.

You will be expected to live with a host family, or where circumstances cannot allow, a secure accommodation will be availed to you. The accommodation you will be provided will be considerable, for example, depending on whether you're based in a rural or an urban area, it will always be in keeping with local conditions. Living and working in East Africa can be personally and professionally very challenging. You'll have to adjust to a new way of life, and face up to problems you've probably never encountered before. However, in doing so, you'll derive a real sense of personal growth and achievement.

As a development worker, a key aspect of your role will be to share and pass on your professional skills to the people you work with. By developing the abilities and confidence of others, your work will continue to have an impact once you leave.

You will have the chance to make a valuable, lasting impact on people's lives, including your own. But sharing skills works both ways. It will be a learning process for you as well as for the people and communities you work with, and most development workers gain as much as they contribute.

Volunteering with VFA is a two-way process……………….

However, a development workers role is not all about giving. Sharing skills is very much a two-way process of mutual benefit. It's about people working together in partnership, learning from each other, sharing knowledge, and enhancing understanding and respect between cultures. By working in this way, you'll certainly gain as much as you give

Living and working in East Africa can be personally and professionally very challenging. You'll have to adjust to a new way of life, adapt to a different culture and customs, and face up to problems you've probably never encountered before. However, in doing so, you'll derive a real sense of personal growth and achievement.

At work, there's often the chance to take on a high level of responsibility and to stretch your capabilities in new areas such as training and team leadership. Ultimately, you'll return home with broader professional skills and new ways of working that could benefit your long-term career.

The most rewarding step you'll ever take
Although development workers receive a modest living allowance which affords a reasonable standard of living, salaries are not comparable with what you might earn at home. However, you can expect an experience that will be, both professionally and personally, uniquely rewarding.

Hundreds of people - people like you perhaps - have now worked as VFA development workers. Many simply describe it as the most rewarding step they have ever taken.