Varadkar heads for Mongolia

During the past year there were undoubtedly a number of occasions when the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern must have wished that Dublin 15 TD, Leo Varadkar was in some far away place like Outer Mongolia or such like to spare him some of the awkward questioning and jibes about his personal finances.

Unfortunately the Fine Gael deputy has waited until Bertie stepped down before fulfilling the former taoiseach’s wish. This month he will be jetting off to Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia as a volunteer with VSO the overseas development charity.

Deputy Varadkar is one of five Irish politicians taking part in the charity’s ‘Politicians for Development Programme’ in which Irish Government representatives are volunteering to work for 2-3 weeks during the Dáil’s summer recess 2008.

The Dublin 15 man will spend 2½ weeks in Ulan Bator as a volunteer in the National Centre for Health Development (NCHD). He will be living in a shared apartment with three volunteers from the United Kingdom who are currently working in other VSO supported projects in the city.

Speaking to Community Voice, he said “I am very grateful to VSO for allowing me to put some of my skills as a politician and as a doctor to good use over the recess. I hope to use some of my knowledge and expertise to assist the Mongolian government with its public health programme and also to promote voluntary service overseas back home in Ireland.

I am hoping that my background will equip me to do the job well but I am conscious of the limitations of what I can do given the cultural differences between Ireland and Mongolia and the language barrier,” he said.

Among the tasks planned for his Mongolian visit will be analysing the work of NCHD and preparing a list of recommendations on how they can improve the work they do. He will also lead a number of workshops for the staff on public health campaigns and lobbying parliament and politicians.

A number of meetings have also been planned with parliamentarians, government ministers, international organisations such as the UNFPA and European ambassadors and he would hope to use these meetings “as an opportunity to open doors for the National Centre for Health Development.”

Deputy Varadkar is anxious to stress that he does not see this as being a one off action on his part but rather the beginning of a process to raise awareness about the work of VSO. “When I come home, I will try to partner the NCHD with an Irish counterpart and to promote VSO Ireland in politics.

“I would also aim to promote the organisation here in Dublin 15 where there are so many people whom VSO would love to have as long-term volunteers. These would include teachers, school principals, health care workers, managers, civil servants, accountants and so on. Needless to say, VSO would like to have a lot more people to choose from.”

This view is echoed by Malcolm Quigley, Director of VSO Ireland who is eager to promote volunteering amongst professionals. While many similar organisations tend to attract younger people Malcolm points out that “VSO volunteers are professionals with at least 3 years professional experience. Indeed the average age of a VSO volunteer is 41 and one third of volunteers are over 50.”

Inviting politicians to volunteer is part of a specific strategy being devised by the organisation. According to Malcolm “we work with grassroots organisations in Africa and Asia who have specifically asked for help with campaigning and lobbying. I believe our Irish politicians can add value in this area, but equally as important will be the learning they will bring back to Ireland and use in their day-to-day decision-making. We now live in an interdependent world and political decisions in Ireland affect our partners overseas.”

The other Irish politicians taking part in the project are Chris Andrews TD (FF) who will be visiting The Gambia; Senator Dominic Hannigan (Labour) who is also going to Mongolia; Senator Mark Daly (FF) will be working in Zambia and Sean Sherlock TD (Labour) who is visiting Namibia.

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