WHEN VICKI MASTERS returns to work following the festive break it is to no ordinary desk job.

The 53-year-old, from Kingskettle, has been doing volunteer work in Namibia since March and is due to fly back later this month after spending Christmas at home with her family.

While others settle back into their usual routine in offices, factories and other places of work, Vicki will pick up her role helping to enhance the education system in the African nation.

The grandmother is on secondment from her job at NHS Forth Valley, where she is in charge of training and development, and with the international development charity VSO is working as an organisational development adviser for the Namibian Ministry of Education.

The experience has had such an impact on her, she is also setting up a charity which will help children affected—many orphaned—by HIV and AIDS.

Vicki said she had followed her dream in signing up for the placement, something she had wanted to do since she was at university.

She explained, “When I was at university I saw a poster for the VSO. I always remembered that poster and once my children had grown up I started to think about what I wanted to do.”

Although she had no particular desire to go to Africa, since arriving she has been enchanted by the continent.

She said, “I'm absolutely smitten by Africa.”

Vicki's job is to implement a performance management system and she is also creating a leadership development programme for school principals.

She has already established a local implementation team so that her work will be carried on by others when she leaves.

She said her greatest achievement would be if the leadership development programme impacted on exam results, boosting both poor and high performing schools.

While Vicki's work is mostly with principals it has taken her into classrooms in several schools—in particular one which has a high proportion of orphans, largely because of the AIDS pandemic, and has the poorest performance in the area.

She first visited the school in northern Namibia where she is based during her induction and said, “I was really shocked because it was in such a bad way.”

It is at this particular school Vicki is setting up the charity, although its reach will extend beyond its pupils.

A dance teacher she has become friends with there already helps vulnerable children by teaching them Zulu dance, boosting their confidence and allowing her to talk to girls about protecting themselves against HIV and AIDS.

Vicki's charity will raise funds to support that work and soup kitchens in the area.

She said, “I would have fallen backwards if someone told me I would be setting up a charity, but there is such a need.

“The idea and direction is already there, they just need support.”

Vicki's secondment was enabled by a partnership between VSO and NHS Scotland which allows employees to volunteer in Africa without losing pension or employment benefits and for which VSO is currently recruiting.