About Us
Voluntary Aid and Development Organisation (VADO) is a non-profit volunteer support hub, working to promote open and equal access to civic service, civic engagement, civic empowerment and civic technology for all citizens;
With its operational base in F.C.T Abuja-Nigeria, VADO works to improve linkages and strengthen support for volunteers by harnessing voluntary services for need-based initiatives, towards driving social change and resourcefully improving lives.
Our core programmatic areas focuses on leveraging on advocacy, capacity-building, research, and digital solutions to promote volunteer-driven:
1. Labour Economy,
2. Market Economy,
3. Mobility and Migration, and
4. Resource Governance.
As a civic-driven organisation that is bent on strengthening citizens action in the co-creation, co-delivery and co-utilization of public services, practices and policies; we work to build synergies with relevant stakeholders and partners using voluntary operational standards to leverage on local expertise and resources, towards opening civic spaces in communities and public institutions.
Our Basic Objectives
- To mobilize for the welfare and workfare of volunteers through advocacy, partnerships, solicitation and impact drives.
- To build the capacity of youths in accessing socio-economic opportunities through voluntary services.
- To offer range of ancillary public services through activities aimed at empowering citizens for social change.
- To boost demand and supply in the delivery of socio-economic services by promoting social entrepreneurship within the voluntary sector.
- To promote the use of digital tools and strategic programs to harness constituency resourcing and citizens engagement in policy and decision making.
- To facilitate local and international service-learning exchanges for People Who Volunteer (PWV), towards promoting cross-border solidarity, social inclusion, knowledge sharing and resource mobilization.
Our Vision
A civil society where every citizen is empowered to operate within a freer, fairer and safer civic space through volunteering.
Our Mission
To drive a volunteer resource hub, with a cause to better lives, support public institutions and strengthen communities, through voluntary aid and development efforts.
Our Legal Status
Registered / Incorporated Trustees - CAC/IT/56697
Our Core Values
• Open Work • Young People • Service Delivery • Equal Opportunity • Popular Participation • Digital Innovation • Social Entrepreneurship
HOW WE WORK
At VADO, we implement our mission (Theory of Change) by applying these strategic approaches;
- Identify diverse civic and local needs,
- Develop creative service-driven solutions to address these needs,
- Mobilize human and local resources to address the needs, and
- Build sustainable partnerships with the government, local clients and the community to leverage on socio-economic benefits of the solutions we provide.
Our Strategies
Civic Service
Service is not a new phenomenon. “Anyone can become great, because everyone can serve!” – Martin Luther King Jr. Individuals have willingly served their neighbors, rural communities and fellow humans since the beginning of human societies. Service has been performed in the interest of country, faith, and humanitarianism. It has diverse motivations, and has taken many forms through the years in many different cultural contexts; where common views and discourse have referred to such actions as volunteerism.
Our civic service strategic approach centers on connecting individuals to institutional activities, which interacts with the Political, Environmental, Social and Technological (PEST) spaces for creating change. And in creating this change, we build linkages and develop partnerships with recipient stakeholders, to establish roles for citizens or service providers, and expectations about where, when, how, and why the service should be performed.
Civic Engagement
Underrepresentation of citizens-led groups and clusters with the government have caused significant issues faced by such groups; and also, posing challenges that affect the outcome and sustainability of government programs, projects and policies. It is against this backdrop that we facilitate measures through this strategic plan to ensure that citizens, with focus on young people and women, are meaningfully involved in institutionalized governance and legislative processes, economic opportunities and community organizing; which is essential to building civic resilience, and opening spaces for civic inclusion and participation in the polity.
Our work in leading fresh perspectives and innovative ideas on civic engagement is progressively serving as an impetus for popular dialogue and action; and objectively building a basis for policy discussions around youth and women engagement in public affairs.
Civic Empowerment
In the face of shrinking civic space and sparse public resources, we believe that empowering citizens involves opportunities that grant citizens access to initiate, implement, own and manage socio-economic projects; influence policies and decision-making; hold leaders accountable and also exercise their civic rights and freedoms. In other words, equipping citizens to acquire knowledge, skills, resources, and opportunities to engage actively in civic life and have a meaningful impact on the issues that matter to them is fundamental to achieving an empowered civil society.
VADO works to empower people to engage politically, prosper economically, and thrive socially. Our civic empowerment approach focuses on building the capacities of citizens with preference to (young people and women groups) to overcome significant barriers to collective action, through community organizing strategies that drive resource mobilization and social entrepreneurship.
Civic Technology
The outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted how central digital technology are for all aspects of life in – work, health, finance, education, commerce, and governance. Digital infrastructures for public services are no longer just nice to have, but essential elements of a 21st century nation. Efforts like the African Union’s – Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030) is taking lead in building an integrated and inclusive digital society and economy for Africa’s citizens.
VADO leverages on civic-tech as a key implementation strategy to help mobilize citizens’ participation in the co-creation, co-delivery and co-utilization of public services; and assisting government in delivering public services towards strengthening linkages with the citizens. Civic-tech is where the public lends its talents, usually on voluntary basis, to help the government do a better job. It has brought about powerful tools which have potentially empowered citizens to make informed and smarter decisions, get organized and make their voices heard.