In pictures: International Volunteering Day
- Published
Nicaraguan volunteer Martin Jimenez Velasquez has won the International Citizen Service (ICS) photography competition with a set of pictures of projects in his homeland, taken while working with sustainable development charity Raleigh International.
The award was announced on International Volunteering Day, set up by the UN in 1985 as a way to celebrate the power of volunteering. Here Velasquez shows volunteers refining sand which will be used to construct tree nurseries in La Flor, Achuapa.
The ICS programme is funded by the UK government and offers 18-25-year-olds an opportunity to work with local volunteers in developing countries. This photo was taken by Ben Cassells and shows children from Zambia's Walter Herbert primary school learning about the benefits of sport and exercise.
Other category winners and runners-up included this picture by Matthew Burnett, a volunteer with Tearfund, of a young boy at a community centre for children in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Eilish Owens took this photograph of a group helping to dig and lay 5km of trenches and water pipes to six new water points at a village in Tanzania, providing families and businesses with safe water.
Volunteers lead a sexual health workshop at the request of a group of young hairdressers in El Salvador, where abortion is illegal, though recent international pressure may see changes in 2015. This was taken by Elam Forrester while volunteering for International Citizen Service.
Ben Cassells took this picture in Zambia, the outcome of a hard day's work in a mill, grinding maize.
Peter Ford was a volunteer with Y-Care in the disaster prevention team and took this at the site of a fatal rockslide in Grey-Bush, a Freetown slum in Sierra Leone.
Dexter Barnes captured an image of tree planting in Mulanje, Malawi.
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