Have you returned from time overseas

Bringing it all back home

On your return to Ireland, continuous engagement is the key to getting the most out of your time overseas. By drawing on the experience and learning you have gained, your input and perspective are invaluable to others and to yourself, whether you go on to study in a related discipline or get involved in campaigning or development education. As one volunteer remarked, "commitment doesn't end at the airport".

Comhlamh (which means "link hands" or "solidarity") provides an invaluable conduit for studying, campaigning, activism and lobbying for change. What makes it unique, and imbues it with a specific understanding of volunteers, is that it was set up in 1975 by Irish returned development workers, who defeined the organisation's principle objective as: "to enable persons who have rendered services overseas in developing countries upon their return to Ireland to bring to bear their own particular experience in order to further international development co-operation".

It now has activist groups and initiatives made up of volunteers from the public in the areas of Trade Justice, Focus Magazine and Options and Issues in Development and it runs regular courses and training workshops for the public, volunteers and development workers alike.

Comhlamh supporters and members have always seen overseas development work as part of a broader commitment to global development and solidarity. Many of the causes of global inequality, poverty and oppression have their origin in the industrialised countries and can be addressed by education and campaigning.

People of all ages are joining Comhlamh and they believe that being a member and supporter of an organisation like Comhlamh is more important then ever in the 'new' post-Celtic Tiger Ireland and an increasingly troubled and unequal world.