From Papua New Guinea to a lifetime together: Kevin and Colleen's story

For Kevin and Colleen Bird, volunteering overseas has been about far more than completing assignments. Across nearly four decades, their volunteer experiences have shaped their careers, broadened their perspectives, created lifelong friendships, and even brought them together as a couple.

Their connection with the Pacific began in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s, when both were serving as volunteers through different organisations. Kevin arrived in Aitape in 1975 as a Volunteer Service Abroad Te Tūao Tāwāhi (VSA) volunteer, while Canadian-born Colleen was volunteering as a secondary school teacher through Canadian University Service Overseas. Although they were living in the same town, it was a gathering of local teachers and volunteers that first brought them together.

The pair married in 1976 and have since shared a lifelong commitment to volunteering, community development and maintaining relationships with the people they worked alongside. Between them, they have completed multiple assignments across Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, with Kevin undertaking four VSA assignments between 1975 and 2011.

Reflecting on those experiences, Kevin believes volunteering offered opportunities for both professional and personal growth that have continued long after each assignment ended. “Volunteering changed the way we look at life,” he says. “Each assignment reinforced the importance of simplicity, relationships and appreciating what we have.”

Kevin and Colleen stayed in the same house that they lived in as volunteers. It has been kept as a guest house since they left in 2009 and has been

One assignment that left a particularly lasting impression was Kevin’s role at Vatu Rural Training Centre in Solomon Islands between 2007 and 2009. Established after the country’s period of civil unrest, the centre was created to support young people who had missed out on educational opportunities and equip them with practical skills to strengthen their communities.

Kevin’s assignment focused on supporting carpentry training and helping improve water and sanitation systems at the centre. However, as he quickly discovered, the most valuable contributions often came through working alongside local leaders rather than leading change himself.

Central to that experience was Vatu founder and principal James Manengelea, whose commitment to supporting young people continues more than two decades after establishing the centre. “James is the best leader I have ever worked for,” Kevin says. “He has an incredible ability to bring out the best in young people and help them see what they are capable of.”

Vatu’s programmes were designed to provide practical skills that students could take back to their villages, including carpentry, agriculture, mechanics, nutrition and small-scale enterprise development. The focus was not simply on employment, but on helping young people contribute to the wellbeing and resilience of their own communities.

For Kevin, one of the most rewarding aspects of returning to Vatu years later was seeing the impact those students had gone on to make. Former students had become tradespeople, community leaders and mentors, using the skills and confidence gained at the centre to support others.

While Kevin is pleased to have played a small part in that journey, he credits the local leadership that made those outcomes possible. “The successes happened because of people like James and Christina,” he says. “They were the ones doing the work year after year. We were privileged to support what they had already built.”

The relationships formed during those years have endured well beyond the formal assignment period. James visited New Zealand in 2014, staying with Kevin and Colleen and reconnecting with their family. Christina later visited through a training programme, continuing a friendship that has now spanned decades.

Those connections were strengthened further in late 2025 when Kevin and Colleen returned to Solomon Islands for the first time since completing their assignment. Improved communication technology had made it easier to reconnect, and the couple finally decided it was time to visit.

Returning to Vatu after 16 years felt remarkably familiar. “There were new buildings and improvements, but the vision was the same,” Kevin says. “It felt a bit like coming home.”

The visit also provided an opportunity to see firsthand how the centre had continued to grow under local leadership. Students were still learning practical skills, communities were still benefiting, and James’ original vision for Vatu was still guiding the centre’s development.

For Kevin and Colleen, the experience reinforced something they have observed throughout their volunteer journey – that the most significant impacts are often the most difficult to measure.

While assignment reports may focus on outputs and activities, many of the most meaningful outcomes emerge years later through relationships, confidence gained, skills shared and opportunities created.

One example that stands out for Kevin is a friend from Papua New Guinea who later established a successful cleaning business. While it had little connection to any formal assignment objective, she later told Colleen that seeing her willingness to try new things had given her the confidence to pursue opportunities herself. “You never really know what impact you’ve had,” Kevin says.

Solar pumped water supply still in use today.

Looking back on more than 50 years of connections across the Pacific, Kevin’s advice to future volunteers is simple: approach every assignment with humility, patience and a willingness to learn. “Work alongside people rather than trying to lead from the front,” he says. “Listen, ask questions and respect the knowledge that already exists. Volunteering is as much about learning from others as it is about sharing your own experience.”

For Kevin and Colleen, that approach has resulted in something far more enduring than any individual assignment. It has created friendships that have lasted a lifetime, strengthened communities, and built connections that continue to enrich their lives more than half a century after their volunteer journey began.