History of VIA

VIA began in 1963 when Dwight Clark, then Stanford's Dean of Freshman Men, organized a summer project with Stanford University students. The students assisted programs serving Chinese refugees in Hong Kong through rooftop schools, medical clinics, recreation programs, and road building. The summer reshaped many of these students' personal and professional goals. They so valued the benefits of their cross-cultural experience that they recruited other students for similar projects. In 1966, the program was incorporated under the name Volunteers in Asia, now VIA.

In the 1960's and early 1970's, student participation in our programs was shaped by the Vietnam War. We then created two-year positionns for conscientious objectors seeking "alternative service" opportunities in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Taiwan and Nepal.

Dwight Clark at 2006 Reunion

How to Retire Gracefully from an Organization that is Your Life

That VIA was indeed “my life” was indicated to me at one point when I found myself responding to questions about how I’m doing by explaining how VIA’s doing.

Upon hitting retirement age (and I pegged that at 70 rather than 65), I was guided by hearsay stories of a number of retirements of founders of non-profits: staying around, looking over shoulders and offering frequent “corrective” advice stymied new staff and didn’t allow the organization to move forward.

Two things have allowed me to largely avoid that problem: One, VIA’s ongoing staff is a terrific one. They’ve taken a number of initiatives that—more frequently than I’d like to admit—have left me asking why I didn’t think of the same thing 5 or 10 or 15 years ago. Moreover, they’ve been extremely gracious in keeping me in the loop—inviting me to events, keeping me informed, asking me to plug in historical notes that may have relevance to the present, etc. And occasionally there has been the chance to, together, develop a new initiative; the new Myanmar volunteer post is the obvious example, since that’s a country I’ve been visiting and following for more than a decade.

The other factor is that the freedom of retirement has allowed me to cherry-pick favorite activities and pursue them fully. I’d always enjoyed taking Asian university students on study programs to another part of the region. One VIA program which I created and led has taken Japanese students on a “contemporary issues” program to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore each year since 1991; I’ve continued that on my own since VIA is now focused on study programs to California. And I finally figured out a way to take university students to Myanmar and involve them in the experiences I know will be important to them, even though that government doesn’t foster such interaction. I’ve also become actively involved in an education project in Myanmar. The time freed up by retirement has also provided more opportunity for mentoring (their term, not mine) many of the Asian students who have been on my programs in the past.

And since all this activity keeps me in Asia more than half of each year (5 trips, each 5-6 weeks), this arrangement not only keeps me engaged and happy but more or less guarantees that I’m not around the VIA office to get into that meddling-founder syndrome I spoke of before. Neat!

Volunteer Programs in Asia

By the end of the Vietnam War, the two-year opportunities opened to graduates and professionals and short-term postings for undergraduates. These programs were extended to students from the University of California at Santa Cruz. In 1980, a China program was added to continuing programs in Indonesia and Taiwan. VIA volunteers served in Vietnam starting in 1990, and in Thailand beginning in 1992. Currently, VIA places volunteers in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and most recently, Cambodia.

While most VIA assignments involve English instruction, an increasing number of "English Resource" positions provide volunteers with opportunities at local non-profit organizations and government offices.

Read more about VIA's long-term and summer programs in Asia 

VIA's Stanford Programs

In 1977, Japanese universities requested a summer English language and American culture program. The immediate success encouraged VIA to start the Asia Exchange Programs, which now brings more than 200 Asian students to Stanford annually. Participates benefit from short-term, educationally-rich programs that focus on a wide variety of themes; language and culture , service-learning , western and eastern medicine , U.S. government and politics, and business.

Read more about VIA's Stanford Programs

The Appropriate Technology Project

In 1975, VIA launched the Appropriate Technology Project to increase access to materials in this field. The Appropriate Technology Sourcebook led to production in microfiche of an entire library of more than 1,000 appropriate technology books. Some 1,600 library sets have been distributed to development organizations and workers in 125 countries. Currently it's available in CD-ROM format. After a long search for an organization better equipped to update the Sourcebook, VIA transferred the project to the Appropriate Technology Institute at Colorado State University.

Avia Travel

Avia Travel grew out of an in-house travel desk providing transportation for VIA volunteers. Now an independent agency operated under a management contract, Avia serves VIA's needs and the transportation demands of many non-profit educational organizations and individual travelers.

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