Easter 1988: Just 18 years old, I stood at the edge of a lake with tears running down my cheeks. From where I stood, I could see the village I had visited for much of the day. The images of malnourished children and emaciated adults kept playing like a slide show in my mind. I had been in the highlands of Papua New Guinea for the previous five weeks volunteering with an organisation that provides radio communications and technical services to remote and isolated groups.

Over the Easter weekend I had travelled with a few friends to visit some remote villages near Lake Kutubu, Papua New Guinea. To get there, we had flown for one hour, tramped through a tropical jungle for four hours and then spent a further two hours paddling the lake in a hollowed out log (which the locals referred to as a 'canoe'). We were welcomed like family as we arrived at the village. I will never forget the smiles on the children's faces despite the rust color of their hair indicating a lack of essential vitamins to help them grow and develop as they should. Although we had brought food and medicine, which would provide them with some immediate relief, I could not get past what would happen to the children in the longer term.

The decision I was about to make would significantly alter the direction of my own life, though I did not realize it at the time. Wiping away the tears, I began to focus on what I could do to help create a world where all children regardless of their race, color or location had the opportunities to grow and develop as intended.

I picked up a small stone and tossed it into the pool of water in front of me, the ripples get wider and larger. By myself I could do very little to bring about long term change, but a multitude of like-minded individuals could literally create ever-widening ripples to significantly change the world in which we live. As the splendour of the sunset reflected on the water, the importance of this idea gripped me: imagine it, an ocean of people who wanted to leave the world in a better state than they had found it.

October 1998: I was in northern Ghana doing research for my Masters degree in Development Studies. While visiting a number of schools, I was shocked to see how few teachers there were. One school had one teacher for every 100 children. Not a lot of teaching was going on! Although the long term goal must surely be training more Ghanaian teachers, the short term solution seemed to be volunteer teachers to bridge the gap and ensure that a generation of children was not lost.

Upon returning to New Zealand, I set in motion the framework for the Global Volunteer Network with the goal of connecting volunteers with communities in need around the world. Our vision is to support the work of local community through the placement of international volunteers. I believe that local communities are in the best position to determine their needs and we provide volunteers to help achieve them. In turn, volunteers have amazing opportunities for personal growth in their own lives.

Focusing on 'local solutions to local problems,' my wife, Jo Salisbury, and I officially launched GVN in 2002 with volunteer programs in just three countries, Ecuador, Ghana and Nepal. With the help of the first hired staffers who worked out of our spare bedroom, GVN grew from 240 volunteers its first year to 1,520 volunteers two years later. Now, we have thankfully moved into an office in Wellington with some 14 staff members.

Over 8,000 selfless, hard working GVN volunteers have donated their time to help countless children, families and communities in need over the past six years. This is a remarkable figure and an extraordinary achievement, especially when you consider that a single volunteer is a representation of ten, twenty, fifty others, or more. There is a long trail of kindness that goes back much farther and runs much deeper than what may appear. There are family members helping out with fees and donations; there are friends collecting toys and books to go to orphaned children; there are work colleagues baking cakes and organising fundraising morning teas. The trail goes on and on...

GVN has gone through an amazing growth cycle. We have recently launched new volunteer programs in our twentieth country. There has been lots of learning along the way but all very important to shape future decisions and direction. In our future planning, we are focusing on the complete support structure for communities in need. This includes our volunteering programs, enhancing the capacity of our partner projects and raising funds. We are also focusing on our www.stopchildpoverty.org campaign. I'm still under 40 and what we will achieve in the next 5 years will blow your mind! I remain firmly committed to what Mahatma Gandhi said, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."