  We present numerical evidence for the emergence of an extended valence bond
solid (VBS) phase at $T=0$ in the kagome $S=1/2$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet
with ferromagnetic further-neighbor interactions. The VBS is located at the
boundary between two magnetically ordered regions and extends close to the
nearest-neighbor Heisenberg point. It exhibits a diamond-like singlet covering
pattern with a $12$-site unit-cell. Our results suggest the possibility of a
direct, possibly continuous, quantum phase transition from the neighboring
$\mathbf{q}=0$ coplanar magnetically ordered phase into the VBS phase.
Moreover, a second phase which breaks lattice symmetries, and is of likely
spin-nematic type, is found close to the transition to the ferromagnetic phase.
The results have been obtained using numerical Exact Diagonalization. We
discuss implications of our results on the nature of nearest-neighbor
Heisenberg antiferromagnet.
