Gaza, State of Palestine:  Volunteers are catalysts of change and make important contributions to sustainable development – this is so aptly personified by Mona Ouda and Diana Abu Ramadan, two national UN Volunteers with UNDP’s rubble removal programme. Engineers and workers are part of this USD $ 14 million project to facilitate the removal of debris of destroyed homes and other civic infrastructure in The Gaza Strip. Four female engineers that include Mona and Diana are also part of this programme.

Brasilia, Brazil: Volunteerism is giving your time and expertise in exchange for knowledge, and the opportunity to be part of the changes you want to make in the world. I urge everyone to become a volunteer in any way you can. You can start by helping people in your own community, then you will be helping people from the whole country, and then, who knows, you may also be helping people from all over the world. 

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: I had the privilege and pleasure to work as a UN Volunteer Medical Doctor in three different countries. My first experience was as a UNV Medical Doctor in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2009) with the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC). It was an opportunity to learn about the UN mission way of life, and I underwent many trainings. Our level 2 clinic handled numerous Malaria cases besides other medical problems.

Harare, Zimbabwe: When Amy Wickham, an international UN Volunteer, joined the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe, she didn't know what to expect. Yet this experience changed her life. "The experience and exposure that I've got since I started as a volunteer has been phenomenal", she says. "The ownership that I've been given over the projects, as well as the time and responsibility that I've been given from professionals that I've worked with has been fantastic."

Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Since September 2014, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Health have been receiving international UN Volunteers to work in Health Care Centres across Trinidad and Tobago to support current staff and ensure consistent quality service is being provided for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.

Prishtina, Kosovo: Building on our achievements with the foresight exercise for unemployment in Kosovo, our innovations team at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which I am part of, is now moving on to the Big Data realm. Every day, people around the world are generating massive amounts of data that, when aggregated and depersonalized to protect the privacy of each one of us, can be used to get insights into the state of society and enable us to respond more effectively and efficiently to its needs.

Katmandu, Nepal: My name is Manash Gadtaula and I am a national UN Volunteer in Nepal. I serve as a civil engineer in a team of eight for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) building demolitions project, as a support for the Village Development Committee. Demolition of houses can sound counter-intuitive but it is actually necessary in order to prevent further loss of lives during the aftershocks.

Member States of the Open Working Group on the Post-2015 agenda agreed, "There should be [a sustainable development goal] on peaceful and inclusive societies, with the aim of building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels,"  recalled Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme at the launch of the State of the World's Volunteerism Report 2015. "Volunteers can help engage people from all walks of life in making progress towards that goal a reality," she concluded.

Katmandu, Nepal: My name is Hotrika Joshi and I am a national UN Volunteer Civil Engineer in Nepal. I am part of a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) demolition project, which has handled the damage assessment of 250 households, benefitting approximately 1,500 people. In the Irkhu Village Development Committee area, a thousand more buildings need to be assessed and potentially torn down within the very first weeks, before the monsoon arrives.