Bintang Aulia began her volunteering work  in 2016 during her last year of university, when she joined a climate movement in Bandung. She participated for a year learning not only about the environment and what she can do to help the earth but also about how volunteering works. 

At 25 years of age, I was a teacher in Australia, yearning to experience something new. Out of the blue, I was offered an opportunity to teach at a missionary school in central Liberia. I remember going to a nearby library to check where Liberia was in the atlas!

Emmanuel is a national UN Volunteer Gender-based Violence Programme Specialist at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). He supports programming for innovative prevention, risk mitigation and quality response interventions in the Bay States of Nigeria (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe).

UN Volunteer Saleh Nasser, serves as an Adolescent and Youth Associate with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Jordan. He supports skills development programmes that place youth with community and business leaders who represent role models. Such programmes help to foster connections across generations through the transfer of knowledge, while equipping youth with tools for success in their future career paths.

Yasmine Diawara Affoue, David Roland (both from Côte d'Ivoire) and Samba Kante (Guinea) are all UN Volunteers who are passionate about advocating for young people. They provide their expertise to youth and women-focused programmes of UN agencies such as the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The fourth State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR), Building Equal and Inclusive Societies, is designed to strengthen understanding on volunteerism and demonstrate its universality, scope, and reach in the twenty-first century.

Mariam Diarra is one of the 49 UN Community Volunteer Midwives recruited by UNFPA to improve the quality of health services in community health centres located in six rural communities in Mali — Koulikoro, Ségou, Sikasso, Mopti, Gao and Timbuktu. The programme aims to achieve three key outcomes: zero preventable maternal deaths, zero unmet needs for family planning and zero gender-based violence and other harmful practices, such as child marriage.

UNFPA has been active in Ethiopia since 1973 and is working with the government, UN entities and partners to improve sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning, emergency obstetric care and fistula treatment. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed significant pressure on health service delivery and compounded existing challenges in promoting gender equality and improving maternal health. 

The report reveals that cooperation between volunteers and governments helps build collaborative decision-making. Despite the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic, global interest in volunteering has not waned, and volunteering in communities has endured, notwithstanding limited mobility and resources. While restrictions have prevented many people from volunteering in person, many have switched to volunteering online.

The Fellowship Programme provides an opportunity to bring 18 young professionals into UNFPA, with a dedicated focus on both providing a youth perspective and driving innovation in UNFPA’s priority areas. This includes addressing unmet needs for family planning, stopping preventable maternal deaths and ending violence against women and girls.