Isna Aulia Fajarini joined the UNICEF Nutrition Team in June 2021, after getting her master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. Her knowledge of anaemia, babies with low birth weight and obesity helps her provide substantive support to school-based nutrition programmes for children in Tegal District in Central Java. The programme targets some 2,000 fourth graders and comprises various elements from student and teacher-led nutrition education to expanding de-worming programmes, and beyond.

“Volunteering with UNICEF has helped me expand my knowledge on child protection issues and develop a passion for advancing children’s rights,” says So Dam Hong, a UN Youth Volunteer who supports adolescent empowerment to end child marriage in India, a core strategy of UNICEF.

Leonardo Martínez is a UN Volunteer serving as Protection, Childhood and Humanitarian Action Specialist with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Colombia, which is the lead host country for Venezuelan migrants and refugees. These migrants and refugees face a hoard of humanitarian issues. The situation is worsened by internal armed conflict, as approximately 6.9 million people in rural areas are under the control or influence of non-state armed groups.

According to reports, since the war started more than 2.4 million Ukrainians have crossed the border into Romania from Ukraine or Moldova.

In Peru, UNV partnered with two UN entities that host the highest numbers of UN Volunteers, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to carry out a talent outreach mission on the northern border of the country. 

Delrin joined the UNV team in 2021 with an assignment in the Darién, a difficult-to-reach indigenous jungle area located on the Colombia-Panama border. A daily average of between 1,000 and 1,500 migrants pass through this place, and access to drinking water is a permanent need. "UNICEF installed water treatment plants in the Darién with which approximately 40,000 liters of drinking water are currently produced per day. My task is to monitor them so that local communities and migrant populations can efficiently use that water," Delrin continues.

The Peruvian towns of Tumbes, Piura, and Lambayeque are facing a triple crisis: climate change, a dengue fever outbreak and forced migration. It is estimated that 840,000 people need humanitarian assistance after heavy rains and are at risk of a possible "El Niño" phenomenon.

Meet  Sabilou Ibrahim, a national UN Volunteer specialist responsible for monitoring and evaluation. Sabilou recalls his first week with UNICEF Benin, where he quickly felt welcomed and motivated to start his assignment. “It just took me 72 hours to be adopted by my colleagues” he states. 

Scaling up education efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo Born and raised in a small village in Northern Sumatera, Indonesia, Astrini Simanjuntak witnessed stark inequalities in her community in terms of access to basic services, particularly among women and girls. This pushed her to pursue a master’s degree in sociology, majoring in gender.

According to the latest data on immunization in Indonesia, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in July 2022, the country has experienced a significant decline in basic immunization coverage. From 84.2 per cent in 2020, the coverage rate dropped to 79.6 percent in 2021. This decline is being attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.