Driven by a partnership between the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Development Programme (UNDP), and UN Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, IT Girls aims to make girls and women more visible in the world of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

International Volunteer Day (IVD), mandated by the UN General Assembly, is marked annually on 5 December. It provides volunteers and organizations with the opportunity to promote their contributions to development at the local, national and international levels. This year’s theme, "Volunteers Build Resilient Communities", celebrates volunteers who improve the resilience of communities in the face of natural disasters, economic stresses and political shocks.

For the last seven months, Oleksandra has been leading the communications team at the UNICEF Kazakhstan country office. This involves a lot of tasks, including implementation of the Communication and Advocacy Strategy, namely producing digital content and facilitation of all public events.

The community health volunteers movement has proved to be an effective instrument in awareness-raising campaigns in rural areas. Since the first round of training during 2012-2015, more than 1,644 community health volunteers have been working in the remote areas of Karakalpakstan. The volunteers are residents of local communities who spread the knowledge about the types of diseases prevalent in the region, their symptoms, preventive measures and importance of timely medical checkups.

Yulia graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Oriental Studies from the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow and a double Master’s degree in Public Policy and International Relations from HSE the University of Bologna.

This four-day long event served as the starting point for the implementation of the agreement between the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, signed earlier this year, through which the Russian Federation will deploy fully funded Russian UN Volunteers with UNV.

Elsie Aroyan is serving with UNHCR as a UN Volunteer Community Services Assistant to protect the rights and build a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people in Armenia. As a displaced person herself, Elsie can relate better than anyone to the pain, fears and challenges which these displaced persons and refugees suffer from.

Hyeon-Soo Jeon, from South Korea, was interested in starting a career in international development, and just after graduation was selected for an international UN Youth Volunteer assignment, fully funded by the Republic of Korea, with the United Nations Development Programme in Kosovo (as per UN Security Council Resolution 1244).

Earlier this year, we launched our social integration strategy. Based on considerable research, it sets out a new definition of social integration – emphasizing that it is about more than simply the degree of contact between people but also includes promoting equality and improving people’s levels of activity and participation in their local communities. But encouraging social integration is a meaningless exercise unless people are provided with opportunities to come together. Volunteering does just that.

Arta has been involved in the Territorial Employment Pact, an innovative joint initiative of the municipality of Gjakovë/Djakovica, Austrian Development Agency and UNDP aiming to promote inclusive local economic development, serving people who are looking for skills and income to achieve a better life. Adfter graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Kosovo, Arta started working in The Ideas Partnership, a non-governmental organization that promotes employment, social inclusion, preservation of cultural heritage and healthy environment.