The high-level gathering convened more than 450 onsite participants and more than 3000 online viewers. They included representatives from the Government, UN partners, members of the Diplomatic Corps, Volunteer Involved Organizations, academia, influencers, and volunteers who came together to recognize the spirit of volunteerism in shaping a better world.
IVD 2023 Celebration in Thailand– Calling on everyone for a better world.
New paths, enriching opportunities: online volunteering
Online Volunteering service within the UN Volunteers Programme provides a way to gain professional experience in a UN system while offering your expertise virtually to advance global peace and contributing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, the online volunteering journey can create new and unexpected opportunities. This is how Nazlı Güzin Özdil’s and Hassan Samini Ngala’s story began.
Nazlı is a passionate Turkish volunteer who discovered her love for voluntarism during community service projects, where she tutored at a village school. With her background in teaching English and a Master’s in Social Policy, Nazlı’s dream was to combine her desire to serve #foreverychild and her evidence-generation skills. She would later describe volunteering as “devotion, sharing and impactful”.
IVD in Iraq: promoting the power of everyone for sustainability
As peace gives impetus for Iraq to move from a crisis context to development, United Nations Volunteers (UNV) looks forward to working with the Government of Iraq and integrating volunteers into the country's sustainable development agenda. --Kyoko Yokosuka, UNV Deputy Executive Coordinator
These were the words of Ms Kyoko Yokosuka, UNV Deputy Executive Coordinator, as she addressed the audience at the high-level International Volunteer Day (IVD) event in Baghdad.
"In solidarity with people from my continent through volunteering!" From Egypt to Somalia, a UN Volunteer recounts
Ereny Elea Hanna Zarif is from Egypt. She is an international UN Volunteer Electoral Field Coordination Specialist with United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM). She started her UN Volunteer assignment during the pandemic. For Ereny, volunteering is a way for her to be in solidarity with people from the same continent.
Covid hit. Everything shut down. I had a job in Egypt but wanted an international perspective, so I started looking for opportunities, and then one day I landed in Somalia.
It was April 2021 and amidst the ongoing unrest in the country around that time, I thought to myself – my international volunteer experience is going to end before it begins. A feeling of risk started to settle in. I made sure that my runaway bag was ready.
Executive Coordinator's remarks on the occasion of International Volunteer Day 2023 in Mogadishu
Your Excellency, Minister of Youth and Sports, dear friends and colleagues,
The person speaking on the video like a robot was me.
The message was to the global audience.
Today I would like some personal remarks for you, UN Volunteers in Somalia.
I came here to present personal greetings not only from myself, as the Executive Coordinator, but also from 13,000 UN Volunteers around the world. We know of you, we hear about you and we appreciate all what you do.