UN Volunteers put people first
On the frontlines of the Afghan refugee crisis in Pakistan, stands Farah Ismail, a UN Volunteer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Farah’s daily work ensures that refugees receive humanitarian aid and basic human services they urgently need. As a Palestinian Farah knows well what it’s like to be a refugee. Both her parents were forced to leave their homes and rely on humanitarian aid for their survival.
"My father and his family were forcefully displaced from Palestine to Jordan in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. My mother and maternal family fled from Palestine to Jordan during the Six Day War in 1967, this has inspired me to pursue a humanitarian career in service of refugees in particular," she says.
Ramadan inspires compassion and generosity
When a 7.5 magnitude earthquake tore through Palu in Central Sulawesi in September 2018, two memories surfaced for Moh. Tofan Saputra. He recalled seeing footage of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on television, which killed close to 230,000 people, most in Indonesia. He also remembered how as a junior high-school student, flood waters had inundated his family home, gutting his parents’ business, and placing his education on hold.
In Luwuk, about 12 hours drive away from Palu when the earthquake hit, Tofan, then 24, feared the worst from a disaster that eventually killed more than 4,300 people. “We were very panicked for our loved ones. We could not contact them because there was no phone connection and electricity,” he says.