Gaza, State of Palestine: Volunteerism is the path I have chosen to shape the development of my community and my own self-confidence. In my home of Gaza city, within the State of Palestine, volunteerism, as with many other things, takes its own particular shape. We volunteer to help people and to help ourselves in the context of high levels of poverty and unemployment.

Ramallah, State of Palestine: They say if you travel the world carrying the same thoughts and attitude throughout your journey, it is as if you have never left your place. Cognition and knowledge is not about how many places you have seen; sometimes it is how you can view the same place or thing in different ways and from different perspectives. Being a national UN Volunteer provided me with the opportunity to see my country, Palestine, in a different way.

Ramallah, State of Palestine:  I love people, cities and towns. For that reason, I chose to be a spatial/urban planner and I plan for people. When we plan, people should be at the centre of the process; and we should aim to improve people’s lives. People, cities, towns and villages cannot be viewed separately, they are so interconnected. As long as people are there, cities always develop and never stop.

Following the momentous political transitions that swept the Arab region in recent years, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme’s groundbreaking Arab Youth Volunteering for a Better Future regional project is building trust between young people, their communities, and governments in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: The International Conference on Youth Volunteering and Dialogue opened on 3 December 2013 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. More than 200 young volunteers from over 33 different countries attended the Conference, along with delegates of UNESCO, the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education and the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue. The three-day event provided young volunteers, experts and practitioners with the opportunity to discuss, display and evaluate ‘best practices’ in the field of volunteerism.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: After young people from Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and other countries have gone all over the world to serve as UNV Interns, we  the first generation of German UNV Interns –deployed to our countries of service in 2013.

When I was given the opportunity to come to Sudan as a UN Volunteer with the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), many folks discouraged me, because of the hardship conditions.   I refused to listen to the naysayers and didn't hesitate to accept the offer. My whole life has been full of challenges and hardships, and so Darfur would be no different. I told them that I was willing and able!   

Salloum, Egypt: When thinking of a volunteer, what usually comes to mind is a young person working in the field of an emergency zone. The link between the words ‘volunteer’ and ‘desk job’ is--to say the least--not very common. Well, I am one of those volunteers. I have been a national UN Volunteer, at a desk with office hours, in UNICEF Egypt’s Communication for Development (C4D) Section for a little over two years now.

Women food cooperatives in the Lebanese region of Bekaa produce high quality natural jams, pickles, juice, and other Lebanese delights. While they have good manufacturing facilities and excellent products, marketing and sales continue to be a challenge. As part of UNV's Corporate/Private Sector programme, two experts from Kraft Foods went on a volunteer assignment to Lebanon to assist the cooperatives in boosting sales.

Socotra, Yemen: As a news editor of a foreign affairs column in the Czech Republic, I was supplying readers with depressing news about tragedies and wrongdoings from all around the world. My subsequent years in advertising gave me an impression that my work was fun but people would have had more pleasant lives without it.  I wanted to make myself useful, so I registered my profile in the UNV database of potential candidates for volunteer assignments.