As the winds came howling through Delakado on that day, infrastructures entirely collapsed and homes came crumbling down. All but one. The 300 inhabitants of the village somehow managed to hide under the floorboards of a house that was built with a higher standard. The strongest stood above and with all their might, held the walls up until the storm subsided. Amazingly, no one was killed. It was a miraculous community effort which paved the way for the reconstruction process.

Authorities estimate that at least 228 houses collapsed or were swept away in this region, nearly 600 were damaged or unroofed and 657 billion Vietnam Dong or 28.9 million US dollars’ worth of crops, livestock and infrastructure were lost. Within a day of the flash floods, Viet Nam Red Cross Society volunteers arrived in the affected provinces to assist families with supplies, financial and emotional support, and other help from the Viet Nam Red Cross Society headquarters.

These events have multiplied over the last ten years, just when the planet has reached its all-time temperature records, blurring the difference between human-made and purely natural catastrophes.

A Bangladesh Red Crescent mobile medical team has been set up in Bangladesh, and it is run by volunteer Dr. Mohsin Ahmed. He explains that food, water and shelter are the main concern of the people he is seeing, most of whom are women and children.

The earthquake, which hit Nepal on 25 April 2015 with multiple aftershocks, brought about widespread destruction across the country and resulted in 8,790 deaths, 22,300 injuries and 755,549 houses that were either damaged or completely destroyed.  In coordination with UNDP experts on demolition, UN Volunteers undertook the structural assessment of public and private buildings damaged by the earthquake, including schools, health posts and monasteries.

Just from the other side of the San Juanico bridge in Leyte, lives a man named Oscar, a local resident of Samar, the first island to be struck by typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. Despite the aftermath conditions and turmoil that surrounded him, Oscar remained optimistic and decided he would find a way to serve his community.

Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health reported more than 87,600 suspected cases of the mosquito-borne infection in 2017, causing over 230 deaths. Dengue is endemic in Sri Lanka, but the number of infections this year was already about 38 per cent higher than 2016, when 55,150 people were diagnosed with dengue and 97 died. Experts say the virus is a particularly virulent strain that is new to Sri Lanka, and therefore immunity is low.

Women volunteered in Chandragiri, Kathmandu and demonstrated their vital role with their implementation of non-structural earthquake mitigation measures. As part of the USAID/OFDA funded programme Frontline, the residents in Chandragiri identified earthquakes as the top threat in the community, and non-structural mitigation as one of the priority actions to be implemented.

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme in Myanmar, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), runs a Disaster Risk Reduction Youth Volunteer (DRRYV) project in support of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.

I was looking at the UNV Bangladesh Facebook page when I noticed that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bangladesh was looking for a UN Volunteer to serve as Research Assistant to work on daily media briefings, data entry and standardization, and drafting policy briefs for the Democratic Governance Cluster. Their needs tied directly to my interests and areas of expertise. When UNV contacted me, it was indeed a remarkable day.