The scope of my work is centered on preventing non-communicable disease risk factors, which include tobacco consumption, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity. These all contribute to the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension and cancer, to name just a few. People who suffer most from the complications of COVID-19 are those with non-communicable diseases. Thus, I am determined to help countries prevent these diseases.

I am currently serving as a national UN Volunteer in Liberia for the Spotlight Initiative. My role is to develop an outreach strategy and distribute awareness-raising materials for the Coronavirus pandemic, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. We engage with community members and religious leaders to promote preventive measures for vulnerable community members, including women, girls and persons with disabilities.

UN Community Volunteers Blessing Iyala and Aisha Abdel-Latif are working to empower internally-displaced women from Borno State in Nigeria. They facilitate informative and sensitization sessions in local languages for the women and girls and manage one-on-one cases for survivors of gender-based violence survivors. So far, over 200 women and girls have benefitted from their support in learning various livelihood skills.

Joanna Gbotoe is a Liberian nurse serving at The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in the medical section. Since the beginning of the COVID-10 outbreak, she has played a key role in the Mission regarding prevention activities. Her work involves detecting suspected cases, providing essential treatment, helping in decontamination, and coordinating patient's evacuation.

As I reflect on this year’s International Women’s Day’s theme “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”, I cannot help but be tempted to reconsider women’s triple roles of productive, reproductive, and community work in society, often referred to as their triple “burden”. What if this triple burden, which predisposes women to be the hardest hit by this pandemic, was the stepping-stone that will make women the backbone of recovery in communities?

UN Volunteers contributed to essential tasks, including logistics organization, recruitment, and training of members of voting stations in preparing for the election last November. Some of the UN Volunteers also coordinated communication with the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) for the upcoming voting.  The 62 UN Community Volunteers assisted the local commissions in the reception of election materials and documents, their packaging, and effective distribution, in collaboration with the polling stations. 

During these past 10 months, while we were all facing a global crisis devastating our socio-economic systems, adaptation, resilience and solidarity have enabled us to respond.

Ashu Orock Ernestine from Cameroon, Danai Kudya from Zimbabwe and Francis Igiriogu from Nigeria serve as UN Volunteer Human Rights Officers with the OHCHR Liberia Country Office to address inequalities resulting from COVID-19 collateral damage. In June, the volunteers discovered that six pregnant students of a catholic secondary institution in Grand Geddeh County were barred from attending classes and even from taking the WASSCE exams, even though they were already registered.

Coming to CAR was not an easy decision because I had to leave my family and friends in Guinea Bissau where I am from. I am motivated to gain new experiences with the UN, growing in the organization, and contributing to peace and stability worldwide. As a UN Volunteer, I am here not only to promote peace but also to assist populations. And it is possible to do it in different ways.