Grace Otieno, a UN Volunteer who serves as an Air Operations Planning Officer at the MOVCON aviation section of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO).  Posted in Goma, Grace is working in a largely male-dominated sector. Her everyday tasks include planning for daily flights, coordinating ramp activities for smooth and timely flights and briefing the crew on their daily route requirements as per UN procedures. 

Having been raised in a socially conservative environment, Natalie explains that she was one of the lucky ones. Empowered to pursue her education, she obtained a Master’s degree in Media and Development from the United Kingdom. Perhaps this is why joining UN Women as a volunteer after she settled in Jordan seemed like a natural move. Though she acknowledges that gender inequality is a worldwide issue, she says, "It’s hard to be a woman from the Middle East and not be affected by the issues around women’s rights."

UNV and the crocodile skin industry? This surely was different from what most UNV assignments revolved around. Jerome Montague’s description of assignment reads as follows: To fully understand what this assignment is about, one must look at the bigger picture. Papua New Guinea achieved independence from Australia in 1975 and was needed to establish its own economy.

Almost three decades of civil war in Angola have decimated its wildlife, during a time where the country had other priorities and the maintenance of protected areas and conservation of biodiversity were neglected. Now the country has the challenge to recover its biodiversity and rehabilitate its protected areas.

The Economic Community of West Africa State (ECOWAS), the United Nations Volunteers Program (UNV) and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), conducted a two-day joint retreat in Monrovia, Liberia.

Since 1950, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been working to ensure recognition of the rights of five million refugees in the Near East. Among them are over half a million children who continue to receive quality education.

As an HRD-UN Volunteer, Kosumo Shiraishi was assigned to the Education Sector Planning and Management unit with UNICEF Ethiopia.  During the assignment, Kosumo worked in close collaboration with several units of the Learning and Development Programme, including Early Childhood Education, Access and Equity, Education in Emergencies and Quality Education and Learning. The programme also has an explicit commitment to leverage education for peacebuilding outcomes, particularly in regions where conflict has occurred between refugees and host communities.

It’s in Maradi, approximately 550 kilometers from Niamey, the capital of Niger, that Sani Garba conducts different missions to deliver legal aid to the vulnerable people. Born in Niger, Sani serves as a national UN Volunteer Legal Advisor with UNDP. As the second largest city of Niger, Maradi is exposed to many challenges due to climate and food security threats, as well as migration issues, as the town is on a migration route for many young Africans. 

In the Republic of Serbia, Roma are the largest ethnic minority and remain one of the most disenfranchised communities, often facing discrimination, social exclusion and unequal access to employment, education, housing and health services. UNDP's 2017 regional survey on the socio-economic position of Roma in the Western Balkans highlighted that although education among Roma has improved, one of the biggest challenges for the social inclusion of Roma in Serbia was the high level of unemployment.

Born in Donetsk region in Ukraine, Liliia was forced to leave her hometown because of the armed conflict. This displacement catalyzed an urge to help those who were in a similar situation and less fortunate than her. Liliia's first experience of working with refugees and asylum seekers was a short-term European Voluntary Service education project for refugees in Gaziantep, Turkey, and it led to an awakening within her of how her contribution could bring about a change for the better in both herself and society.