I am a lawyer by profession but I have chosen to be a diplomat and an advocate for the rights of children. My passion to be a UN Volunteer is a motivation since it enables me to contribute towards making a difference in people’s life and most importantly to me, children.

The training was implemented through UNV Regional Capacity Development and Learning Facility (CDLF), a facility developed to support UN Volunteers' learning needs. The participating UN Volunteers enhanced their managerial and leadership skills for success in their assignments and contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while facilitating learning and experience sharing between UN Volunteers from different locations. The participants also utilized UNV’s online learning system, eCampus, as a platform for off-site engagements among themselves.

Kenyan communities have always voluntarily organized themselves, whether formally or informally, to help each other in times of need and in times of celebration. At independence, this volunteering spirit was adopted by the government of the day as “harambee”, loosely translated as “pooling resources for community development”. This spirit of harambee is the backbone of today’s volunteerism in Kenya.

What inspired you to write this book?

Ann Kamunya is an international UN Volunteer with UNHCR in Ankara, Turkey, where she she joined as a UN Volunteer Associate Refugee Status Determination Officer in December 2016. This is not Ann's first volunteer experience. Prior to Turkey, she served with UNHCR as a national UN Volunteer in Nairobi and then in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, delivering for refugees who had been forcibly displaced from their home countries due to war or persecution.

Kakuma was founded in 1992 when large numbers of Sudanese and Ethiopian refugees poured into northern Kenya. There are 500,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya. Most of them live in two huge camps in the East and North of the country – Dadaab and Kakuma. In January 2018, more than 185,000 refugees resided in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Residents of the camp suffer from a harsh, dry climate and a higher population than current capacities allow.

Biological diversity, meaning the variety of plants, animals, and microorganisms, is under threat: according to estimates of the World Wildlife Fund, we are losing at least 10,000 species every year – and 99 percent of them are at risk from human activities. In 2016, we reached a record of global tree cover loss with 29.7 million hectares vanishing signifying a 51 percent increase from 2015.

When Esther Munene and Lilian Kamigwi founded Destiny Shapers, a community-based-organization working to provide literacy training to young children in the Korogocho slum in eastern Nairobi, Kenya, they had to work hard to convince the families of the 23 children to allow them to attend the daily classes.

"This has been the most useful and fun training I have been to," says Edgar Kiliba, UN Youth Volunteer Web and Social Media Communications Associate for the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office in Tanzania.  Edgar was one of 17 UN Youth Volunteers who participated in the Assignment Preparation Training in Nairobi and are being deployed to five countries on the African continent.

How do you see the partnership between UN Women and UN Volunteers and why is this important?