To date in 2020, at least 71 UN Volunteer with disabilities are deployed with our UN entity partners. We say at least, because these figures only factor in those volunteers who voluntarily disclosed their disability. There are many more, serving on regular volunteer assignments.

Last year "Myropolis" gathered nearly 200 young people from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) to build city of peace: teenagers participated in educational and artistic activities that helped them to learn how to conduct negotiations for peace and recovery – important knowledge when you live in the conflict affected areas. Many of participants never left their villages before "Myropolis" sessions. Situation in these lands is really fragile and challenging: no descent roads, villages are very difficult to reach, parents do not allow children even to leave the houses.

Thank you, Mr Associate Administrator, for your introduction and your – and the Administrator’s – commitment to volunteerism and your strong support to the United Nations Volunteers programme. Madame President, Distinguished delegates, Mr Associate Administrator, Ladies and Gentlemen:

UNV’s two partner entities are the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, specifically, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Peace and Human Rights Division (PHRD) and the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, SECO). SDC was one of the first partners to join the UN Youth Volunteers programme in 2001, followed by DPA/PHRD in 2004 and SECO in 2020.

I quickly discovered that the mission is a mosaic of diverse characters facing unique challenges and chasing different dreams. For example, in my role as UN Volunteer Public Information Officer, I hoped to use my writing to highlight the collective challenges, as well as accomplishments, of a nascent nation like South Sudan to a global audience. But I never really considered what I was doing as humanitarian work. 

What was your UN Youth Volunteer assignment? My UN Youth Volunteer assignment in 2013 was as a WASH Specialist for UNICEF in Burundi. I was based in the capital Bujumbura and supported various aspects of UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene programme, mostly targeting rural areas of Burundi. My tasks included among others the follow-up of emergency relief activities for returning refugees, the supervision of partner organizations and contractors who implemented project activities and the development of proposals on WASH innovation.

Monika Linn, Principal Adviser of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Jason Pronyk, Regional Manager of the UN Volunteers (UNV) programme in the Arab States, Europe and countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Professor Cécile Aptel, Director of Policy, Strategy and Knowledge Department at International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), delivered opening remarks and invited participants to share innovations and best practices, discuss opportunities for new partnerships and approaches, and analyse ways to overco

What motivated you to work in international cooperation?

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Finally, we are reaching our destination, after nearly 700 kilometers on a bumpy road. The jeep approaches a small town laid in the midst of the endless steppe. There we meet E., an elected representative from a Citizens’ Representative Hural, which is the name for local self-governing bodies in Mongolia.