When Amy Wickham, an international United Nations Volunteer, signed up to work with UNICEF in Zimbabwe, she didn't know what to expect. Yet this experience changed her life. "The experience and exposure that I've got since I started as a volunteer has been phenomenal", she says. "The ownership that I've been given over the projects, as well as the time and responsibility that I've been given from professionals that I've worked with has been fantastic."

"The UNV Partnerships Forum has lived up to its theme—Innovation for Volunteer Action," said UNV's Executive Coordinator Richard Dictus as he closed the event held in Bonn, Germany on 30 September and 1 October 2014.  Attracting more than 100 people from around the world, participants discussed the theme, within a stone's throw of UNV headquarters, in the historic Wasserwerk (meaning "waterworks") building which housed the German Parliament from 1986 to 1992..

Dushanbe, Tajikistan: As a UN Volunteer Social Work Specialist, I started to work for UNICEF in Tajikistan a year ago. Even before that, for a year I was a volunteer with VSO (Volunteer Service Overseas) in the South of Tajikistan.

Mananjary, Madagascar: In the district of Mananjary in south-eastern Madagascar, an ancestral practice exists which involves abandoning twin babies. Thanks to the intervention of the United Nations System (the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme) over several years, many voices have been able to advocate the abolition of this tradition, which violates the fundamental rights of children.

In Albania, the country with the highest percentage of youth in Southeast Europe, Roma youth face heavy discrimination. Their exclusion from sports competitions, school events, vocational training and community life often has a negative impact on their self-confidence.

Pristina, Kosovo: I am Hiroko Oda, a UN Volunteer from Japan under the Hiroshima Peacebuilders Center (HPC) programme. I organized the Anti-Corruption Journalism Award on 9 December 2011, marking International Anti-Corruption Day together with my colleagues at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) where I serve as a UNV Programme Analyst for Democratic Governance.

Kigali, Rwanda: Every child has the right to play! (Art.31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.) It seems so obvious; yet there are more than seven hundred million children who have never known what play means. That is about a quarter of all the world's children!

Nairobi, Kenya:  It has been a long, tiring and dusty journey across north eastern Kenya on a mission to witness first-hand the effects of the drought that has left millions on the brink of starvation. With me on this trip is UNICEF Sweden Goodwill Ambassador Liza Marklund and Swedish photographer Martin von Krogh. Together we have travelled from Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, to Liboi near the Kenya-Somalia border and their journey ends in Wajir, a drought stricken district in northern Kenya. But for me this journey is far from over.

Kampala, Uganda:  'Unite for children' is what UNICEF stands for and what drives UN Volunteers to support UNICEF’s work.

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: My story I am from Burkina Faso, a West African country located on the southern edge of Africa’s Sahara desert.  Minimal rainfall makes living conditions very hard for people. In 1976, when I started primary school, less than 20 per cent of all children had access to education. Millions of children  do not attend school due to poverty. I could have suffered the same fate like these millions of children being ignored in this remote part of the world, unable to write, nor read.