Suva, Fiji: On Monday 7 March UN Women organized an awareness-raising event in UN Park, Suva, where information about various gender issues was distributed from a number of different organizations and UN agencies, including the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), where I am currently serving as a UN Volunteer. Monday morning was hot and sunny, and music contributed to the festive mood at the Park. A quiz about women’s progress was organized by UN Women, and a banner was set up to be signed by participants.

Join volunteers, with Won Smol Bag, fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS in Vanuatu, 'the happiest country in the world'. The spread of HIV seems to have stabilized in most regions, says the latest UN MDG report, but many young people still lack the knowledge needed to protect themselves. Volunteers are vital to any health campaign. This a story about how volunteers in Vanuatu are helping to stem the spread of HIV there. Volunteers have beeen engaged in promoting the use of condoms, raising awareness on STDs and providing outreach for communities.

As Fiji prepares for elections in 2014, join the volunteer civic educators who are traveling around the country to inform people about democracy, their rights and to encourage women to get involved with decision-making. The National Initiative on Civic Eduction was set up to support democratic culture through Civic Education.

In Lao PDR, every other child under the age of five is malnourished. In response to this issue, a team of international UN Volunteers have initiated a programme to reintroduce insects as part of the national diet. Rich in protein, calcium and micronutrients, insects have long been consumed in Lao; however, their popularity decreased with the proliferation of Western foods. The volunteers who pioneered this programme are also working with national volunteers to empower schools and civil society about the benefits--including sustainability--of eating insects.

Since poverty has been rising in Mongolia over the past 20 years, the National Volunteering Programme has been encouraging local communities to be active in helping their own citizens, build capacities of their own and work towards development. With the assistance of NGOs, international and local volunteers have initiated awareness-raising campaigns on volunteerism to better inform the government, ministries and local communities about its benefits.

Among the 7,000 islands and 19 million people that are the Philippines, the nation faces issues in making progress towards two MDGs in particular: enrollment of children in schools, and reducing the maternal mortality rate. In order to address these concerns, UNV has taken the initiative to raise awareness of MDGs through campaigns. In the "Stand Up Take Action" initiative, volunteers aimed to present the MDGs "in motion" to as many people as possible: One activity included a bicycle ride and another involved 100 university dancers at a local shopping mall.

It was like a "battlefield from a scene in a war movie," is how one disaster management officer described villages after the tsunami of 2009, the worst natural disaster for Samoans in living memory. Despite the challenges that natural disasters present in terms of progress towards the MDGs, an incredible surge of post-tsunami volunteerism has surfaced to help communities recover and ensure that they could protect themselves against future calamities.

Making a difference: An assessment of volunteer interventions addressing gender-based violence in Cambodia (Partners for Prevention, 2010) highlights the crucial role and the far-reaching positive effects that community volunteers play in the prevention and response to gender-based violence.