27 May 2000

Sharkeya, Egypt: In Egypt's Governorate of Sharkeya, students, aspiring entrepreneurs and health workers are among the many people tapping into new sources of information. They are making their way by the hundreds to the UNDP-supported Technology Access Community Centres (TACCs), where UN Volunteers provide hands-on computer and Internet training. The project is already being replicated elsewhere in Egypt and neighbouring countries are taking note.

The international and national UNVs serve as a bridge between the people and technology, advising on ways to use modern tools to support communities in such areas as health, education and small business development. UNVs also take laptop computers to villages to explain how farmers can benefit, too.

A UN Volunteer helped an engineering student at Zagazig University form a campus association and create a web page to link up with universities worldwide to exchange scientific data and ideas. In this way, global links have been established, making productive interaction possible. During 1999, UNV developed other networks of knowledge, with an eye on promoting volunteerism ahead of the International Year of Volunteers 2001:

• Recognizing UNV's long track record in promoting voluntary service at the local level, the Government of Nepal called upon UNV to explore ways of setting up a scheme to assist the country in addressing social concerns through the work of national volunteers.
• UNV launched an initiative under which national UNVs are assigned to help strengthen the volunteer sector and to promote the work of local volunteer groups.
• UNV and Bonn University's Centre for Development Research (ZEF) co-sponsored a comparative study to assess volunteer contributions in industrialized and developing countries.
• UNV maximizes impact by building mixed teams of international and national volunteers qualified and equipped to understand and respond to local needs.

Karim Kasim
Through his work as a national UNV education specialist, Egyptian Karim Kasim, 23, has realized his goal of being a "global citizen" while getting involved on the local scene. He drums up interest for the Internet on the streets and schools of Zagazig, Egypt, explaining to pupils and university students how to log on and access educational tools in cyberspace. Showing his concern for the disadvantaged, he has taught online skills to groups of orphans. "Volunteer work was always a part of my personality," he says. While completing his university degree in botany, Karim volunteered as a youth leader and took time away from his studies to help out at a boys' orphanage as a "big brother" and tutor. He got a taste of overseas voluntary service through an international youth programme, which gave him experience in organizing gardening and cleaning activities at senior centres, libraries and schools in his own country and in Canada.