Daring to care, many UN Volunteers worked as peer counsellors and advisers with partners in African, Asian and Caribbean communities to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. One of these UN Volunteers was Aster Wolde Kidan of Ethiopia. She served in Botswana, where 36.3 per cent of the population carries the virus - the highest incidence in the world.

Aster counselled young women sex workers in Tlokweng just outside the capital Gaborone. Meeting weekly, these 18 to 25-year-olds learned about health and hygiene and new ways of earning a living. Many of them are now generating an income by cooking, cultivating and selling vegetables. Alongside Aster, one of 29 UNV AIDS specialists in Botswana, project coordinator Beauty Mogasha worked individually with the women to expand their options for a safer, healthier future.

Joining local volunteers against HIV/AIDS, the women marched to celebrate IYV 2001 and took their message of volunteer solidarity to the people of Tlokweng. This is just one facet of UNV's work in HIV/AIDS in Botswana. At the district level, UN Volunteers also contributed to the National AIDS Programme by directly involving educators, wildlife officers, NGOs and local business leaders in the battle against AIDS. And recognizing that all volunteer actions count, Botswana's National IYV Committee held a workshop to kick-start a survey researching the economic and social contributions of volunteering in the country.

Volunteers in Africa were vital to a range of other activities during 2001:

• UN Volunteers, members of Guinea's National IYV Committee and over 170 doctors provided medical care, food, clothes and cash donations to 6,000 victims of fires that spread from a military arms depot in the capital, Conakry. This type of coordinated volunteer action is set to continue. The National IYV Committee is to be transformed into a centre for volunteer promotion and research for Guinea and eventually other francophone African countries.
• Supported by UN Volunteers, Niger's Red Cross initiated a training "caravan", through which participants carried their new skills back to their home regions. At the end of the Year, 2001 nurses, 2001 midwives and 2001 health care trainers had taken part - a sustainable action for healthier children.
• UNV and the National IYV Committee in Tanzania commissioned a study highlighting the economic benefits that volunteer action brings to society. Results revealed that 89 per cent of respondents were active as volunteers in the areas of personal and social assistance - providing food, transport and emotional comfort to those at risk and unable to care for themselves.
• Home-based American, Laurie Moy, took her extensive experience in managing "on-line" volunteers - over 100 of them - in support of People With Disabilities-Uganda "on-site". As a UN Volunteer in Uganda, she personally delivered book donations from other on-line volunteers and set up a new library for children with disabilities. Her story demonstrates the enormous potential of tapping new resources for development by combining online and on-site volunteer skills from all points of the globe.