BONN: Volunteers are young, in their teens or twenties - so says the man in the street. The average age of volunteers assigned abroad by the main bilateral programmes is well up in the thirties: today's UN Volunteers average 39. While talking of age, we might remember that 1999 is the International Year of Older Persons. Can we reconcile those two situations? It's but one of many topics for discussion in IYV 2001: that maybe, just as adults of all ages have something useful to contribute as volunteers within their own societies, so it should be internationally, across frontiers. Read

Bonn, Germany: Temirtau, a Kazakh city struggles against drugs and HIV/AIDS. The socio-economic situation in Temirtau, inflated by the down-sizing of its main employer the steel-producing combinat, and the virtual collapse of the former Soviet welfare state, is being tragically aggravated by a relatively cheap and well organised supply of illicit narcotics. Read

BONN: The Local Development Fund pilot project aims at supporting the decentralisation efforts of the Senegalese Government within the national policy of combatting poverty. 120 000 people live in the rural project area that stretches along the borders of Mali and Guinea in the south-east of Senegal. The task of the UN Volunteers who serve the project is to inform the population about the new roles and responsibilities of the local authorities and to help put that national policy into practice. Read

Bonn, Germany: The Imbakucha-San Pablo Lake basin is home to four villages and no less than 38 different indigenous groups. To on-going inter-ethnic strife, poverty and pollution are serious obstacles to overcome.To address these challenges, a team of National UNVs is joining efforts with CEPCU, a local NGO which has sought for the last six years to establish a framework of co-operation between the local authorities, community-based and international organisations and the Lake's inhabitants. Read

Bonn, Germany: The United Nations Volunteers programme has received prominent support. At UNV headquarters in Bonn, German tennis star Michael Stich and his wife, actress Jessica Stockmann, signed 1-Euro-a-year contracts to take up their assignments as the first Honorary UN Volunteers to launch the International Year of Volunteers 2001. Read

BONN: International Volunteers Day fell on a Saturday in 1998. In some countries it was marked on that day and in others on an adjacent day which proved more convenient. UNV's Executive Co-ordinator Sharon Capeling-Alakija had no less than three bites at the cherry when on mission in the western hemisphere! Read

Bonn, Germany: The UNV programme, with the support of the German and the Japanese Governments, has been able to provide some refugees and internally displaced persons with an opportunity to return to Bosnia as National UN Volunteers. Since 1997 well over 200 of them have worked as NUNVs to help with the postwar rehabilitation of their country. Their efforts help make the peace hold. Read

BONN: Six years ago, my son Rajesh Ragavan, a cartographer, came to Cambodia to take up an assignment as a UNV specialist. His work involved intensive touring to many places in the country. One such tour took him to Siem Reap and the world heritage monument, Angkor Wat. Aware of my interest in art and archaeology, he wrote to me that this archaeological site was worth a visit. Read

Bonn, Germany: Some 1.5 million landmines are estimated to be buried in Mozambique. Assemu Tameru, a UNV cartographer from Ethiopia is working with the National Demining Commission (CND), detecting surveys and interviews with people in mined areas help to determine the exact coordinates of the minefields. Read

BONN: Fourth UNV regional security workshop ,held in Argentina, takes place to provide volunteers in programmes such as complex emergencies, humanitarian relief, democratisation and electoral process, and human rights. Read