05 December 2002

Almaty, Kazakhstan: What is the nature of your work as a volunteer?
I am an International UNV, trained as a lawyer, working as a Field Protection Officer in the UN refugee agency UNHCR. I have been working as an International UN Volunteer (UNV) for nearly four years, and in Kazakhstan since June 2000.

How did you find out about die opportunity to work as a UNV, and how were you selected?
In Moscow in 1987, while studying for my Masters degree in Law, I took part in the first human rights conference ever held in the Soviet Union. This very important conference was organized under the auspices of the Independent Human Rights Bureau, itself set up by the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadrueddin Aga Khan. At that time the UN General Assembly was discussing a humanitarian assistance project for Afghanistan, which later became "Operation Salam", implemented under UN auspices.

This operation took place in the Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). After this conference, I was offered the opportunity, along with some other Masters students, to try working for a month as UN Volunteers in Termez on the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan border, on a trial basis. I and four others accepted the offer and immediately after graduation, headed of to Termez. This was the first UN mission to take place in the Soviet Union in forty years. Our goal was to rehabilitate ruined Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet forces. We were assigned to the most difficult areas, such as Kushka, Termez, Pamir, Mari and Takhta-bazaar. After working for a month, our contracts were extended for two years.What prompted you to become a volunteer?Back then, I knew nothing about the UN Volunteers Programme. We just went to work there as young specialists, to challenge and apply ourselves. Then we came to understand that this was very difficult and responsible work, carried out by volunteers often risking their lives. In the course of our work we realized how much our work was needed, and how important and noble the mission was. We gained a lot of experience from this work, and it shaped our characters and made us fully understand the meaning of the words "to work for highest human values".What were your expectations of volunteer work, and were these met?Yes and no. I expected that we volunteers would be able to help solve many problems. But unfortunately the sluggish and bureaucratic UN system does no allow us to fully realize our potential, for objective a subjective reasons.Please describe your work as a volunteer.I am a qualified specialist, willing at any time to respond to a call for help. I am willing to work anywhere, to try to so any problems faced by my organization or me personally, sharing my experience and knowledge to the fullest extent. I have been all around Central Asia and Afghanistan helping refugees.Apart from work in the field, which I described earlier, in Kazakhstan I have participated in the refugee status determination Commission, I have helped to arrange the voluntary repatriation of refugees from Tadjikistan who ended up in Kazakhstan because of the civil war there, and I have provided assistance to Chechen refugees. I have also assisted in developing legislation which addresses refugee problems and reduces the number of repatriate Kazakhs without citizenship. I have also been a member of a working group developing Kazakhstani migration policy led by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kairat Abuseitov.What were your views about volunteerism before you started work, and how have these views changed as a result of your work as a volunteer?Before I started work in my professional field. I had no idea what International UNV's were, although I had been a volunteer in my own country (Algeria), where volunteers mainly help to overcome illiteracy, help to gather the harvest, to solve medical problems, to combat desertification, and so on. Now I know that volunteers are an important driving force in the UN system, they take on the most urgent, pressing and even dangerous jobs in all corners of the world, and they are able to make a major contribution to the resolution of the problems in the international community.