Bonn, Germany: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Volunteers (UNV) are recruiting 107 National UN Volunteers to help coordinate the distribution of relief items in the earthquake stricken region of Gujarat in northwestern India. Read

San Salvador, El Salvador: United Nations Volunteers working in El Salvador were among the first relief officials to offer assistance to victims of Saturday's devastating earthquake. More UN Volunteers are travelling from around the region to join the international humanitarian effort. Read

Maputo, Mozambique: Once we arrived in Maputo we picked up our luggage quickly set off towards the flooded Limpopo Valley. The trip was impressive, as the outskirts of Maputo were full of rainwater that could not be drained. Read

Bonn, Germany: Wherever you find the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - with more than 130 country offices across the developing world - you find the UN Volunteers (UNV) programme working alongside, helping combat poverty, disease and disaster and provide new opportunities and hope. Read

Bonn, Germany: It was a turbulent year for Kosovo. Following drawn-out civil strife and weeks of air strikes, Kosovars faced the difficult task of rebuilding their lives. Many had lost loved ones and everything else they cherished. Institutions, law and order and basic infrastructure were left in shambles. UN Volunteers accompanied the people on their first steps down a long road to recovery. Read

Bonn, Germany: Ghanaian Jasper Ayelazuno was one of 200 UN Volunteers assigned as civil administration support officers to the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Last September,  Jasper was being greeted upon arrival in Pristina by shocking evidence of the war — destroyed villages — as the plane made its final approach before landing. On his way to town, vehicles on the road without registration plates sent him another message: there is precious little law and order. Read

Bonn, Germany: Some 500 district electoral officers and medical personnel fielded by the Bonn-based United Nations Volunteers programme ahead of East Timor’s “popular consultation” ballot on 30 August are currently safe in Darwin, Australia, or have been repatriated.  Read

Organising and observing elections and supporting humanitarian relief operations have been key areas of work for UN Volunteers since the early 1990s. Thousands of professionals have since been recruited by the Bonn-based UNV programme to help in elections in Cambodia, Mozambique, South Africa, Haiti, Liberia, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and Bosnia. Read

Bonn, Germany: This is a story about Alaf, a 20-year old seamstress from Yemen. Alaf is deaf. She finished two years of vocational training in sewing in the Martyr Fadel El Halali Centre for vocational training for the disabled. The centre was established in 1989 by a UNDP/ILO project in co-operation with the Ministry of Social Affairs in Sana'a, Yemen. Read

Kibungo, Rwanda: 37-year old Jeff Crook works as a UNV with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Kibungo, Rwanda. He has been transferred temporarily to the emergency operation in Gihembe refugee camp in Byumba, where 14,000 Masisi refugees have been relocated. Read