This year, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is commemorated under the theme “UN Peacekeeping: 70 Years of Service and Sacrifice”.
The UN system and partners acknowledge the enormous contribution of UN military and civilian personnel to peace and stability through peacekeeping operations.
United Nations peacekeeping is a proven investment in global peace, security and prosperity. --UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
This year, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is commemorated under the theme “UN Peacekeeping: 70 Years of Service and Sacrifice”.
The UN system and partners acknowledge the enormous contribution of UN military and civilian personnel to peace and stability through peacekeeping operations.
United Nations peacekeeping is a proven investment in global peace, security and prosperity. --UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
My experience as a UN Volunteer in Afghanistan stands out in my memory as an extraordinary one, on a professional and personal level. I am grateful for the opportunity given to me to serve the electoral process in Afghanistan, to discover the charm and hospitality of the Afghan people, and the immense beauty its land offers. It is also there that I experienced true friendship and great loss.
It was during my university years in the United States that I became more aware of the injustice in the world, by meeting students who had lived in poverty or experienced civil wars as a child, and studying about conflicts happening in different regions. Working to help people became my goal.
A few years later, I was at the United Nations headquarters explaining and promoting its work to visitors from around the world as Tour Guide. By the time I had joined the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, I was eager to go to the field to work directly with the people.
Some 50 UN Volunteers are dedicated to preserving biological diversity in East and Southern Africa. Serving with UN Environment, they are fighting climate change, conserving natural habitats, reducing unnecessary waste and plastics, and contributing to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 13 (Climate Action), 14 (Life Below Water), and 15 (Life on Land). UN Volunteers Dorris Chepkoech (Kenya) and Linda Jonsson (Sweden) fight the declining animal populations in Africa through their assignments with UN Environment in Kenya and Tanzania.
Biological diversity, meaning the variety of plants, animals, and microorganisms, is under threat: according to estimates of the World Wildlife Fund, we are losing at least 10,000 species every year – and 99 percent of them are at risk from human activities. In 2016, we reached a record of global tree cover loss with 29.7 million hectares vanishing signifying a 51 percent increase from 2015.
Contributing to protecting the breathtaking nature of Lao PDR has been a truly rewarding experience for me. Among green landscapes and picturesque roads, visiting fields and communities, my days abound with energy. Together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and with support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is conserving ecosystems like the dry dipterocarp forests, a type of forest that are recognized as being of national and global importance. I am a UN Volunteer Monitoring and Evaluation Officer from Kenya, serving with UNDP in Lao PDR. This is South-South collaboration and capacity-building in action. I invite you to travel with me on a monitoring mission and experience the beauty of Lao PDR.
It’s Thursday morning and I have landed in Savannakhet in the south of Laos, on a monitoring mission for our project.The project I work for, SAFE Ecosystems project, targets the reforestation of 1,111 hectares of land, contributing to Lao PDR's target to achieve 70 per cent forest cover by 2020.
Online Volunteers have been mobilizing support for a community-run training programme in Nairobi, Kenya.
When Esther Munene and Lilian Kamigwi founded Destiny Shapers, a community-based-organization working to provide literacy training to young children in the Korogocho slum in eastern Nairobi, Kenya, they had to work hard to convince the families of the 23 children to allow them to attend the daily classes.
