No two days are alike for Isabel. Her work in the environmental field involves the development of projects that promote sustainability and collaborative work with the local community, including the mission’s civilian and military staff.

I have always been interested in women's rights, gender equality and volunteerism. My first volunteer experience goes back to my undergraduate days when I joined the university's official volunteer programme, Ugnayan ng Pahinungod, which nurtures volunteers working with the Philippines' local communities. I also worked as an intern for the Huairou Commission in New York, which provided me with ample exposure to women's rights issues and an understanding of key global issues.

Siphra Jane Tampubolon is a Health Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist and serves as a National UN Volunteer with UNDP Indonesia. She is with the Health Governance Initiative (HEART) since 1 August 2021 up until July 2022. 

The underrepresentation of women in the digital technology industry is not a new topic. This often occurs due to an over-competitive and male-dominant system, lack of female role models and unclear career prospects for those interested. One of the talented women data scientists who overcame all those challenges is Ozge Ozkaya, a national UN Volunteer in Turkey. Ozge serves as a Junior Data Science Officer at the SDG AI Lab in pursuit of digital transformation to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. 

The COVID-19 Response Programme is jointly implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and UN Women. The programme is supported by the governments of Finland, Italy and Sweden with the consent to remobilize USD 3.1 million to respond to the pandemic in Kenya.

In Mozambique, one in three women suffered from violence in their lives in the pre-COVID-19 era. Different forms of abuse towards women and girls in many provinces of Mozambique have previously been recorded, especially in Chimoio, Mossourize, Gondola and Tambara districts of Manica province, where domestic violence and abuse cases against women are prevalent, with some resulting in death or loss of body parts.

Olga Tsaplina has joined UN-Habitat in Kenya as a Junior Officer for sustainable urbanization in August 2020. She has a background in political science and international relations and studied in Russia and Germany. UN-Habitat Human Rights and Social Inclusion Unit is responsible for the inclusion of the vulnerable urban population groups into programming and various other activities of the agency. Olga has been supporting the unit on several workstreams like developing the project documents, concept notes, reports and sometimes weekly event publications.

Ayaka’s assignment had a strong focus on COVID-19 response and capacity building, along with accelerating private sector engagement in the Sustainable Development Goals. She also enhanced Uzbekistan’s participation in the UN Food Systems Summit last year. 

The Libya Education Response Monitoring Dashboard documents that some 326,000 people in Libya are in need of education support. UNICEF works to ensure access to safe, inclusive and quality education, particularly for children affected by the protracted crisis. In strengthening support to humanitarian coordination among education actors in the country, UNICEF has a special focus on engaging with community-based organizations and the Ministry of Education.

An 18-month project on responding to threats to peace and social cohesion, supporting the empowerment and promotion of women in Madagascar (REAP) was launched in early 2020. It is funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) to the tune of US $1.5 million and implemented by IOM and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The REAP project has environmental and gender dimensions. Its objective is to support social cohesion between local and migrant communities.