Malou had worked earlier as a consultant for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and UN Development Programme (UNDP), and as a staff member in UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), all in the Philippines. She is now a UN Volunteer Coordination Assistant in the Philippines.

I came to Jordan to support the Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) response, as part of the national campaign to eliminate the COVID-19 virus. The main role of UNICEF in the campaign is to build the capacities of the government to respond to COVID-19.

I started my assignment in UNICEF’s Social Policy Cluster, and as the pandemic hit, I took on an additional role supporting their Education Cluster in their COVID-19 response team. My work focused on compiling evidence on the severity of the pandemic’s impact on schools and learning in Indonesia’s rural and remote areas and providing feedback to inform the Ministry of Education’s COVID-19 response plan.

What do you do as a UN Volunteer? The Global Fund’s COVID-19 response programme aims to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the fight to defeat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and promotes urgent improvements in health and community systems.

By introducing a law against gender-based violence in 2011 and adopting a positive discrimination approach, progress made in Cabo Verde has been encouraging. Unfortunately, entrenched patriarchal gender stereotypes persist and many of these have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. More women were isolated at home and many social services closed, which resulted in the increased vulnerability of women and girls to domestic abuse and other forms of violence. Work continues to recover these gains and promote greater equality for women in Cabo Verde.

As a Communications Assistant with UN Women, Zhu Liu was responsible for the communication and advocacy activities of the COVID-19 recovery project and the Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme. She promoted and advocated gender equality and women’s rights through multiple channels, and developed social media content and online campaigns on Weibo, WeChat, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Dalila is assigned to Remada, one of Tunisia’s southernmost towns near the borders with Libya. To her, serving as the sole representative of the only UN entity working in this remote area has been both a challenge and a privilege. Remada has long been left behind due to lacking development efforts. It witnesses recurrent protests denouncing the deteriorating economic situation and the limited access to opportunities, with unemployment rate reaching 33 per cent in 2020,  according to the Municipality of Remada.

Forced to flee their homes due to persecution, conflict or violence, refugee children are five times more likely to be out of school than non-refugee children. Infrastructures set up to support refugee populations are often deemed to be temporary with the primary focus being to ensure that basic needs – such as food and shelter – are met

Historically, the accounts of gender-based violence have left behind the non-binary experience that is a grappling reality for many individuals living with and among us. In the context of Nepal, violence against trans and non-binary persons are adversely affecting the daily life of people. Yet, seldom do we find coverage in the mainstream media and resources are difficult to access for help. 

According to the country’s first national gender-based violence survey in 2017, at least half of Mongolian women are expected to experience some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime, and one in three women had suffered violence in the year prior.