One hundred Online Volunteers were deployed with UNHCR for almost two months on a campaign that ended this week. Almost all of them were nationals of Niger. Through social media posts, they raised awareness of the rights of refugees in Niger and addressed Sustainable Development Goal 10, reducing inequalities. The posts further highlighted the urgent need to find solutions for refugees in the country – mostly from Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria. 

Meet  Sabilou Ibrahim, a national UN Volunteer specialist responsible for monitoring and evaluation. Sabilou recalls his first week with UNICEF Benin, where he quickly felt welcomed and motivated to start his assignment. “It just took me 72 hours to be adopted by my colleagues” he states. 

Scaling up education efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo Born and raised in a small village in Northern Sumatera, Indonesia, Astrini Simanjuntak witnessed stark inequalities in her community in terms of access to basic services, particularly among women and girls. This pushed her to pursue a master’s degree in sociology, majoring in gender.

With the spirit of volunteering deeply rooted in her, Fatouma has always had the drive to empower young people. Her journey started in Geneva where she interned with the Permanent Mission of Djibouti to the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. Armed with knowledge and experience, and having youth empowerment at heart, she returned to Djibouti to volunteer as Regional Coordinator and Youth Development Delegate with UNDP. Within her assignment, she has been implementing the Youth Leadership Programme (YLP) in her country since 2021.

In the past months, the Youth4Climate initiative has benefited from the efforts of two Online Volunteers: Issakha Khouzeifi and Silvia Alfonsi. Over a period of four weeks, they supported the UNDP team by mentoring young people and helping them in preparing and improving their proposals in response to the Youth4climate call for solutions.

The life path of 21-year-old Anes was not the same as that of his peers. From early childhood he walked through a world that often did not understand his unique abilities. He was born with Down syndrome, which greatly influenced his upbringing and life circumstances, from schooling and adolescence to acceptance in society. But every obstacle was a new step towards success for him.

Representing over 160 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean, youth bring the abilities, ideas and determination to overcome the triple planetary crisis – loss of biodiversity, pollution and climate change. Volunteerism is a means for utilizing those skills, while accelerating and increasing their scope of action. 

What did your day-to-day work at UNFPA Madagascar entail?