From January 2014 to October 2017, over 230,000 Iraqi families have fled combat zones and armed groups, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). These families face unique protection risks due to fractured community structures, separation of families, insecure shelter arrangements, and loss of income.

Saima Mohammad works as an Associate Public Health Officer for UNHCR in the North-East of Jordan, near the Syrian border. Approximately 50,000 refugees, mostly women and children, are residing in Rukban camp without access to any other health facility than the local clinic. Every morning, Saima travels almost three hours from her office in Ruwaished to Rukban, driving through sensitive military posts on a partially-paved road. In this desert area, no facility or shop are to be seen for kilometres.

According to Iran Red Crescent, at least 328 people have been killed and 3,950 injured. In Iraq, the Iraqi Red Crescent report that nine people have been killed and more than 425 injured.

The project came at a crucial time, because in recent years, the state has been failing to control the spread of HIV/AIDS, to the extent that the prevalence of the disease in Tripura has surpassed the national prevalence rate. Add to this societal taboos and misconceptions, and the situation is infinitely compounded.

In a crisis that killed 8,790 people and forced more than 700,000 into poverty, national UN Volunteers were mobilized to deliver critical assistance in affected sites in Nepal.

"Voices Against Violence" in Togo is an $85,000 USD project that was funded and implemented by the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme between October 2016 and April 2017.  The project is based on an informal education program developed by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and UN Women.  It aims to fight against gender-based violence by raising the awareness of young secondary students about the root causes of violence, ways to prevent it, and finding solutions.

Akeisha Benjamin, Zika Project Coordinator with the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross society (TTRCS) explains, “As people are cleaning up from the floods we are pushing the message to get rid of stagnant waters as quickly as possible, to eliminate mosquito breeding grounds. Given the fact that some people had to evacuate and go to shelters, we are encouraging affected persons to clean up quickly. We are also working with the Regional Corporations to spread the message.” The focus of the project has primarily been on community and school’s outreach in selected areas.

The Gender Based Violence Sub Cluster Report from West and Central African countries facing armed conflict revealed that the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence has drastically increased since the last report in 2016. It is in this line that we jointly organized, in 2017, a regional capacity building workshop on gender mainstreaming, prevention and response to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in emergency and humanitarian settings in Dakar, Senegal.

Deep in the heart of the district of Kindo Koysha in southern Ethiopia, the road system is rudimentary. When volunteers from the Ethiopian Red Cross Society wanted to start distributing emergency water rations to the most vulnerable of families, getting there was a noted challenge. But, with people like Yonas Bade, a farmer and local volunteer on hand, it was a challenge that would be quickly overcome.

At the scenes of the mudslides and flash floods that killed over 500 people and displaced approximately 6000 others, volunteers played amazingly important roles in very many ways. According to Pieter Peters*, a resident of the downstream Kamayama community, rescuing people that were being washed away as well as recovering the dead from the gushing streams was frightening, but, he says, it had to be done. “We pulled both living and dead people from the flood waters in large numbers.”