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.

"We have six international UN Volunteers and 16 national UN Volunteers, which represents 10 per cent of the overall personnel of UNICEF. They contribute significantly to achieving results for the children of Chad," says Mariana Stirbu, the Deputy Representative of UNICEF.

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. 

Just like the rest of the world, the battle against the pandemic is still ongoing in Tunisia. The Coronavirus has been an opportunity to learn more about the potential of volunteering, and what volunteers, who were among the first responders, can do in a health crisis context. They have been yielding impactful results and supporting with different components of pandemic preparedness and response. 

International Volunteer Day 2021 called for the recognition of volunteers and volunteerism as powerful and cross-cutting ways of achieving the SDGs and building an inclusive world. A number of UN partner representatives, influencers and national authorities shared via social media their messages of acknowledgement and appreciation for the support of volunteers.

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.

Kristian Yudhianto serves in Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, in East Java. As a Health Officer, his primary responsibility is to support the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the city and across eight districts. He works with other public health professionals to carefully analyze immunization data and help with logistical planning and vaccine readiness assessments.

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.