“Peacebuilding here is about patience.” In Katsina, Dennis Bwala is a UN Volunteer with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Northwest Prevention Facility, and spends his days connecting local authorities, security forces, and communities that often don’t trust each other.My role is to facilitate dialogue, strengthen partnerships, and ensure that our interventions are inclusive and neutral, so communities feel ownership over the solutions."

We had more than 200 volunteers spread across the country—many right where the fighting began. We had plans to scale up to 1,000 volunteers to support health services. In a matter of days, those plans collapsed. Suddenly, it wasn’t about growth. It was about survival.Care that goes both ways

Peter is busy in his office handling multiple sheets of paper with graphs and tables. A hand-sized calculator is placed at an angle, making it easy to guess its frequent usage. Peter, with a lifetime UN career behind him, has embarked on a new chapter. October marks his fourth month as a UN Volunteer Finance Associate with the United Nations Development Programme in Dar es Salaam. In fact, he is back in the same office where his journey began over three decades ago.

In moments like this, my role is not to lecture or impose. It is to listen, to ask questions, to remind the group that within their own customs and traditions lie paths to peace. I have learned that people want solutions to come from themselves. My job is to create the space where that feels possible. By the end of that day, nothing dramatic had shifted. No handshake sealed a deal. But the room felt lighter. Neighbours who had stopped speaking to each other had looked one another in the eye. And for me, that was enough to keep going.

UN Volunteers in BeijingAt China’s International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE), Jialin is a young Chinese UN Volunteer Project Analyst with UNOSSC. She organizes trainings, reviews grant proposals, and drafts policy briefs that drive sustainable development in agriculture, clean energy, and poverty reduction.