I recently travelled to Mbire with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Zimbabwe communications team. As a UN Volunteer, my job was to help tell the stories of women and families we met. We were documenting the impact of a One-stop Centre provided by UNDP in collaboration with the Zimbabwe Gender Commission. The initiative started in response to alarming findings from a national inquiry on child marriages and abuse of young girls, including those with disabilities. 

 As a 17-year-old, I travelled to the United States on an educational exchange programme and my main motivation was to play baseball and experience American culture.I met a lot of other people from Africa and Asia as well as Europe and I was taken aback and then impressed by their passion and motivation to support their villages and communities back home.

Meet Rafiatu Umarayi Alhassan and Samuel Peprah Bekoe. Both are UN Volunteer Field Coordinators and part of Young Africa Innovates (YAI) with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ghana, a bold initiative helping young people across all 16 regions of the country turn their ideas into solutions. 

In Niger, Kadiatou Moumouni is more than a UN Volunteer; she’s part of what defines the new normal in the UN system—inclusion. At the Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO), she connects government, UN agencies, and civil society to champion gender equality, human rights, and disability inclusion. One of her standout contributions? A simple attendance sheet—redesigned to track the participation of persons with disabilities.

Andrii began his assignment by designing a strategic plan focused on the geospatial component of the project, researching each participating city’s geographic, historical, and socio-economic context. This helped him gain a deeper understanding of the forces shaping urban development.  "Once the groundwork was laid, I began sourcing data—vector, raster, and statistical—while organizing everything in a way that would support efficient geospatial analysis. This step was more than just data management; it was about building a foundation for meaningful insights," shares Andrii.