After a 50-year conflict between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC-EP), the objective of the UN Mission in Colombia (UNMC) is to support cessation of hostilities and to monitor the abandonment of arms as well as the definitive bilateral ceasefire.

The month of December was passing by and my sadness had turned into depression. At that moment, I had lived outside of Venezuela for almost two years, since I, like many other young people from my country, felt the need to look for opportunities beyond our borders. However, in my case, my stay in Colombia had become more challenging than expected: I couldn’t find a job where I could utilize my skills and professional knowledge, and I was quite far from content.

Volunteerism enables youth engagement, leadership and participation Within Latin America and the Caribbean, young people between the ages of 15 and 24 account for 20 per cent of the population. This is the largest percentage of youth in this region, ever.  The statistics are dire: 35 million of these young people never attended school, 39 per cent live in poverty and 25 per cent are unemployed.

Wendy Betancourt García (Colombia) is a UN Volunteer Project assistant with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Colombia.

The third “Volunteer Talk – UNV Knowledge Sharing Webinar” was organized on 30 October 2014 and had as theme “Motivating and Recognizing Volunteers". The webinar featured experiences from the field on tools for recognizing the contribution of volunteers, in a wider policy context. The guest speakers for this webinar were Renata Farias, UNV Programme Officer in Cabo Verde and Adriana Serdan, UNV Programme Officer in Colombia.

The third “Volunteer Talk – UNV Knowledge Sharing Webinar” was organized on 30 October 2014 and had as theme “Motivating and Recognising Volunteers". The webinar featured experiences from the field on tools for recognising the contribution of volunteers, in a wider policy context. The guest speakers for this webinar were Renata Farias, UNV Programme Officer in Cabo Verde and Adriana Serdan, UNV Programme Officer in Colombia.

During the first UNV Partnerships Forum that took place in Bonn, on September 30th and October 1st 2014, eight UN Volunteers were given the floor to share their experience as UN Volunteer. In this video, Ioseba Amatriain Losa, Spanish fully funded UN Youth Volunteer tells about his experience in Colombia.