In Bunia, Ituri Province, UN Volunteer Ounteni Souobou is a Child Protection Officer (Database and Reporting) with MONUSCO. He is from Burkina Faso. Ounteni's work focuses on documenting violations regarding children's rights, abductions and sexual violence, under the United Nations Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism. Each verified case feeds into national reports used by MONUSCO and UNICEF to target high-risk zones and guide advocacy.

Every day at the office looks different for Océane. Some days, she travels to a detention center outside Phnom Penh to meet with a detainee. On other days, she attends a trial. But her focus is always on delivering recommendations that improve prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners through legal reform. 

Wesal Abu Hamad, a UN Volunteer Humanitarian Field Support Assistant with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was in Gaza when the war erupted. 

“The levels of death and destruction in Gaza are without parallel in recent times. Day after day, our efforts are being blocked, delayed, and denied. This is unacceptable.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres says, while highlighting the clear obligations for the occupying power, Israel. He calls Gaza a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself. “People are starving.

In South Sudan, I serve in Central Equatoria State, in the counties of Yei, Morobo, Lainya and Kajo-keji. These are communities that have lived through years of conflict. People here wake up each day facing threats that should never be normal: killings, abductions, sexual violence, cattle raids, looting of homes, and arbitrary arrests. The danger is constant. Yet people still hope. They want safety. They want dignity. They want peace.

After she graduated, Yoojeong discovered that being a Korean national, she could apply for the fully funded UN Volunteer opportunities with the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). She sent in her application for the role of a UN Volunteer Operational Data Management Associate with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 

Yeran Kejijian knows what it means to be displaced. Her grandparents were refugees in Lebanon, and their stories shaped her path. Now, as the United Nations Volunteers Country Coordinator for Lebanon and Syria, Yeran helps Syrians return home after years of exile. For her, rebuilding communities isn’t just about logistics—it’s about restoring dignity. 

Humanity in action

In the MENA region, climate change is intensifying existing hardships—shrinking food and water supplies and deepening instability for communities already displaced by conflict. Enter Jahidul Islam: a Bangladeshi climate and disability inclusion expert who brings both technical insight and lived experience. He is a wheelchair user who has faced structural barriers firsthand.

We had all answered the call to serve in the historic United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), a political mission, established by the UN Security Council on June 11, 1999. Our task: to help organize and conduct a UN-sponsored referendum in which the Timorese people would vote on whether to remain under Indonesian autonomy or pursue full independence.