Solomon focuses on supporting UNESCO's education component of the project, implementing literacy and numeracy programmes at cattle camps within the Lakes State pastoralist communities.  "As a volunteer, I have gained experience and understanding of the diverse ways of life of communities in the pastoral communities.  I am glad I am helping build their capacity and resilience." 

Alois Neza Sikuka (Zimbabwe) is a UN Volunteer Peace, Community & Security Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in South Sudan.

Aissata Ba (France) is a UN Volunteer Communications Officer with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, West Africa Regional Office (OHCHR/WARO) in Senegal.

Yasmine Mohamed Mohamed Zaki El-Demerdash is a UN Volunteer Reception Coordinator with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Egypt.

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

To commemorate the International Day of Peace, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Pretoria partnered with UN Volunteers and the African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) to educate learners on peace and its link to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The day began at Curro Independent School in Roodeplaat where primary school learners were informed and quizzed about their knowledge of the UN and what peace means to them with many saying that peace “is to not fight and to find solutions to conflicts.”

Volunteerism as building blocks for peacebuilding, how does that work? For starters, volunteerism generates forms of social capital that are indispensable to peacebuilding and plays an important role in strengthening the development of national civilian capacities to address peacebuilding issues.

On this International Day of Peace we celebrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the “Building Blocks for Peace”. 

Between Friday 8 July and Sunday 10 July, heavy fighting broke out in Juba which had consequences for the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the Agencies, Funds and Programmes active in the country. A ceasefire was declared on Monday 11 July 2016. At least 272 people have been killed in the recent violence. Two peacekeepers and one United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) staff lost their lives while several other peacekeepers have sustained injuries. 

In what has become an annual event, the Government of Germany and the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) held a gathering in Berlin to mark the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, honouring the contribution of German peacekeepers around the world in the presence of more than 200 invitees.