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.
Karol Alejandra Arámbula Carrillo (Mexico) has been a UN Online Volunteer since 2011. One of her motivations to join UNV’s Online Volunteering service was the desire to help organisations in other countries carry out their work, especially in the field of gender equality.
At the United Nations stand at the summit, UNV organised an activity related to the “Youth for the SDGs” project, during which young leaders attending the summit were invited to ‘adopt’ one of the Sustainable Development Goals and to indicate a specific course of action which would contribute to its achievement.
I was selected as a UN Online Volunteer for a project in which we developed content on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and spread it on social networks. I was already volunteering at an electronic newspaper and I asked for the authorization to use my weekly column to give the campaign more visibility. Every week I shared a general overview about the designated SDG, addressing the main point of the goal, the objectives, the global and regional context and, lastly, the Brazilian reality.
The day I received an alert for an online volunteering opportunity with the UNV Latin American and the Caribbean Portfolio, I had already applied for different assignments throughout the years. My happiness was immense. My perseverance gave me the possibility to collaborate, not only contributing with knowledge about the reality of my own country, Venezuela, but also with other groups and situations in other latitudes, in this case Nicaragua.
My name is Isabela, I am 23 years old, and I am of American and Ecuadorian nationality. I left the United States in July of 2016 to join the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme to explore how youth are contributing to the development of my second home, Ecuador.
This is how I got to participate in the First Regional Meeting of Youth Volunteer Networks in Cuenca, where I had the opportunity to interact with young volunteers from Latin America and learn how volunteering contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the region.
Between February and May 2016, these volunteers dedicated their time, experience and knowledge to the local realities of their regions or countries, and shared their ideas and impressions about the SDGs in their social networks, mainly Facebook and Twitter, using the hashtags #ODS_LAC and #UNVLAC.
The initiative sprung from the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme’s Latin America and Caribbean Portfolio, with the idea to strengthen UNV’s online presence in the region, especially among Spanish and Portuguese speakers.
We live in a world influenced by social networks, and people invest more time in them every day. Through social media we have the opportunity to share our everyday lives with others, and at the same time get inspired by other people and their posts.
When I became aware of this situation, I also realized that having a computer, internet connection and the will to transform the world, can be the start of a project that achieves great impact in the lives of other human beings, and that is why I decided to become an online volunteer.
On this International Day of Peace we celebrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the “Building Blocks for Peace”.