Wau, South Sudan: Everybody likes a story with a happy ending. This is especially true for people working on the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants and women associated with armed forces and groups (WAAF). As a Management Systems Officer, Prince Isaiah, a UN Volunteer from Liberia, accumulates data on people’s reintegration for the Crisis Prevention Recovery Unit of UNDP’s DDR program in South Sudan. For him, finding success stories is one of the best parts of his job.

Monrovia, Liberia: Joining the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) as a UNV Judicial Systems Monitor in 2007 has allowed me to help further development not only for the people I serve in Lofa and Montserrado Counties, but also for myself. I have monitored, advised and reported on judicial processes at the Magistrates’ Courts, Circuit Courts and Supreme Court in civil and criminal matters, sometimes in very remote areas of Liberia.

Kigali, Rwanda: Every child has the right to play! (Art.31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.) It seems so obvious; yet there are more than seven hundred million children who have never known what play means. That is about a quarter of all the world's children!

Nairobi, Kenya:  It has been a long, tiring and dusty journey across north eastern Kenya on a mission to witness first-hand the effects of the drought that has left millions on the brink of starvation. With me on this trip is UNICEF Sweden Goodwill Ambassador Liza Marklund and Swedish photographer Martin von Krogh. Together we have travelled from Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, to Liboi near the Kenya-Somalia border and their journey ends in Wajir, a drought stricken district in northern Kenya. But for me this journey is far from over.

Kampala, Uganda:  'Unite for children' is what UNICEF stands for and what drives UN Volunteers to support UNICEF’s work.

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: My story I am from Burkina Faso, a West African country located on the southern edge of Africa’s Sahara desert.  Minimal rainfall makes living conditions very hard for people. In 1976, when I started primary school, less than 20 per cent of all children had access to education. Millions of children  do not attend school due to poverty. I could have suffered the same fate like these millions of children being ignored in this remote part of the world, unable to write, nor read.

Kampala, Uganda: I started volunteering at UNICEF Kampala in September 2010, after working for twelve years for a charity organisation in Uganda which works with vulnerable groups (women, children and people with disabilities) to overcome poverty and malnutrition in sustainable ways. As a new volunteer, I had great expectations and was full of ambition. I looked forward to meeting and working with new people at UNICEF, gaining new skills and using my experience to contribute to making a positive difference in the lives of women and children in Uganda.

Gitega, Burundi: It was during my experience as a volunteer in a Mexican orphanage that I was motivated to work with UNICEF later. And here I am, a few years later, holding a university degree, being even more inspired as a UN Volunteer who supports UNICEF in Burundi in Eastern Africa - and proud of it!

Abeche, Chad: When the closure of the United Nations Mission in Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) was announced by the UN Security Council in May, 2010, I was already posted in Abeche as a UNV Project and Advocacy Officer. “You need to experience a liquidation phase at least once,” I was told by colleagues who had.  Some said, “I did it [the liquidation], and I will not do it again.”  Others said, “This is the most stressful period of a mission.  If you can be in your unit liquidation team, you will learn a lot.”

Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: Every child has its rights. This is the name of the first Journal Mural (Wall Paper) created by more than 50 children that live in the Tchada community in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau. This activity was promoted by me, a Brazilian UN Volunteer, on a Saturday morning, two weeks after my arrival in the country where I volunteer as a UNV Communications and Advocacy Officer in the Resident Coordinator Office of the United Nations System in the country.