“Apocalyptic” is the word that sprang to mind when I visited communities in the orange and red zones just nine days after the devastating eruption of La Soufrière.
Children returning to schools, workplaces re-opening, and vaccines all seemed to point to a return to normal but like 2020, 2021 has been a year of hope, loss, and uncertainty for people around the world. Stories of innovative ways to connect, protect our planet from climate change, and ways we, as a society, have joined forces to protect each other from the pandemic that has ravaged all our lives.
Jan André is a cheerful and outgoing young man, a superb dancer, and aspiring schoolteacher. Indeed, he wants to become the best schoolteacher in Costa Rica. Fortified by his own will and the encouragement of his family, he overcame violence and adversity to become an outstanding university student.
Not all innovations are based on new technologies. Sometimes, they have to do with procedures or practices — that is, how people work together. That’s largely the case with a new method of responding to climate shocks and other humanitarian emergencies. Climate change is driving more extreme and frequent natural hazards, and that means that humanitarian need will only increase.
During the pandemic, violence cases against women increased significantly in Honduras. The country has the highest femicide rate in the Latin American region.
“He told me he was in love with me and was planning to propose to me soon,” says Layla* about her relationship with the head of a company she worked for in Morocco. “I trusted him.” But mixed in with the declarations of love was coercion and violence...
Every year around the world, thousands of volunteers from dozens of professional backgrounds join missions in different UN agencies to work in the field. All volunteers serving across 150 countries and territories are coordinated by an agency called UN Volunteers, or UNV for short.
Guljahan Tanalova has her hands full.
She is raising a son alone, and she is coordinator of a new project providing social services for people with disabilities in the city of Ashgabat, in Turkmenistan. She herself has a disability resulting from a musculoskeletal disorder.
“Persons with disabilities are capable and equal. It is time the world understands that,” says Antonio Palma, a UN Volunteer at the Resident Coordinator’s Office in Guatemala.
