A volunteer is a person who freely chooses to undertake a task, without being motivated by any immediate material benefit.
Volunteerism is a social activity that is of benefit to individuals outside one’s immediate family, to the community or to the environment.
Volunteers assigned by the UNV programme to UN missions and agencies are known as ‘UN Volunteers’. Motivated by their volunteer spirit, UN Volunteers offer their professional experience and technical skills to assist others in the cause of peace and development.
The UNV programme
The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the UN organization that contributes to peace and development through volunteerism worldwide.
Volunteerism is a powerful means of engaging people in tackling development challenges, and it can transform the pace and nature of development. Volunteerism benefits both society at large and the individual volunteer by strengthening trust, solidarity and reciprocity among citizens, and by purposefully creating opportunities for participation.
UNV contributes to peace and development by advocating for recognition of volunteers, working with partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming, and mobilizing an increasing number and diversity of volunteers.
UNV embraces volunteerism as universal and inclusive, and recognizes volunteerism in its diversity as well as the values that sustain it: free will, commitment, engagement and solidarity.
For more information, please visit www.unv.org.
UNV programme within UNMIS
The UNV Field Unit in UNMIS represents the UNV programme working as a team to recruit and support highly motivated and qualified individuals in order to complement and value add to the mission with particular attention to the understanding of, participation in and advocacy for volunteerism in Sudan.
UNV volunteers with UNMIS are assigned to more than 30 duty stations across Sudan and serve in programmes of over 33 sections, covering a wide range of areas of expertise, substantive, technical and administrative.
There are over 900 UN Volunteers serving throughout Sudan, with UNMIS, the African Union United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and UN agencies amongst which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).