Internationally acclaimed singer dedicates song to volunteers worldwide as UN General Assembly prepares for landmark volunteerism discussion.
Internationally acclaimed singer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Angélique Kidjo, joined forces with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme this week, ahead of a 5 December UN General Assembly Session on volunteerism. UNV’s message to Member States is clear - millions of volunteers are changing lives for the better every day and with better recognition and support much more can be done.
Everyone can contribute their time, skills and knowledge through volunteer action, and their combined efforts can be a significant force for achieving peace and development.
Johanna Harjunpää is a 27-year-old Finnish university graduate with a Master’s Degree in Ethnology. At the beginning of 2011, she left Finland for Nicaragua to spend six months as an ETVO volunteer. ETVO is a Finnish volunteer programme that is organized by KEPA (The Service Centre for Development Cooperation). Johanna spent six months volunteering for an environment education project of an NGO called Movimiento Comunal Nicaragüense in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The project organized a course in environment education, nursery gardens and recycling operations at six schools in Matagalpa. Now she works as a programme assistant for ETVO in Helsinki, Finland. Here are some of her thoughts about volunteering. 
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2011 is the European Year of Volunteering. A couple of days before the Year’s closing conference in Warsaw on 1 and 2 December, we interviewed John Macdonald, Head of Task Force for the European Year of Volunteering 2011, from the European Commission Directorate-General for Communication, to obtain more insights into the year’s objectives and its preliminary results.
