Every year, about 7,500 qualified and experienced women and men of around 160 nationalities serve as UN Volunteers in some 130 countries. They are professionals who play key roles contributing to peace and making an impact on development results. UNV recruits a great diversity of talents and offers a variety of volunteer opportunities.

Benefits of being a UN Volunteer
The benefits of volunteering go beyond income. Foremost is the personal and professional satisfaction that an assignment brings to the UN Volunteer. It can be challenging and rewarding and require you to use your skills in a new context. You can transfer useful knowledge while gaining a greater understanding of the issues affecting other people.

In return for your service, you will receive the following benefits:

Settling-in-Grant calculated on the duration of assignment which is paid at the beginning of the assignment;

• Volunteer Living Allowance (VLA) intended to cover basic living expenses, which is paid each month;

• Travel on appointment and at the end of assignment, if different than home location;

• Life, health and permanent disability insurance;

• Annual leave; and

• Resettlement allowance calculated based on the duration of assignment which is paid upon satisfactory completion of the assignment.

Becoming an international UN Volunteer
Two thirds of UN Volunteers serving around the world in developing or transitional countries are themselves from such countries. BiH citizens with the required specialist skills may also serve abroad as international UN Volunteers.

UN Volunteers carry out various roles. They are recruited for specialized inputs to development programmes, and increasingly, in the areas of peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and UN-supported electoral processes.

The UNV programme maintains a roster of candidates with relevant experience in these sectors. It covers more than 100 professional categories including, for example, programme/project development, administration, communications, community development, demobilization and reintegration, disaster prevention, humanitarian and civil affairs, engineering, environment, HIV/AIDS, medicine, human rights, logistics, and election support.

To learn more about becoming a UN Volunteer, and to apply, please contact:

United Nations Volunteers (Headquarters)
Postfach 260 111
D-53153 Bonn, Germany
Telephone: +49-228-815-2000
Fax: +49-228-815-2001
Email: information@unvolunteers.org
http://www.unv.org/ua/how-to-volunteer.html

Once your application has been received, it will be appraised. If accepted to the UNV Headquarters roster of eligible candidates, your profile will be compared against UN Volunteer postings submitted from the field.

We recommend that you contact the UNV Country Office in Sarajevo so that we can help you determine whether you are suitably qualified to become an international UNV volunteer.

Basic requirements
Since 1971, more than 30,000 UN Volunteers have worked in over 160 countries. UN Volunteers are professionals that play key roles in delivering development efforts. To become a UN Volunteer one should fulfil the following minimum requirements:

• A university degree or higher technical diplomas;

• Several years of relevant working experience;

• At least age 25 (no maximum age limit);

• Good working knowledge in at least one of the three working UN languages: English, French and Spanish;

• Strong commitment to values and principles of volunteerism;

• Ability to work in a multi-cultural environment;

• Ability to adjust in difficult living conditions;

• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills;

• Prior volunteering and/or working experience in a developing country is an asset.

National UN Volunteer
As a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina you have the chance to serve in your own country in order to support national capacity-building initiatives, facilitate local networking and the exchange of information. Eligible candidates have:

• At least age 25;

• A graduate qualification or equivalent professional experience;

• At least 2-3 years of professional work experience;

• Demonstrated commitment to volunteering and/or previous volunteer experience;

• Working knowledge of English;

• Citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The recruitment of national UN Volunteers is managed at the country level. Interested and qualified candidates should contact the UNV Country Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina to find out about available opportunities. Please note that national UN Volunteer applications do not go via the UNV Headquarters roster of candidates.

Other volunteer opportunities
The first place to look for volunteer opportunities is in your own community. Explore local initiatives and community groups and find out about the hidden issues and projects that could benefit from your enthusiasm and an extra pair of hands.

Find out what local organizations or if a local volunteer service centre exist in your community, and find out how and where you can volunteer some of your time to assist individuals or organizations in need.

If you would like to share your skills and knowledge with people in another country, research the organizations in your home country that recruit volunteers for assignments abroad. Volunteer programmes abroad are diverse in type, length, qualifications and purpose.

There might be a range of volunteering opportunities available. Your resourcefulness, persistence and curiosity will aid you in finding the one that suits you best.

Another source of information about opportunities to volunteer is the World Volunteer Web at www.worldvolunteerweb.org. It is a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy and networking. This website is also the global focal point for International Volunteer Day (IVD), celebrated around the world every 5th December.

The UNV Online Volunteering service is a platform that puts volunteers into contact with organizations around the world. Hundreds of volunteer opportunities are available on www.onlinevolunteering.org for volunteers to engage in development activities over the Internet and to provide online support to the work of grassroots organizations, international NGOs, governments and United Nations agencies. Note that online volunteers are not UN Volunteers.