UN Afghanistan election volunteers awarded peacemaker awards
And now for a personal look at the work done by United Nations volunteers in the field. In one of the largest UN programs to date, more than 600 Afghani nationals and internationals volunteered to work with the UN mission to prepare the country for it’s first constitutional elections in September last year. As a result of their efforts, more than 10 million Afghani citizens were registered to vote, more than 4 million of them women participating in their first democratic elections. Today these volunteers received the first Peacemaker Award from Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. Peter Murphy worked as a UN volunteer Provincial Field Coordinator in Afghanistan for one and a half years. He described one of his most moving experiences, which happened just after they opened the first female voter registration site in Kandahar in Southern Afghanistan, to 2SER’s Christine Baker.