stories Archives - Career Meaning

Lives transformed: Stories from 80 years of UN work across the world

·October 21, 2025·6 min read

The exhibition “Shared Lives, Shared Future”, showcases stories from nearly 200 countries and reflects the UN’s evolving spirit and mission over time. From humanitarian relief and education to development and sustainability, it presents real-life stories of individuals and communities whose lives have been transformed by the UN’s mission.Here are some...

World Refugee Day: telling their stories

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·June 19, 2025·3 min read

While hotspots include Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Palestine, displacement affects every region of the world. In the lead-up to World Refugee Day, Friday, the UN is spotlighting the importance of solidarity with refugees through support, solutions, and the power of storytelling. Zahra Nader: Reporting from exile Ahead of World...

‘We all have someone missing’: Families of the thousands of Syrians ‘disappeared’ by Assad regime share stories of loss

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·February 11, 2025·1 min read

It has been two months since Bashar al-Assad, the former president of Syria, was forced to flee the country, as rebel forces – now installed as the interim government – advanced on Damascus, putting an end to 50 years of autocratic rule and nearly14 years of civil war. The country’s...

Stories from the UN Archive: Roots of ‘no justice, no peace’

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·January 20, 2025·4 min read

Read our story here: When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, visited UN Headquarters in the 1960s to protest the Viet Nam conflict, the civil rights leader likened the anti-war movement to the struggle for equality for Black people in the US, declaring then what...

Stories from the UN Archive: What UNRWA built

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·October 31, 2024·2 min read

UNRWA was established by UN Member States in 1949 to carry out direct relief and development programmes for Palestinian people who lost their homes following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. UN Photo has curated a collection from its archive that follows the agency’s critical work since it began operating throughout the...

Stories from the UN Archive: Did Khrushchev really bang his shoe?

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·January 11, 2024·1 min read

The rumour began when Mr. Khrushchev travelled to New York at the height of the cold war. During the Assembly’s general debate for Heads of State and Government on 12 October 1960, he indicated that he wanted to make a point of order about the way his counterpart from the...

Stories from the UN Archive: Stevie Wonder’s boost for World Braille Day

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·January 5, 2024·1 min read

“Yet, out of millions of publications each year, fewer than five per cent are made available in accessible formats for visually impaired persons in developing countries,” he added. The global superstar, who lost his sight shortly after birth, was designated as a Messenger of Peace in 2009 with a focus...

Stories from the UN Archive: Hollywood greats campaign against malaria and polio

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·December 28, 2023·1 min read

Following the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, marked annually on 27 December, we took a look at how two renowned actors helped the UN health agency in 1959. A singing legend, Mr. Sinatra lent his golden voice to WHO for a UN Radio story, telling the tale of two victims of...

Stories from the UN Archive: Audrey Hepburn on children’s rights

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·December 21, 2023·2 min read

Soon after becoming a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1988, she went on a mission to Ethiopia, where years of drought and civil strife had caused terrible famine. After visiting UNICEF emergency operations, she talked about the projects to media in the United States, Canada and Europe over several weeks, giving...

Stories from the UN Archive: Kissing trees and protecting the natural world

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·December 14, 2023·1 min read

On the heels of the International Day of Neutrality, marked annually on 12 December, we took a look at Ms. Goodall’s contributions as a Messenger of Peace. Launched in 1997, the UN Messengers of Peace programme has designated more than a dozen influential individuals, including Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Pakistani...

Stories from the UN Archive: Human rights must come ‘in hearts of people’

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·December 10, 2023·1 min read

Eleanor Roosevelt played a key role as a member of the US delegation to the United Nations in the two-year-long process that led to the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She famously said that the “real change which must give to people throughout the world their...

Stories from the UN Archive: The man who defined genocide

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·December 7, 2023·1 min read

On the eve of International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, 9 December, we looked at the origin of the word. Mr. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of...