work for the United Nations

I work in international development with a focus on HIV/AIDS, education and media. I am still pretty novice in this field. I have done the field work (as a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa) and have been working at an international media development organization for almost two years.

UNESCO has a media development office that I would love to work for, but I just get the impression that getting into the UN is very difficult if you don’t have the right connections. Last year, I applied for the Young professionals program and didn’t get accepted that way. So I am not sure how to work it from this point forward. Here are my immediate objectives to reach this goal:
1. Become proficient (or fluent) in French by March 2008: Study for 1-hour a day. Watch at least 1 hour of French-language TV each day. Practice.
2. Apply to the Young Professionals Program for FY2008.
3. Flesh out my networks (e.g. connect with my boyfriend’s distant uncle who works for UNESCO in West Africa)
4. Study my area of interests (HIV, media, education, ICT) for at least 1 hour a day.

So, I think that it will take me four years to get to work for the UN. Here are the things I think will need to do in order to get in there before the powers that be decide that the G8 is much more effective at representing their (greedy) interests:

Learn at least two more languages (Russian and Arabic? Spanish and Mandarin? Punjabi? Hindi? Urdu? Swahili?) I would like to eventually learn 5 languages other than English.

Get my master’s degree in Political Science

Work for or create grassroots human rights/ refugee organization

Work for the Department of Foreign Affairs

Publish a whole bunch of academic articles related to that field

Join/ volunteer for groups that work with the UN

Field work in Africa, South America, Asia and Eastern Europe (my husband will not be happy with this one).

I think that’s it. I don’t know how much of this I can actually get done in 4 years now that I’m looking at all of it.

Like with refugees or UNESCO. I dunno. This one might be a few years off. How did Annan (sp?) get his job?

It’s a great dream I had, but I can’t fathom the stress I’d be under. I’d rather work in grassroots operations, at least for the next few decades.