To mark International Volunteers Day on 4th December, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme announced the winners of the “Online Volunteering Award 2010”, honouring the ‘outstanding’ contributions of volunteers who work entirely over the Internet to contribute to peace and development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Within three months, a team of four online volunteers translated more than 150 documents of the UN-Business partnership gateway www.business.un.org into Chinese. The portal, developed for the UN by the Hong-Kong-based NGO Global Hand, matches the needs of UN organizations with the resources and capacities of the private sector to address global challenges. The launch of the Chinese version together with the other official UN languages at the 2010 Global Compact Leaders’ Summit in New York was a key step towards the portal’s global outreach.

The Chinese website will enhance the brokerage of partnerships between Chinese companies and the UN in support of critical humanitarian needs and long-term development goals. Through approximately 110 partnership stories translated by the online volunteers, Chinese companies can find inspiration on how they can engage with the UN.

Olivia Cho, who coordinated Global Hand’s collaboration with the volunteers, states that “the online volunteers showed an exceptional level of team work that really astounded us, as well as a high-level of expertise and commitment. They were extremely thorough and brilliant at communicating, always responding promptly to questions and new instructions. We encouraged the team to discuss their challenges and work together on addressing difficult words or phrases. This added an additional layer of consistency across the project, helped the team move forward faster, and enhanced motivation for the whole team”.