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Today, the UN and the world are recognizing a group of people who deserve our thanks: volunteers!

Imagine a life where you live on less than two dollars a day. You have been saving for months to afford a trip to the health clinic. With your payment in hand, you walk three hours to get to the nearest clinic, carrying your young children with you. When you finally arrive, you want to be able to receive information and testing for HIV and also pick up contraception to prevent pregnancy, but you’re told that the clinic does not provide both services. You can get tested for HIV, but you’ll have to walk an additional 20 miles to a separate clinic to obtain contraceptives. Unable to cover the distance, you are forced to return home without the contraception that you want and need.

Today, the UN Foundation and more than 1,000 partners across the country are making history by launching #GivingTuesday—a movement to celebrate giving and encourage more, better and smarter giving during the Holiday Season.

Just a few years ago, we all witnessed the birth of a new day that changed the way people think about holiday shopping: Cyber Monday. Today I am writing about something I think can be an even bigger game changer, #GivingTuesday.

VAW takes many forms, including physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence. It crosses cultures, communities and countries—devastating lives, fracturing families and communities, obstructing economic opportunity, preventing generations from reaching their full potential, and stalling national development.

Imagine if your children couldn’t walk to school without fear of life-threatening violence. Imagine if you feared for your safety every night because there were no lights on your street. Imagine if you were brutally attacked for simply trying to feed your family.

How far would you go to support the work of the United Nations? Each day peacekeepers, aid workers and medical personnel deliver food and aid and put themselves in harm’s way to fulfill the mission of the UN and deliver on its promise to provide a better and safer world. We talk about their important work often, but today let’s talk about you.

Overheard on post-Hurricane Sandy news reports, a New Jersey resident noted, “I’ve experienced three ‘once-in-a-hundred-years’ storms in the last 18 months!” Something is up.

Dirty Energy pollution is heating up our climate, and we end up with Dirty Weather. Climate disruption affects us all, and it will take all of us together to solve it.

Last month, we were devastated at the tragedy that 15 year-old Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai suffered when she was shot near her school.

Pneumonia. You probably know it as a spelling-bee challenge and respiratory illness that can make you very sick. Millions of people in the US are affected each year by pneumonia, but did you know that it is one of the leading killers of children under the age of 5 around the world?