Background

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the development programme of the United Nations System (UN) and works in some 170 countries and territories, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. UNDP helps countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience to sustain development results. UNDP supports the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as they help shape global sustainable development.
Enabling UNDP to meet client and partner needs, the Office of Human Resources in the Bureau of Management Services (BMS/OHR) is the hub for the global HR function at UNDP, providing strategy, policy setting, guidance, and oversight as well as HR advisory and talent management services. Within BMS/OHR, the People Performance Unit (PPU) exists to provide substantive leadership to the development and implementation of the UNDP-wide approaches and strategies aimed at creating a positive employee experience and maintaining a safe, respectful and enabling working environment that enables personnel engagement, productivity and performance. More specifically, the team leads and provides advice on matters related to employee experience and engagement, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, duty of care with a focus on occupational safety, health and well-being (OSHW), dealing with sexual misconduct in the workplace, and individual performance management and its linkages with the broader organizational performance.
In 2023, the UN System Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy was launched to address the needs of UN personnel and improve organizational capacities to prevent poor mental health, protect and promote good mental health and well-being. This strategy incorporates leading practices in the workplace mental health and well-being. This is further supported by UNDP’s People for 2030 and Occupational Health, Safety and Well-being (OHSW) Strategies, which emphasizes UNDP’s ongoing commitment to create a healthy workplace and fostering a culture of well-being that maintains the focus on both individuals and the working environment.
In this context, BMS/OHR is seeking an intern to support the UNDP’s Well-being Team in responding to the psychosocial and mental health care needs of its personnel and fostering a healthy working environment by contributing to communications efforts with a focus on mental health awareness, enhancement of training materials, and maintenance of internal communication channels.
Full-time for 3 to 6 months, the internship requires creativity, enthusiasm, ability to work independently, passion for well-being, eagerness to learn and motivation to empower personnel from various backgrounds in the workplace.

Duties and Responsibilities

A. Support communication efforts of the awareness campaign during October Mental Health month.
• Contribute to the development of a communications campaign and planning of a communications campaign for October Mental Health Month.
• Assist in the design, preparation, implementation of campaign materials, including posters, brochures, presentations, videos, etc.
• Promote awareness of existing resources, such as the Well-being app, intranet SharePoint, etc.
• Participate in the evaluation of the campaign’s effectiveness and impact.

B. Assist in enhancing the branding of existing well-being training materials and related mental health support resources.
• Contribute to the design of the Well-being team’s branding package for existing training materials.
• Assist in design of communication guidelines for internal training or group sessions.
• Contribute to the creation of engaging content to improve communication of well-being training and group sessions.

C. General Support:
• Assist with the maintenance, monitoring, and update of the Intranet/SharePoint Pages related to well-being, as needed.
• Assist in creating a SharePoint page dedicated to existing learning resources/repository.
• Support the curation of relevant internal and UN-wide well-being updates, events, news, and announcements, though Viva Engage, SharePoint and the Well-being App and incorporate existing data and materials into communication efforts.
• Contribute to managing the Well-being community space on UNDP’s corporate social media (Viva Engage), keep the community active and comments duly responded to.
• Other tasks relevant to the mandate of the Well-being team as required.

Competencies

Achieve Results: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline - Level 1
Think Innovatively: Open to creative ideas/know risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements - Level 1
Learn Continuously: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback – Level 1
Adapt with Agility: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible – Level 1
Act with Determination: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confidence – Level 1
Engage and Partner: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships – Level 1
Enable Diversity and Inclusion: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination – Level 1

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
Applicants to UNDP internships must at the time of application meet one of the following academic requirements:
a) Be enrolled in a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher) in Human Resources, Marketing, Communications, Social Sciences, Graphic design or related field;
b) Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum bachelor’s level or equivalent) in Human Resources, Marketing, Communications, Social Sciences or related field.
c) Have graduated with a university degree (as defined in (a) and (b) above) and, if selected, must start the internship within one year of graduation.

Experience:
- Experience in writing, copy-editing, blogging, journalism, social media engagement or online content/website management would be a distinct advantage.
- Experience with mental health and well-being services is an asset.
Knowledge of In-Design, Canva or other design or illustration software used to create multimedia communications products would be an asset.
- Understanding of mental health and passion for personnel well-being, training, psychoeducation is an advantage.
- High ethics and confidentiality.

Language Requirements:
- Fluency in English is required.
- Knowledge of Spanish, French or other UN languages would be an asset.