New Life Goal

Back when xiadyn still lived here, watching BBC World News was a nightly tradition. Since it has an actually international bias there would often be UN peacekeepers in the stories. We used to joke that we should go become a UN peacekeeper and get our own blue helmet, followed by more serious wondering about how one does become one. But neither of us ever remembered to look it up.

Until now. The answer is what we were afraid of, you first have to be part of your own nation's military. No UN bootcamp. Oh well.

In the process of looking this up I found something... wonderful. There is a UN agency called UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) that does all their internal training. The operate UNITAR POCI: The United Nations Institute for Training and Research Programme of Correspondence Instruction.

That's right. Correspondence courses in peacekeeping. Each is $100-$150. You can choose from such courses as 'Commanding United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Methods and Techniques for Peacekeeping on the Ground' or 'United Nations Civilian Police: Restoring Order Following Hostilities'.

Best of all, while they aren't accredited and can't give degrees or anything, they do award a Certificate-of-Training in United Nations Peace Support Operations. This involves taking a course a month for a year, attending at least one classroom course scattered across 'all inhabited continents', and writing a research paper. Total cost would be somewhere around $2500.

It's fairly obvious, I think, that I will have to do this someday. I'm betting I could talk xiadyn into it as well. Even if you don't get your own blue helmet along with the certificate.