My job is behind the scenes: I help produce television and radio broadcasts that share the work of the United Nations with a global audience. These are powerful communication tools, and in recent years, the Internet has enhanced the quality, delivery speed and accessibility of our multimedia products, including live webcasts. You can find much of our work online at unmultimedia.org.

I first became intrigued with the United Nations as a teenager, when I attended the international secondary school in the small French town of Ferney-Voltaire, near the border with Switzerland. It was interesting to befriend students from all over the world, many of whom had parents working for the United Nations.

In 1991, I began my broadcast career as an assistant with the Geneva Liaison Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which helps developing countries build capacity by addressing their economic and social development challenges. UNDP had just launched its first audiovisual unit, so it was an exciting time. We produced a monthly, hour-long TV magazine that combined attractive visuals and music to demonstrate UNDP’s accomplishments.

The series proved effective and became very popular in the developing world; by 1995, it was being shown in 80 countries. A brief video report can reach a much wider audience - including illiterate people - than a 150-page publication on the same topic. For example, we did a story on innovative agricultural techniques used in Bolivia, and some people from Kenya who saw it contacted UNDP because they wanted to learn those skills.

I was eager to gain experience in the field, so when the series ended in 2004, I applied for jobs with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). That same year, the United Nations began its Operation in Burundi with a mandate from the Security Council to help restore peace after years of civil war, and I was hired to create the mission’s TV section. We produced a weekly show that explained the Organization’s activities to the people of Burundi. Elections were held in 2005, so our team had the important task of making the electoral process easy to understand.

While in Burundi, I met and married a Burundian woman. We now live in Ferney-Voltaire, France, and I work as a Public Information Assistant for the Television and Radio unit at the United Nations Office in Geneva. My unit provides multimedia coverage of events at UNOG, and this material is used in broadcasts produced in the New York-based headquarters of United Nations Television and Radio. We also produce segments for two TV series: “21st Century,” a monthly 30-minute news magazine covering human-interest stories; and “UN in Action,” a series of short features on fieldwork projects, including a piece we did about improving energy efficiency in Eastern European cities, broadcast at the time of the 2009 Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change.

Every year, UNOG hosts more than 8,000 meetings, among them conferences for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Many events are televised live, and we often produce segments for evening news broadcasts. My job is to coordinate all the technical crews and the administrative aspects to ensure that we meet our deadlines. I am involved in coverage of visits by the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, as well as other dignitaries, including a recent lecture on disarmament given by Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union. In addition, I handle bookings of our studios by external media for interviews with United Nations officials.

I plan to work in Geneva for a while because my wife and I now have a baby. In the future, I definitely want to continue my career in Public Information, perhaps at the New York Headquarters. I would also like to return to a mission someday, as working in the field is such an incredible experience.