María José Benítez, a student from the first class of the Master of Social Science Research (MICS) at the University of Navarra, works for a Regional Office of the United Nations Volunteers Program (UNV) for Latin America and the Caribbean.

UNV works to promote volunteering as a means of participation to build peace, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty. "Volunteering is a means towards becoming a real-life hero. In the Caribbean for example, volunteers have supported reconstruction after recent natural disasters," she notes.

Although she recently started as a regional specialist in Peace and Citizen Security, she is not new to the United Nations: she has been collaborating for more than seven years in protection and peace building programs in the organization. In her position, María José Benítez supports her colleagues in the implementation of peace and youth programs. She has worked on the construction of networks for young participants in peace projects in Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago and Peru.

To do so, her team systematizes and compiles life stories from the people who are part of the program. She recognizes that she is very motivated by the fact "that young people mostly get involved and that they do it in such a committed and professional way."

Training for work

María José emphasizes that her work is very relevant tothe social sciencestudies she took up within the MICS: "Research is not something that is‘natural;’ that is, behind the systematizations, evaluations, life stories, there is a process that must guarantee the quality of these documents."

"Now I pay more attention to methodology, to sample selection, to the questions asked. The MICS has given me the tools to responsibly present information," she emphasizes.

This master's degree is coordinated by the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), the humanities and social sciences research center at the University of Navarra. It is developed in direct collaboration with the Schools of Communication, Law, Education and Psychology, Nursing and Philosophy and Letters.