ON January 30 American volunteers arrived in the country to resume the United States Peace Corps’ work in the sectors of education, youth development, and coastal resource management to benefit communities in Luzon and the Visayas.
The 37 newly arrived volunteers are the 279th US Peace Corps batch to serve in the Philippines since 1961. At the invitation of the Philippine government, they will fulfill a set of roles requested by host-communities for the coming 27 months. These include joint teaching of English in public elementary and secondary schools, serving as youth-development facilitators in Department of Social Welfare and Development-accredited organizations and residential shelters, while aiding local governments in establishing marine protected areas and implementing coastal resource-management plans.
Starting this they will be deployed to their permanent sites in Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Tarlac, Zambales, La Union, Laguna, Benguet, Ilocos Sur, Camarines Sur, Bohol, Cebu, Capiz and Negros Oriental. They will undertake two months of language, technical and cultural training prior to deployment.
Additional volunteers will arrive in the Philippines in May, August and September, as the US Peace Corps ramps up its operations anew this year.
“We are thrilled to welcome the first group of American Peace Corps volunteers to the Philippines since the start of the pandemic,” US Peace Corps country director Jenner Edelman said. “We are ready to meet this historic moment with our community partners and staff.”
The US Peace Corps suspended its global operations and repatriated American volunteers from more than 60 countries, including those from the Philippines, in March 2020 due to the onset of the Covid-19 health crisis. Despite their absence, US Peace Corps staff continued to work closely with the Philippine government and other local partners to vaccinate over 27,000 Filipinos against the coronavirus, support nationwide distance learning, prepare schools for safe resumption of face-to-face classes, introduce alternative income-generating activities to communities recovering from the pandemic, and strengthen community-level volunteerism.
For decades the US Peace Corps has engaged in critical global health-care work, and the pandemic was no exception. According to the US Embassy in Manila, volunteers will continue to work with community members to make progress against the biggest development hurdle the world has faced in more than a century.