Peace Corps:Lending a helpful hand

FILE: Peace Corps volunteers

Starting in 1961 with 750 volunteers in 13 countries, the Peace Corps grew rapidly over the past 40 years. Six months after its founding, in June 1962, there were already 2,816 volunteers serving in 35 countries and Jamaica was among that second batch of 35 countries.

Peace Corps has been in Jamaica since that time and has never left. Peace Corps/Jamaica proudly boasts a successful track record of 39 years to which more than 3,360 volunteers have effectively contributed by serving in education, health care, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, water and sanitation, agriculture and environment, bio-diversity conservation, vocational skills, small business promotion and micro-enterprise, community service, computer literacy, information technology and youth development. Peace Corps/Jamaica has an impressive record of sustainability and success stories. We remain steadfastly committed to assisting Jamaicans in achieving self-reliance and sustainable community development at the grassroots levels.

Today, US Peace Corps is well known throughout Jamaica in general, and the inner cities and rural areas in particular, for working to assist the poor or the have nots, the youth-at-risk, the marginalized males, the school dropouts, the illiterates, the ostracized HIV/AIDS patients and also the handicaps. Peace Corps/Jamaica also works in community water and sanitation, promoting environmental awareness among youth and community, protecting coral reef and restoring eroded land, recycling and managing solid wastes. Peace Corps does all of that and much more under "volunteerism". It is quite fitting to remind you that it was a notable and famous Jamaican singer, Tony Rebel, who this year in promoting volunteerism as a global concern and a global effort, wrote a song entitled, "It is not all about the money" on the occasion of the United Nations' International Year of the Volunteer.

In order to create a more lasting and sustainable impact on Jamaica and Jamaican lives, Peace Corps/Jamaica has recently refocused its development efforts on three country development sectors leading to three projects:

a) Environmental health/water and sanitation,

b) Environmental awareness and;

c) Youth-at-risk and youth development.

These projects are being implemented with the full co-operation of five Government Ministries as well as partnership with 90 governmental and non governmental organizations.

* Suchet Loois, Country Director, Jamaica