TWENTY-TWO Peace Corps volunteers and two Peace Corps response volunteers were sworn into service in Jamaica on May 30. The 24 American volunteers will engage in work in the education and agricultural sectors for one to two years in Jamaica.

Peace Corps Jamaica (PCJ) volunteers who are assigned for two years will support rural area projects, while Peace Corps response volunteers will work on specialised, short-term projects at the parish and national levels. Both groups completed pre-service preparation and orientation focusing on language immersion and working alongside host country partners. The two-year volunteers represent the 93rd group of Americans to serve in island and the second to return to service since the global evacuation of volunteers in 2020, while the response volunteers are the first group to return to island since 2017.

At the swearing-in ceremony, keynote speaker and long-standing Peace Corps Jamaica project partner, Dr Ronald Blake, chief of party for the United States Department of Agriculture Jamaica’s Spices Project, welcomed the volunteers to service and encouraged them to focus on the relationship between agriculture, nutrition, and education. He further charged them to, “serve by being partner-sensitive, earth’s guardians, action-driven, compassionate and exploratory”.

US Ambassador N Nick Perry administered the oath of service to the volunteers and reminded them that they are all ambassadors of the American people and culture as they live and serve in Jamaican communities. Meanwhile, country director for PCJ, Glenda Green emphasised the important partnership that exists between both the Peace Corps and the people of Jamaica.

Volunteers will live and work alongside community members to make progress on major development challenges in agriculture and education.

The US Peace Corps was established in 1961 by President John F Kennedy and involves a diverse group of American men and women who volunteer to spend two years providing assistance to develop sustainable solutions for the world’s greatest challenges across 61 nations.

To date, over 4,025 volunteers have served on the island, working with a wide cross section of schools, communities, government and non-government sector organisations. Jamaica was the seventh country to receive Peace Corps volunteers.