USAID joined Peace Corps this month in Washington and Kathmandu to celebrate the return of its volunteers to Nepal for the first time in seven years.
USAID Assistant Administrator for Asia Nisha Biswal (left) and Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams (seated, right) signed an inter-agency agreement to re-establish a Peace Corps program in Nepal after a seven-year absence from the country. Nepal’s Ambassador to the United States Shankar Prasad Sharma (center) and Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake Jr. (standing) both spoke at the signing ceremony about the lasting contributions volunteers have had in Nepal. Photo Credit: J. Truong, USAID
In Kathmandu, Nepal’s Prime Minister, Dr. Babarum Bhattarai, said at an event at his offices that “I am very pleased with the return of the Peace Corps to Nepal. From the early 60s, thousands of volunteers have served in districts all across this country. I remember in much of the 60s and 70s the volunteers were a big source of teachers for subjects like math and science. I am very glad that with USAID’s assistance, the volunteers are coming back one more time to help with agriculture and health. Those are areas that need help, and I welcome the decision to redeploy the Peace Corps.”
Among those volunteers who served in Nepal include William Douglass, who now works with USAID. “Serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal 45 years ago gave me unique opportunities to meet and work with a wide range of Nepalese villagers, urban dwellers and government officials throughout the country. I came away from Nepal with a strong appreciation for the people and the culture, and together with my wife who was also a volunteer, have taken many opportunities to return. During two assignments in the USAID mission in the 1980s and the 1990s, I was able to promote and support Peace Corps and USAID collaboration on Nepal Government projects. I and the many other former volunteers, including a number working with or for USAID, welcome this renewed collaboration to support Nepal’s development efforts after many years of conflict.”
Since 1962, over 4,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Nepal, working on projects in education, environment and natural resource conservation, health, and community and youth development. Increasing security concerns forced Peace Corps to suspend its program there in 2004. But as stability has slowly returned to the country, USAID is partnering with Peace Corps to send American volunteers once again to Nepal.
The first group of approximately 20 Peace Corps volunteers is scheduled to arrive in Nepal later this year. The volunteers will be trained as Agriculture-Nutrition Extensionists, and will work with rural communities to build local capacity in Global Health Initiative and the Feed the Future priority areas.
“USAID is excited to partner with the Peace Corp and the Government of Nepal in supporting our shared objectives of improving food security and access to healthcare for the Nepalese people. USAID and the Peace Corps just commemorated 50 years of our common legacy, as organizations established by President Kennedy to reflect the best of American Values. It is fitting that we are once again partnering in Nepal, where both agencies have a long and significant history,” said Assistant Administrator for Asia Nisha Biswal.
welcome all of u in oir contry..
This is great. I served in PC with a USAID/Nepal-AIC backed seed multiplication program in the early ’80s called SPIS. I wonder what became of this program.
It’s hard to argue against PC’s partnership with USAID to accomplish some specific result. As a reminder, though, PC’s founders fought, with good reason, and against the wishes of our Dept of State, for the agency’s independence. PC’s core is as a person to person program. It can get technical assistance anywhere. When programming diminishes the volunteers personal struggle living with, adapting, and learning to appreciate individual differences it looses it’s soul. It’s happened when countries asked for large numbers of PC english teachers and PCVs were placed together at schools, creating small american communities. It’s happened when PC staff began to live in ex-pat communities and went regularly to embassy meetings as a part of our team. Mark Twin understood PC’s core when he wrote about Huck Finn’s travels down the Mississippi. It would be a mistake to shift the balance of PC’s person to person core to favor a concern for technology.
USAID Mission to Nepal in the early 60′s was very helpful to start Peace Corps/Nepal Programs and its Volunteers. Later in the 80′s, former Peace Corps Nepal Volunteers came back and worked for USAID/Nepal as senior staff and contributed to greater collaborative programming support to the Government of Nepal through Peace Corps/Nepal Volunteers in Agriculture, Forestry and other sectors. Many thanks to USAID/Nepal giving a hand again to restart PC/Nepal Programs.
This is very much good news for all nepalese people.. I too want to contribute and want to do volunteer with this programme..