Thirty-four new US Peace Corps trainee volunteers arrived in Sri Lanka this week to begin two years of service, Hiru News reported.
The Americans will first complete intensive training in Sinhala or Tamil, in Sri Lankan culture, and in teaching American English. They are due to take the Peace Corps Pledge of Service in November, after which they will be posted to the Northern and North Central Provinces to work alongside Sri Lankan teachers and students. Volunteers live with Sri Lankan host families for the duration of their service.
US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Eric Meyer welcomed the trainees at the Peace Corps office in Colombo.
“The strongest connections between our countries are built person to person, and Peace Corps puts Americans right at the heart of that work,” Meyer said.
He added that as the volunteers “become part of the communities they serve, these new Volunteers will build skills and connections that can open doors to economic opportunity and bring our two democracies closer together across the Indo-Pacific.”
Six decades of service
Peace Corps service in Sri Lanka dates to 1962, when the first American volunteers arrived at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka. More than 500 Americans have served in the country since, in education, health, agriculture, community development and tsunami recovery.
The programme was formally re-established in 2018 with a renewed focus on English-language education. The agency itself marks 65 years of operation this year.
Not reported
Hiru does not say how this cohort relates to volunteers already serving in Sri Lanka, nor whether the 34 trainees represent an expansion of the programme or a scheduled replacement intake. No figure is given for the number of volunteers currently in the field, and no districts within the two provinces are named.
Readers should note that Peace Corps Sri Lanka has inducted several separate cohorts of differing sizes in recent years. This group of 34 trainees is distinct from earlier intakes, and the November ceremony referred to here is their own swearing-in, not a previously reported one.
