Querétaro, México – On May 11, 2022, Peace Corps/Mexico welcomes back American Peace Corps volunteers to serve alongside community members across the country. Volunteers have not served in Mexico since they were evacuated in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event marked the first time in the agency’s 60 year history that volunteers were evacuated from all global posts. Since that time, Peace Corps/Mexico staff have continued to build on the mutual understanding, collaboration, and bonds that join our two countries.
“We are so grateful to our partners, communities, and host families who have all supported this historic return of Volunteers to Mexico,” said Peace Corps Mexico Country Director, Matthew Colburn. “Over the course of the last two years and in close collaboration with our partners, staff completed a re-design of our Education and Environment project frameworks. Virtual Service allowed us to continue realizing our mission and expand our geographical reach. Our host government agencies and community partners have remained engaged with Peace Corps Mexico and are eager to have our Volunteers back in the field.”
At the request of the government of Mexico, volunteers will work with their communities on locally prioritized projects. Environment volunteers will collaborate with partners to promote greater awareness of climate change and how to increase resiliency to its impacts, with a gender and youth lens, co-developing and co-facilitating activities such as environmental education resources and events, as well as solid waste management, and soil, water, and biodiversity conservation practices. Education Volunteers will collaborate with semi-rural STEM focused universities on co-planning and co-teaching English language classes; co-facilitating communities of practice and extracurricular English language learning, supporting institutional projects, student mentoring and career counseling, and strategic networking. Response Volunteers will serve as shorter term Social Impact Advisors, Project Management Specialists, Enterprise Resource Management Advisors and Business Development Specialists in Public Research Centers, implementing activities such as: designing and facilitating trainings, analyzing institutional processes, recommending best practices, co-creating manuals, standard operating procedures, or strategic plans, and facilitating collaboration between departments and/or institutions.
Regardless of the sector they work in, all Peace Corps volunteers engage in some form of COVID-19 recovery work, as either primary or secondary projects. Together, they will work alongside community members to make progress on the biggest development challenge the world has faced in more than a century. From 2004 to March 2020, 494 Peace Corps volunteers served in Mexico, working on projects in Education, Environment, and Peace Corps Response. You can follow Peace Corps Mexico on Facebook or by visiting www.peacecorps.gov/mexico
About the Peace Corps: The Peace Corps is an international service network of volunteers, community members, host country partners and staff who are driven by the agency’s mission of world peace and friendship. At the invitation of governments around the world, Peace Corps volunteers work alongside community members on locally-prioritized projects in the areas of education, health, environment, agriculture, community economic development and youth development. Through service, members of the Peace Corps network develop transferable skills and hone intercultural competencies that position them to be the next generation of global leaders. Since President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961, more than 240,000 Americans have served in 142 countries worldwide. For more information, visit peacecorps.gov and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.