Charge d’Affaires Troy Fitrell administered the oath of service to 39 new Peace Corps Volunteers at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today.
These Volunteers will be working as English Teachers in the four administrative regions of Amhara, Tigray, Oromiya, and SNNP. With this new group there are now 130 Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia working in the three sectors of Health, Agriculture and Education.
Volunteers sworn in today are the fourth group to serve under the Promoting English Language Learning in Ethiopia (PELLE) project. Each of these Volunteers will begin teaching at least 3 sections of English class in local high schools to grade 9 or 11 students. English language skills are increasingly a baseline requirement for competitiveness in international education as well as in business. It can open vast opportunities and helps Ethiopian young people to connect with the world.
Peace Corps Volunteers live and work within small communities around Ethiopia. They often become members of those communities and collaborate closely with local counterparts including teachers, administrators, and advocates to implement various projects in a way that fits each community’s needs. This joint approach to program development ensures broad support and investment from community members, resulting in better and more sustainable results. Projects cover a wide range of issues, including promoting gender equality, literacy, youth leadership, and technology use among youth.
All 39 of these new Volunteers are heading to their communities having completed 3 months of training before taking the oath of service today. The training covers teaching methods, pedagogy, and a special practicum English classroom teaching of over 1,000 local students.
Volunteers also received 125 hours of training in Amharic, Afan Oromo, or Tigrigna so that they can engage with their communities in their own languages. This inauguration brings the total number of Peace Corps Volunteers who have worked in Ethiopia to over 3,600 since its inception
As the preeminent international service organization of the United States, the Peace Corps sends Americans abroad to contribute towards solutions for the most pressing needs of people around the world.
Peace Corps Volunteers work at the grassroots level with local governments, schools, communities, small businesses and entrepreneurs to develop sustainable solutions that address challenges in education, health, economic development, agriculture, environment and youth development.