"We have established ourselves and demand has increased," Peace Corps Georgia country director Van Nelson said Wednesday explaining the jump in numbers of volunteers. Nelson estimates there were as many as 65 potential sites - communities that have completed all the application steps and shown a desire and ability to host a volunteers - for the newest group of volunteers.
Largest group of Peace Corps Volunteers take oath of service in Georgia
'Someday is today' for new Peace Corps vols.
By Warren Hedges
Two Peace Corps volunteers in traditional Khevsuruli dresses
on Wednesday
The largest group of volunteers for Peace Corps-Georgia in the five-year history of the program took their oath of service on Wednesday.
Shortly after demonstrating in song, poetry and dance the language and cultural skills they have acquired over two-and-a-half months of training, the forty-four men and women headed out to the towns and villages throughout the country where they will work with schools and NGOs for the next two years.
Twenty-seven of the volunteers will work in English language teaching and 15 will work with local Georgian NGOs. They represent the fifth group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Georgia and join 26 other volunteers currently working in the country.
"We have established ourselves and demand has increased," Peace Corps Georgia country director Van Nelson said Wednesday explaining the jump in numbers of volunteers.
Nelson estimates there were as many as 65 potential sites - communities that have completed all the application steps and shown a desire and ability to host a volunteers - for the newest group of volunteers.
Before administering the oath of service, the U.S. acting Charge d'Affaires Denny Robertson joked that two years from now the group would be "a little skinnier and a little more weather beaten."
Himself a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, Charge d'Affaires Denny Robertson praised the group of new volunteers for giving up higher paying jobs in the United States in order to help Georgian communities.
"In the past two years that I have traveled throughout Georgia, I have noticed the very tight bounds Peace Corps volunteers have with local communities and the accomplishments of volunteers and counterparts are very impressive," Robertson said.
Volunteers in schools work primarily with one-two English instructors over the two-year term. Volunteers at NGOs work with local non-governmental developing projects and activities. Peace Corps volunteers in Georgia have conducted numerous secondary projects including environmental and health awareness camps, Girls Leading Our World Camps (GLOW), youth activities and a nationwide English prose competition.
Welcoming the volunteers on Wednesday, Minister of Education and Science Kakha Lomaia recalled the words of President John Kennedy, who founded the Peace Corps in 1961, and called on Americans to ask not what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country.
"These words were not only important in American forty years ago, they are also important for Georgia as well today," the minister said.
Speaking on behalf of the group of new volunteers, Seth Landau from the state of North Carolina recalled how many commencement addresses at American universities call on graduates to someday make a difference in their community. "That someday is today," Landau said in his speech.
And too highlight some of the skills his group has learned over their short time in Georgia, he then proceeded to read his entire speech again - in Georgian.
