Peace Corps welcomes Trainees to Viet Nam in a historic first
Peace Corps trainees are not the first Americans into Vietnam to help. A small group of US Vietnam Veterans went…
October 28, 2022
The arrival of this inaugural cohort of Trainees is a significant milestone for bilateral relations between the United States and Viet Nam.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Peace Corps has announced that 10 Peace Corps Trainees arrived safely in Hanoi, Viet Nam, in an historic first.
Earlier this week, Peace Corps headquarters staff organized a sendoff event in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the landmark occasion. The Honorable Nguyen Quoc Dzung, Ambassador of Viet Nam to the U.S., offered the Trainees his support for their service. Next week, the U.S. Ambassador to Viet Nam, the Honorable Marc Knapper, will welcome the Trainees to Viet Nam at the Peace Corps office in Hanoi.
“Formalizing our country partnership with Viet Nam began with discussions in 2002, which led to the signing of an implementing agreement in 2020, and culminated in yesterday’s joyous moment when the first Trainees stepped foot on Vietnamese soil,” said Peace Corps Chief Executive Officer Carol Spahn. “I am grateful to the staff of Peace Corps for their steadfast dedication and hard work that brought this historic partnership to fruition.”
The focus of the Peace Corps program in Việt Nam is English education, as outlined in an Implementing Agreement signed in 2020 between the US and Vietnamese governments with Peace Corps and the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) as Implementing Entities.
Fully aligned with MOET’s national priorities for English Language Education, these Peace Corps Volunteers will serve in secondary schools throughout the districts of Hà Nội beginning in January 2023, after 10 weeks of comprehensive training to build the cultural understanding and skills necessary to work effectively in Việt Nam’s educational system. They will be assigned to co-teach English classes alongside Vietnamese English teachers.
Prior to leaving the United States, the Volunteers gathered on October 25, 2022 in Washington, D.C., where they heard remarks and words of encouragement from Ambassador Nguyễn Quốc Dũng, Vietnamese Ambassador to the US.
The arrival of this first group of Volunteers marks a significant milestone in the US-Việt Nam relationship, building on decades of growing people-to-people ties and close partnership to promote English language learning.
Việt Nam is the 143rd country to invite and partner with the Peace Corps
This is powerful!
visiting vietnam just before COVID was very powerful given our history. Should be for volunteers as well. Dramatic preserved memorials bring home how tough it was for all concerned. And it is beautiful as are people. Glad this has happened
It is terrific that PC Volunteers are now serving in Vietnam. How life come full circle—the war in the ’60s was to stop Vietnam and then likely most of South east Asia from being taken over by communist regimes—55, 000 US soldiers and 250,000 Vietnamese soldiers/civilians died (millions maimed and harmed) and now 50 years later what do we have:
a) a Vietnam with a communist party government yet a capitalist mostly free market economy
b) most of SE Asia is not led by communist governments
c) Vietnam and USA have cordial relations
d) Northern Virginia and other communities have a large entrepreneurial Vietnamese community and culture
e) Americans love Vietnamese restaurants
f) Former President Lyndon Johnson’s presidency was disgraced by a war he could not stop nor win
g) our country was politically and socially divided with riots and demonstrations with flag burnings and police riots
AND NOW,50 YEARS LATER PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS ARE WELCOMED TO HANOI
Humanity’s story is often littered with madness!!!
Thank you to Mark Walker for reading and commenting upon my novelette about Thunderbirds. For some reason, robots blocked my entrance onto that site and my phaser jammed. By the way, these trainees in Vietnam all look like management trainees at Sears and Roebuck in 1969. Jesus! What is wrong with he Peace Corps?
Peace Corps trainees are not the first Americans into Vietnam to help. A small group of US Vietnam Veterans went to Vietnam some five or more years ago to work with the victims of Agent Orange. Here is a link to the article about this special wor:
“50 years on, veterans find healing by returning to Vietnam to help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFYhvIfBO-A“