US Embassy, Addis Ababa
September 5, 2019
Chargé d’Affaires David Renz administered the oath of service to 23 new Peace Corps Volunteers at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, today. These Volunteers will be working on community-based engagement and teaching English in Ethiopian Public Schools within the Amhara, Tigray, Oromia, and SNNP regions.
Chargé d’Affaires David said “You have come to Ethiopia at an important time, when history is being written and new opportunities are being created to build a better future.”
He also spoke to Ethiopian host families and communities as well, saying “Thank you for generously opening your homes and hearts to these Volunteers and for giving them the opportunity to fully experience Ethiopian life and hospitality.”
Peace Corps Volunteers live and work within small communities around Ethiopia. They often become members of those communities and collaborate closely with teachers and school administrators in Ethiopia’s public schools to implement the Promoting English Language Learning in Ethiopia (PELLE) program that focuses on teaching English to high school students in grades 9 and 11. Volunteers also will organize extracurricular activities, including promoting gender equality, using information communication technology and libraries to support English proficiency, and supporting teachers’ English proficiency and language instruction through continuing professional development opportunities. The volunteers will complete their certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) during their two years of service.
All 23 of these new Volunteers are heading to their communities having completed 3 months of training before taking the oath of service today. This inauguration brings the total number of Peace Corps Volunteers who have worked in Ethiopia to over 3,700 since its inception
About the Peace Corps: 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.
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Subject “23 New Peace Corps Volunteers Swear- in at the US US Embassy, Addis Ababa, September 5, 2019″
Welcome back to the remembrance of 1960’s!!! It was an era of original peace corps of the Truman era where young peace corps volunteers blanketed the Globe. One of the recipient countries was Ethiopia.This time too, Ethiopia is lucky again to have young “23 New Peace Corps Volunteers “ to teach English in their assigned towns — obviously not covering the entire country.
With the above introduction, one may ask, in all honesty, will the 23 volunteer youngsters make any dent to the Educational Programme of the Ethiopian Ministry of Education? It would not be daring to answer that question by saying it will make NO DENT what so ever to the overall English education system in Ethiopia. Further more, one would assume that in a period of approximately sixty (60) years the education system of Ethiopia would evolve to maturity to provide learned Ethiopians teachers to cover the entire country in the teaching of English to ALL their students — without being selective for any reason.. I refrain from not only analyzing but even venturing into guessing the motives and policy of the United State of America. In any case, I wish Ethiopia good luck in its relationship with the good-old USA, hopefully, for the imaginary benefit to be garnered out of the scheme for the selected pupil of Ethiopia . I STOP here.
Is there a background check for such volunteers?