14 Nov 2003

Peace Corps hopes to return to Marshall Islands

10:30 am on 14 November 2003

An American Peace Corps assessment team is to recommend that the Washington DC-based agency resume operations in the Marshall Islands.

The team has just completed a two week study in the country.

The Peace Corps director in Vanuatu Kevin George, who headed the programme says the sense of the team is that there is a great opportunity for the corps to be re-established and for volunteers to do meaningful work in the Marshalls.

Mr George says the Marshalls are very well-prepared to receive them and the individual meetings were very productive.

The US Embassy and Marshall Islands officials, particularly in the Education Ministry, have been lobbying Washington to re-establish the programme, which pulled out in the mid-1990s during world-wide Peace Corps cutbacks.