As the Peace Corps is commemorating fifty years of promoting peace and friendship around the world, Senator Coons set aside time to meet with Elizabeth “Betty” Irwin of Bear, Delaware on Thursday. Mrs. Irwin joined the Peace Corps at age sixty-two in 1993, using her training as a nurse to teach health and nutrition in the Highlands of Guatemala for two years. Currently, she teaches English-as-a-second-language to adults in Delaware and works at the Rockwood Museum.
This meeting emphasized both Mrs. Irwin’s service as a Delaware Peace Corps volunteer and the agency’s legacy of service by honoring our past, demonstrating our effectiveness, and inspiring the next generation of volunteers through education and engagement. Chris places a special significance on education and engagement, having volunteered abroad and at home in organizations such as the “I Have a Dream” Foundation, First State Innovation, the Bear/Glasgow Boys & Girls Club, and the Delaware College of Art and Design.
On Wednesday, Chris, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, met with the director of the Peace Corps in his Washington office to discuss the agency’s work in Africa, program funding, and safety measures for the volunteers.
Aaron Williams was sworn in as the eighteenth director of the Peace Corps on August 24, 2009. Nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U. S. Senate on August 7, 2009, Mr. Williams is the fourth director in the Peace Corps’ history to have served as a Peace Corps volunteer, serving as a volunteer from 1967 to 1970, first in a training program for rural school teachers in the small town of Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, and extending his service for a third year to work as a professor of teaching methods at the Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in Santiago.
Peace Corps is an independent U.S. government agency that provides volunteers for countries requesting assistance around the world. The agency traces its roots and mission to 1960, when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy challenged students at the University of Michigan to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries.
To learn more about the Peace Corps, click here.