Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn: Mah-Low-Eh-Lay-Lay! (Hello)

It is wonderful to be here with you all today as we embark on an exciting new chapter in the 57-year partnership between the Peace Corps and the Kingdom of Tonga.

And we are deeply honored and immensely grateful to you, Prime Minister Hoo-AH-kah-vah-mei-lee-koo, for joining us to mark this important moment.

I also want to express my gratitude to Peace Corps Country Director Kris Stice, the entire Peace Corps Tonga team, Deputy Chief of Mission Coble, and all our partners from Tongan Ministries and Institutions who are here today.

I also want to give a big thank you to the generous host families who so warmly welcomed our staff and trainees into their homes these last three months. It takes courage to welcome strangers into your communities, into your homes, and into your hearts. And for taking that leap of faith. Thank you.

The Peace Corps’ mission is simple yet deeply profound: to promote friendship and world peace. And it is a mission that we have proudly pursued here in Tonga, with the help of many partners over the last 57 years.

More than 1,700 Volunteers have been blessed to serve here in the Friendly Islands, working alongside communities and partners to provide educational opportunities for students; to improve access to health care in rural communities; explore new agricultural methods, design and constructed village water systems, and so much more.

What we have achieved together over the last 57 years goes far beyond the classroom or the mangrove forests. We have also been forging the kinds of deep, powerful, and enduring connections that are the foundation of a strong global community. Connections that are nurtured with every smile, with every meal enjoyed with others, with every story told and every laugh shared.

The kinds of connections that empower us and inspire us and gives us the strength to take on big challenges. Because whether it’s a changing climate, uncertainty and instability and violence in parts of our world, or rebuilding a global community in a post-pandemic world, we are facing some very big challenges today. But they are challenges that we can overcome, together, leaning on and strengthening the kinds of connections and relationships that I see in this room, and that I have seen everywhere I have been the past few days.

Now, it is up to every Volunteer here to continue building on this legacy, strengthening these connections one relationship, one interaction at a time.

I have no doubt that you are up to the task. You have already shown the courage to step outside your comfort zones and work towards a cause greater than yourselves.

Group 86, you are not only continuing an incredible legacy of Volunteers helping drive improved Education outcomes across the country, you are also blazing a bold new trail as the first Peace Corps dedicated to tackling the challenges of a changing climate. An issue in places like Tonga that isn’t theoretical but rather a daily reality.

This existential threat is one that will take each and every one of us, regardless of where we live, working together at every level, in order to reduce the impact on frontline communities throughout the world. It is my hope that your work here will serve as a model for all of the Peace Corps and the 60 countries around the world where Volunteers live and work.

I know that may sound daunting. But having spent time with you all over these last few days – from the unbelievably warm welcome at the airport to walking two miles together through Mangrove forests – I know you are all up to it. Because whether you came from California or Florida, Tennessee or Idaho… whether you’re someone who has decades of professional experiences, someone who has already served in the Peace Corps before, or this is one of your first experiences out of college… each of you came here to Tonga with the same shared purpose: to do your part to help make a difference and to grow and learn in the process.

And if you take a moment and reflect, you’ll realize just how much you have already grown over these last 10 weeks together in new, exciting, and unexpected ways.

One thing I always tell the broad Peace Corps family – such as Volunteers, staff, host families, and partners – is that “life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” And each of you has already stepped far outside your comfort zones. It’s not always easy, and often extremely awkward. But it is in the awkwardness that we usually try to avoid where real learning and growth happens.

To our newest Volunteers, I hope that you have all learned to embrace the awkwardness and to laugh at yourselves a little bit along the way. Because this is just the beginning of a beautiful, transformative journey. One that will be filled with plenty of awkward moments, but that will inspire you to go deeper, to seek understanding, to question your own perceptions and how you interact with the world. I urge you to keep approaching every moment on this journey with the same humility, curiosity, empathy, and open heart that has served you so well these last 10 weeks.

And know that your presence here matters, your leadership in paving the path in a new chapter of the Peace Corps’ mission has the power to inspire hope, ignite change, and build a more just, equitable, and resilient world.

Thank you again to the beautiful, friendly Kingdom of Tonga for the warm welcome.

Mah-low ow-pee-toh! (Thank you very much)