Country Welcome for Peru

Dear Peace Corps community,

Thanks for visiting the Peace Corps Peru webpage! We hope that you find here the information and inspiration you seek, and that you will decide to join us as we carry out Peace Corps’ mission of world peace and friendship. Joining the Peace Corps is an enormous challenge, an amazing opportunity to learn; it is a commitment to do something that is bigger than yourself. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer presents a unique opportunity to stretch your abilities to their maximum capacity and awaken internal resources that you maybe didn’t know you had. It is also a unique experience that few people dare to undertake – leaving the comforts and predictability of home to live and work in another country, shoulder to shoulder with local people in their community, internalizing their culture, their values and practices, and accompanying them in their quest for a better life. While working to advance project objectives and deepen community ties, Volunteers enjoy the incredible history, scenery, and rich culture that this beautiful country and its people have to offer.

Two-year Peace Corps Volunteers are mostly generalists who participate in 2 months of intensive training prior to beginning their service. These Volunteers are the backbone of our program, living and working with families and counterparts in rural communities. Volunteers in Peru work in the areas of Youth in Development, Community Economic Development, Community Health, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. They also carry out secondary projects organizing clubs and sports teams, planting gardens, and various other activities in their communities.

Our staff at Peace Corps Peru is here to support you throughout your time with us – from when you are a newly arrived Trainee through to when you are a seasoned service veteran. Our goal is successful service, which we define as ensuring that each Volunteer has the technical, language and cultural skills to fully integrate into the community where they are assigned and can achieve the goals established for each program. Successful Service encompasses building relationships and strengthening capacities while considering the needs of the many stakeholders you will interact with throughout your service. Those stakeholders include the community and host family where you will be assigned, the local organizations you will be supporting, and our national partners, such as the Ministry of Health or Education. Our goal is to prepare you to be a competent, skilled partner in the many facets of community development.

Peace Corps Peru is committed to helping you develop the competencies that will prepare you for successful service by exemplifying commitment to service and resilience; demonstrating responsibility for personal health, safety and security; integrating into communities; and facilitating participatory community development. Our team is comprised of highly skilled, innovative professionals who are dedicated to the development of their country and provide the best possible support to our communities, the local and national partners, and our Volunteers. As technical specialists, language and culture guides, health care providers, coaches, champions of safety and security, administrators, and a myriad of related roles, they create and sustain an organizational environment whose primary objective is to ensure safety and security while helping our Volunteers grow and thrive throughout their service.

Peace Corps Peru is a learning organization that embraces change and is continuously testing new ideas to meet the needs and demands of changing times. We encourage our and Volunteers to take each day as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and your surroundings, and to strengthen your capacity for tolerance and empathy. Peace Corps Service will test your comfort with certain truths, and will provoke you to question your own assumptions, to seek new sources of information, and to have the flexibility to adjust your beliefs as you discover new perspectives and realities.

We hope that you will be inspired by our mission and our work, and that some of you will join us either here in Peru or at other Peace Corps posts. We look forward to hearing from you along your journey.

Susan Kolodin

Country Director, Peru