Embassy News
Peace Corps Moldova 23 Swearing In Ceremony
Kelley Keiderling, Charge d’Affaires.
August 20, 2008
I am happy to be here today, welcoming you to service in the Peace Corps. It is especially satisfying to help celebrate the anniversary of this special cooperation between the Republic of Moldova and the United States of America. The Peace Corps has worked in Moldova for fifteen years, in villages and towns from one end of this beautiful country to the other. You are following in the footsteps of some 800 other Americans who have taken this path, who have worked in Moldova to bring the ideals of President John F. Kennedy to life.
It is also notable that the Government of Moldova has declared 2008 to be The Year of Youth. Peace Corps has various programs in Moldova, working with NGOs, with Agricultural efforts, in schools and primarias, but nearly every Volunteer in the past fifteen years has found ways to work with children and youth. From classrooms to sports fields, after-school clubs to summer camps, living together in a host family, or just meeting on the street corner: every day American Volunteers are exposing Moldovan youths to a broader world.
The United States is a good friend of Moldova. We want to see this country prosper, to solve the problems that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union and the economic collapse of the early Nineteen-Nineties. To that end, we have a number of programs working here, cooperative efforts to help Moldovan families, schools, and institutions develop. Some programs help with infrastructure. Some take Moldovans to America, for work or education, or bring experts from the United States to Moldovan universities. And all of these efforts have a purpose: each brings this country a step further along that long road to the future.
But Peace Corps’s approach is unique. Peace Corps puts Americans, puts each of you, into Moldovan villages, into classrooms, into living rooms, into families. Not for a lecture, not for a week. But for two years.
No other program has the same kind of impact, on Moldova, and on America. The children in those classrooms will be changed, just as each of you will be changed.
The world of tomorrow will require understanding, and that begins today. Moldova is one small corner of the world, but as Lao-tzu said a long time ago, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Today you take that first step. Let your journey and that of the Moldovans you meet along the way be fruitful for them and for yourselves.
Thank you for your willingness to serve, for your perseverance during the ten challenging weeks of preparation, and congratulations to you all on this very special first day of official service.