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Peace Corps Volunteer Catherine Scully teaches class in rural Tanzania. Nearly 2,000 Volunteers have served in Tanzanian since 1962 as math & science teachers. Some of the 125 currently in Tanzania also engage in HIV/AIDS prevention activities.

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Peace Corps Volunteer Catherine Scully teaches class in rural Tanzania. Nearly 2,000 Volunteers have served in Tanzanian since 1962 as math & science teachers. Some of the 125 currently in Tanzania also engage in HIV/AIDS prevention activities.

Remarks by Secretary Condoleezza Rice at the Peace Corps 2008 Worldwide Country Director Conference

Venue: Washington, DC

April 28, 2008

Thank you, Ron, for that really wonderful introduction. I just want to say that I think the Peace Corps Director, Director Tschetter, is doing a fantastic job in leading this organization. Thank you for your leadership. I'm just delighted to be here with you to meet with you during this great opportunity to inspire leadership for yourselves, but I want you to know what inspirational leadership you are providing around the world. You really are, in many ways, some of the best ambassadors for what the United States is all about: the deep compassion that this country has; the sense of responsibility; the belief that every human being has the right to a life of dignity and opportunity. That is what the Peace Corps means around the world and it could not be true without you.

Now, we'll forgive that Chris Hill and Richard Boucher were actually Peace Corps volunteers. We're very proud of that and we're very proud of the fact that there are many Peace Corps volunteers throughout the Foreign Service, people who in a sense, cut their teeth on their Peace Corps service and then decided to make a formal career for the Diplomatic Service and that is something that we would love to see continue to happen.

The State Department has been known to tap your vast intellectual resources and to use those skills as people come back to build careers in foreign policy. There are, I am told, 22 who have served as U.S. Ambassadors, so that's quite a record. I want to tell you, too, that this is really one of the great American success stories.

When John F. Kennedy, some four decades ago, challenged America through a speech to students at the University of Michigan, to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries, he did something very special. President Kennedy's vision for the Peace Corps has challenged over 190,000 American men and women who have served in 139 countries and are really involved at the grassroots, living in communities and making a difference, one person at a time. I like to think of them as the right people for the right time.

And because they are the right people serving at the right time, millions of people across the globe have a positive view of America, because the first American that they ever met, maybe the only American that they'll ever meet, was a Peace Corps volunteer.

Today, Peace Corps volunteers are opening up a whole new world for the people that they serve by teaching computer skills and providing access to the internet, so keeping abreast with the challenges of today. The invaluable trust Peace Corps volunteers are gaining among the people that they serve gives them the credibility to talk about diseases like HIV/AIDS prevention in their communities when, frankly, others cannot. That is why the Peace Corps is emerging as an important part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean.

In fact, as the Director said, while visiting Accra, Ghana in February with President Bush, I was fortunate enough to have lunch with a group of your Peace Corps colleagues. And earlier this month, I accompanied President and Mrs. Bush to Ukraine where we had the opportunity to see an HIV/AIDS education play put on by Peace Corps volunteer Margaret McKenna and 15 of her students. Margaret and her students not only perform in their own community, but they travel to educate other schools throughout Ukraine about the danger of AIDS.

Throughout its history, the Peace Corps has met the challenges of an ever-challenging world by adapting and responding to the issues of the day, but never losing sight of the values that have sustained the Peace Corps throughout its history. Currently more than 8,000 Peace Corps Volunteers continue to meet these new challenges across the globe, particularly in places where the Peace Corps has been absent for some time.

Just this past February, of course, President Bush announced the return of the Peace Corps to Rwanda, after a 15-year absence. And this summer, the Peace Corps will return to Liberia with a Peace Corps response program working in education. In 2007 the Peace Corps returned to Ethiopia after an absence of eight years. And volunteers began their service for the first time in Cambodia in 2007 to train teachers and teach English in seven provinces.

I'm just so pleased to see that the Director and your leadership is looking outside the traditional box for Peace Corps volunteers as well. I understand your initiative to bring more Baby Boomers into the Peace Corps and that's netted 63 percent more applicants from older Americans - good for us older Americans - since the initiative was launched last fall. You will need these volunteers because I cannot tell you how many countries want Peace Corps programs. Your programs are making a difference in people's lives.

Each of you is to be commended for your dedication to helping the world's neediest people, oftentimes in some of the world's most impoverished communities. Through your work, you're strengthening communities, you're improving lives and you're building bridges between nations. You are indeed, the right people for the right time. And I know sometimes, almost always, it's done in places that are remote and very, very far from family, friends and the comforts of America. I've talked to some of those Peace Corps volunteers and I remember one story, in particular, when I was just in Ghana. And I said to one of the volunteers: "So tell me what your life is like." And this volunteer described going to the well to get her water every day. She described coming back to the house. And I said: "So it's rather irregular, whether there is electricity." And she said, "No, it's not irregular, there isn't." At that point, I was reminded what our Peace Corps volunteers are willing to do. And it really is the best of what we are as Americans. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your leadership of this great organization. Thank you for protecting, defending and sustaining its values through all of these years. And thank you for expanding its programs and its reach at a time when, indeed, the number of people around the world, who are just trying to find a hand-up to dignity and prosperity and opportunity is growing and growing worldwide. Thank you again for what you do.