The United States  Peace Corps has left Nigeria after so many years of service. Addressing foreign correspondents in Washington D.C as part of activities marking its 50th anniversary celebration, Deputy Director Hessler-Radelet  said, “In terms of Nigeria, we have left Nigeria.  We were in Nigeria.  It’s one of our very first countries.  We’ve had over 2,000 volunteers during that time.”
According to her, a lot of Nigerians benefited from the activities of the Peace Corps while they were in the country. The deputy director gave a vivid example of Dr. Okonjo Iweala, current managing director of the World Bank as one of the beneficiaries.
Said she, “Dr. Ngozi, who used to be your finance minister, spoke, very poignantly about the impact of Peace Corps on her life.  I would like to relay her story quickly. 
She was always a very good student, as you can imagine.  She was a voracious reader.  She loved to read.  And she I think grew up in Lagos, but would every summer go back to her village.  That’s the custom there, that you go back to your family so you don’t forget your roots.  She went back to her family compound, her community, when she was about ten years old and she brought a whole box of books to kind of occupy her during her three month stay there, but she found to her dismay that after about a month she had read all her books.  But she heard that there was a new person in town, an American, and so she went up to the school where the American teacher was.  This was I think 1964. I could be incorrect about that, but it was in the early days of Peace Corps.  It was the first Peace Corps volunteer she had ever met.  She met this American who was teaching in a school and had access to the school library, and in fact had brought books to the library.  She introduced herself.  She was ten years old.  And the teacher said yeah, come on into my library and choose a book.  So she chose the Bobbsey Twins, which may not mean too much for you, but it’s a book that I grew up reading.  It’s a very typical story of American twins.  She became hooked on the Bobbsey Twins, so she became a long-time fan of Bobbsey Twins. 
Then she went on to say what an impact Peace Corps volunteers have had in her own country and how much the educational system has been changed by people who are teachers.”
Earlier in her opening address, Allison Price, Peace Corps communications director gave the backgroung of The Peace Corps, fifty years after.
According to her, On March 1, 1961 President Kennedy established the Peace Corps by Executive Order.  The mission of the Peace Corps was to promote world peace and friendship.  That mission remains true today, 50 years later.
 The amazing thing about Peace Corps, she stated was that  just a few months after Kennedy did this, the first group of Americans departed for Ghana, and then Tanganyika — now Tanzania.
She disclosed that to date over 200,000 Americans have served with Peace Corps in 139 countries.  Today we have a little over 8,600 Americans serving in 77 countries around the world.
Going into memory lane, the communications director said, “The times are a little different today than they were 50 years ago, and we’d be happy to talk about that.  I don’t have to tell you, but there was no internet, no cell phones, no frequent flyer miles.  Volunteers went to their posts for two years and they had very little if no interaction with their friends, families, or volunteers also serving in that country.