January 13, 2012
Celebrating 50 years of Friendship since a Peace Corps
By US Ambassador to Malaysia Paul W. Jones
FIFTY years ago today (January 12, 2012), a organisation of 36 immature Americans arrived in KualaLumpur upon a standard warm, humid day to work as Peace Corps volunteers in villages as well as towns throughout what was afterwards well well known as Malaya.
Then Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein privately welcomed a volunteers, thanking them for on condition that learned as well as trained manpower to assist inhabitant expansion in this immature nation. These 36 Americans were just a start. By 1967, a Peace Corps programme in Malaysia was a largest in a world.
During a 21 years that a Peace Corps served here, it brought some-more than 3,500 American volunteers to live as well as work in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah as well as Sarawak.
American Peace Corps volunteers worked hand-in-hand with Malaysians to urge lives as well as foster livelihoods. Some volunteers supposing math, science as well as English preparation to tens of thousands of Malaysians.
Another organisation helped settle agricultural organisations as well as public works programmes to urge agriculture. Yet another organisation was vicious in a quarrel opposite tuberculosis as well as improving public health. These volunteers gave their time, appetite as well as even their lives (six volunteers died during their use in Malaysia) assisting a people of Malaysia to rise this nation.
When a Peace Corps programme concluded in Malaysia in 1983, former Prime Minister Tunku Abdul
Rahman Putra al-Haj stated, "we have been most beholden to (the Peace Corps) for a assistance they have given us as well as you feel proud to have met as well as well well known them. May this feeling continue for all time a use they have rendered us will long sojourn in a memory".
Tunku's comments continue to ring true almost 30 years later. you have been fortunate sufficient to transport to almost every part of this pleasing country. All opposite Malaysia, whether in Rompin, Pahang, a DanumValley, Sabah, or here in KualaLumpur, I've heard stories from my Malaysian friends opposite all levels of society about their unforgettable practice with Peace Corps volunteers.
I was overwhelmed reading a comments from former Peace Corps volunteers in attendance a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Datuk Seri NajibRazak in Honolulu in November.
Happily, a suggestion of a Peace Corps continues today. Just final week, another organisation of immature Americans arrived in KualaLumpuron a warm, humid day. These 50 Americans, part of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant programme, will soon be settling into local communities in Terengganu, Pahang as well as Johor. They paint President Barack Obama's reply to Najib's request for United States' support to English-language preparation in Malaysia.
Following in a footsteps of past Peace Corps volunteers as well as English teaching assistants, these Americans will assistance teach Malaysia's next generation of leaders as well as provide a vicious English language skills necessary to succeed in a globalised world.
Peace Corps volunteers as well as English teaching assistants have helped cement low ties between a countries, as well as you see a strong substructure for expanding understanding, wealth as well as collaboration that befits both of a peoples.
We have been operative together to foster shared prosperity. The US is a largest unfamiliar! financi er in Malaysia, on condition that jobs to some-more than 150,000 Malaysians as well as assisting Malaysia upon its path to become a high-income, knowledge-based economy.
We demeanour brazen to completing a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as well as expanding trade even further. We have been additionally operative together to foster sustainable development. This includes support for Malaysia's efforts to sustainably conduct forests as well as to protect coral reefs as well as involved wildlife. We additionally share goals to enhance appetite efficiency as well as incentivise immature growth.
The US is committed to peace, stability as well as confidence in a Asia-Pacific region, which helps fuel a extraordinary expansion as well as intensity of a region. Our shared as well as multilateral troops partnership has grown steadily.
Bilateral exercises, port calls as well as veteran expansion programmes for troops personnel assistance both of a countries to urge a abilities to reply to disasters, foster nautical reserve as well as quarrel piracy. Together, you have been making a difference.
Thousands of Malaysians have studied in a US. You can find alumni of US schools as well as exchange programmes in every corner of Malaysia. Likewise, there have been thousands of Americans who have come to Malaysia for preparation as well as enrichment.
These practice have left lasting memories as well as determined people-to-people networks for mutual understanding as well as apply oneself between a peoples. They remind us that you have been connected beyond a material forces of governing body as well as economics.
We have been linked by thoughts, ideas as well as conversations. We share an openness of mind, a oddity about a universe as well as an appreciation o! f arts a s well as literature.
From President John F. Kennedy to Obama; from Tunku Abdul Rahman to Najib, a US as well as Malaysia have been partners as well as friends.
As you applaud a Peace Corps' 50th anniversary here in Malaysia, you demeanour brazen to continuing this heartfelt suggestion of friendship as well as team-work in a years to come.
Read more: Celebrating 50 years of friendship Columnist New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/celebrating-50-years-of-friendship-1.31221#ixzz1jHm2ub8q
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