The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a governmental agency of the same name. Each program participant, or Peace Corps Volunteer, is an American citizen who commits to working abroad in an assignment for the organization for a period of twenty-four months. Generally, the work to be performed is related to international development. Specialties include education, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. In addition to its mandate of providing technical assistance in these areas, Peace Corps is also charged with increasing mutual international understanding. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals, which are providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States understand the culture of the United States, and helping United States people understand the culture of other countries.

It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The Peace Corps Act declares the purpose of the Peace Corps to be:
To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.

Since 1961, nearly 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries. Contents Purpose and function Countries that the Peace Corps currently works in (orange) and has worked in previously (purple). (See picture details for countries that are unhighlighted.)

The Peace Corps sends American volunteers around the globe, to more than 70 countries, to work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in the areas of education, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment.

The program officially has three goals:
To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers
To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served
To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans

The Peace Corps works by first announcing its availability to foreign governments. These governments then determine areas in which the organization can be involved. The organization then matches the requested assignments to its pool of applicants and sends those volunteers with the appropriate skills to the countries that first made the requests.

History
John F. Kennedy greets volunteers on August 28, 1961.
Following the end of the Second World War, various members of the United States Congress proposed bills to establish volunteer organizations in Developing Countries. In 1952 Senator Brien McMahon (D-Connecticut) proposed an army of young Americans to act as missionaries of democracy. Privately funded nonreligious organizations began sending volunteers overseas during the 1950s.

While President John F. Kennedy is credited with the creation of the Peace Corps, the first initiative came from Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. (D-Minnesota), who introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years prior to JFK and his University of Michigan speech. In his autobiography The Education of a Public Man, Hubert Humphrey wrote: There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, asked me to introduce legislation for all three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did not meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. Many senators, including liberal ones, thought it silly and an unworkable idea. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. It is fashionable now to suggest that Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched many lives and made them better.

Peace Corps headquarters at 1111 20th Street, NW in downtown Washington, D.C.
Only in 1959, however, did the proposal for a national program of service abroad first receive serious attention in Washington when Congressman Henry S. Reuss of Wisconsin advanced the ideas of a Point Four Youth Corps.In 1960, he and Senator Richard L. Neuberger of Oregon introduced identical measures calling for a nongovernmental study of the advisability and practicability of such a venture. Both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee endorsed the idea of a study, the latter writing the Reuss proposal into the Mutual Security legislation then pending before it. In this form it became law in June 1960. In August the Mutual Security Appropriations Act was enacted, making available $10,000 for the study, and in November ICA contracted with the Maurice Albertson, Andrew E. Rice, and Pauline E. Birkey of Colorado State University Research Foundation to make the study.

John F. Kennedy first announced his own idea for such an organization during the 1960 presidential campaign at a late-night speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on October 14. During a later speech in San Francisco, California on November 1, he dubbed this proposed organization the Peace Corps. Critics of the program (including Kennedy's opponent, Richard M. Nixon) claimed the program would be nothing but a haven for draft dodgers. Others doubted whether college-age volunteers had the necessary skills. The idea was popular among college students, however, and Kennedy continued to pursue it, asking respected academics such as Max Millikan and Chester Bowles to help him outline the organization and its goals. During his inaugural address, Kennedy again promised to create the program: And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.President Kennedy in a speech at the White House on June 22, 1962 Remarks to Student Volunteers Participating in Operation Crossroads Africa acknowledged that Operations Crossroads for Africa was the basis for the development of the Peace Corps. This group and this effort really were the progenitors of the Peace Corps and what this organization has been doing for a number of years led to the establishment of what I consider to be the most encouraging indication of the desire for service not only in this country but all around the world that we have seen in recent years.

June 22, 1962 Remarks to Student Volunteers Participating in Operation Crossroads Africa.The Peace Corps online on 10/2/2003 on the question Who Inspired the Creation of the Peace Corps?, acknowledged that the Peace Corps were based on Operation Crossroads Africa founded by Rev. James H. Robinson.

Establishment and authorization Executive Order 10924
On March 1, 1961, Kennedy signed an Executive Order 10924 that officially started the Peace Corps. Concerned with the growing tide of revolutionary sentiment in the Third World, Kennedy saw the Peace Corps as a means of countering the notions of the Ugly American and Yankee imperialism,especially in the emerging nations of post-colonial Africa and Asia.
On March 4, Kennedy appointed his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver to be the program's first director. Shriver was tasked with fleshing out the organization, which he did with the help of Warren Wiggins and others. Shriver and his think tank outlined the three major goals of the Peace Corps and decided the number of volunteers they needed to recruit. The program began recruiting volunteers that following July.,p>
Until about 1967, applicants to the Peace Corps had to pass a placement test that tested

general aptitude

Time limits on employment
Peace Corps employees receive time-limited appointments and most employees are limited to a maximum of five years (60 months) of employment with the agency. This time-limit is referred to as the five-year rule and was established to ensure that Peace Corps's staff remain fresh and innovative. Another rule related to the five year rule specifies that former Peace Corps employees cannot be re-employed by Peace Corps until they have been out of the agency's employment for the same amount of time that they worked for the Peace Corps. Service as a Peace Corps Volunteer overseas is not counted for the purposes of either of these rules.