“We need a vastly improved, expanded and profoundly deeper Peace Corps. Why? Because the capacity to kill one another has far outstripped our capacity to live together. We live in a world of low-tech killing where plastic knives ... can do the job just as efficiently as nuclear bombs. There must be an alternative to this endless cycle of killing, not just for America’s sake but for all of humanity.”
Our Quote of the Week reveals the importance of serving others and building relationships specifically through the Peace Corps, one of Sargent Shriver’s signature programs. Created in 1961 as a way for Americans to serve as citizen diplomats in developing countries, Peace Corps continues to be an outlet for Americans who wish to use their skills where they are needed in communities around the world.
Sargent Shriver made this appeal for an expanded Peace Corps in his 2002 Speech at the National Peace Corps Association’s 41st Annual Celebration Dinner, less than one year after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Even being at the advanced age of 85 at the time, Shriver demonstrates with this short speech that he understands the contemporary world. The speech reveals the continued commitment to service, peacebuilding, and diplomacy that motivated him throughout the 1960s when he had the roles of head of the Peace Corps, the War on Poverty, and US Ambassador to France.
In the speech, Shriver challenges us to be peacemakers using the unique tools and qualities we each have developed in our own lives:
“My challenge to you tonight is to heed this CALL TO PEACE, and to answer it in your own powerful, resounding way. Invent new ways to serve the world and its citizens. You don’t have to be overseas to bring us closer to world peace; you can plant the seeds of world peace in your own back yard. Do anything you can dream up; and never stop doing! There are as many ways to improve the world and stimulate peace as there are people on this planet! Every morning you wake up, ask yourself, ‘Who can I help today?’ Never miss a chance to make the world a better place, and recognize that every day brings a new chance, a chance to connect with others, a chance to grow, a chance to learn, a chance to teach, a chance to make a difference, a chance to change at least one person’s world, and a chance to serve! Never forget to serve! If everyone did that, imagine what this world would be like!”
Today, the Peace Corps faces severe budget cuts at home as US leaders continue to rely on strong-arm tactics, punitive measures, and open conflict with foreign nations, ignoring the importance of relationship building and diplomacy. In this moment, it is important for all of us to support institutions like the Peace Corps and to set an example by serving, as Sargent Shriver suggests, to “plant the seeds of world peace in our own backyard.”
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