KOROR (Palau Horizon) — This month four new Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers will arrive in Palau to extend technical assistance to the local government.
Meanwhile, two JOCV volunteers bid farewell to the country after ending their mission.
The four new volunteers will be assigned at Palau Community College, the Koror state government, Palau Modekngei High School and the Planning and Statistics Office.
The two volunteers who returned to Japan are Hirotaro Yamada who worked at PCC, and Sanae Kakihara who was an infection control nurse at Belau National Hospital.
Yamada provided technical assistance to PCC while Kakihara headed the planning for the hospital’s isolation room.
Under the program, countries request for volunteers and the field they want filled up, according to JICA/JOCV Palau office coordinator Satomi Kubo.
Kubo said the JOCV program in Palau was established in 1997 and had provided 53 volunteers.
There are 26 active volunteers. Fourteen are assigned at public elementary and high schools, one is with the Ministry of Education, six in the Ministry of Health, three in the Ministry of Commerce and Trade, one in the Division of Marine Resources, one in the Bureau of Land and Surveys, and two at PCC.
Kubo said the objective of JICA is “to aid developing nations by sending volunteers to live and work with the people directly engaged in developing their own countries.”
