The Peace Corps has a handful of developmental focus areas and each country chooses various ones to implement based on the country’s needs and objectives. While I served in Peru there were 5 active programs: Youth in Development; Community Economic Development; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene; and Environmental Management (which has since closed out its operations in the country).
Peace Corps has three main goals:
- To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women
- 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
From 2014-2016, the Peace Corps Peru Youth Development Program had three goals. Volunteers would work with youth, ages 10-24 to:
- Develop a healthy lifestyle
- Develop abilities for the future and world of work
- Promote volunteerism and leadership through community projects
Brittany McGee 
Hi my name is Brittany too and I’m currently Under Consideration for the Peru YD program leaving Aug. 2015 — I was wondering what type of experience the YD volunteers in Peru usually have before service. As I understand Peru is a very competitive country — I just want to make sure I’m doing everything to remain competitive while I wait!
Hey Brittany! Youth Development volunteers here have such varied experience that this is kind of a tough question. What makes it even tougher to answer is that we haven’t had a group come in from the new application process yet either (none of us had the opportunity to pick Peru beforehand). What I can recommend is doing something to brush up on/practice/learn Spanish and also volunteering/working with youth in some capacity. For example, I had a lot of random experiences volunteering with youth throughout college and I had a lot of leadership experience- but my job wasn’t directly working with youth (marketing director for a restaurant group). We have other people here who were social workers, studied psychology or criminal justice, worked at youth camps, etc. Have you talked to your recruiter about what you might be able to do?
Thanks! Yeah I’m kind of a hybrid applicant. I applied a month before they switched to the new system. So I interviewed in early August and was nominated for a YD Program leaving in August with no specific country. Then I found out a month ago that I was “put under consideration” for Peru. Which is great but I know that it’s a more competitive country. I currently am serving a second year as a Project Leader with an AmeriCorps program called City Year. I also have experience teaching ESL to teens overseas in Turkey and a few summer working at an academic residential camp for low income first generation students .
But of course I haven’t heard anything from placement. And I have a feelings I’ll have a few more months to wait