History

Peace Corps was founded in 1972 in Ballyfermot, Dublin 10, by Fr. John Wall and a group of young people. The group had originally come together as a group of volunteers to build a youth centre and on its completion they decided to continue in existence as an active group in the community.

Over the next two years the group undertook an increasing variety of activities to meet local needs and grew considerably in membership. By this time a basic organisational structure had emerged, the central aims and ideals of the movement had been clarified and its name – Peace Corps had been chosen.

In 1978 the second neighbourhood Peace Corps was formed in Meath Street and subsequently corps were set up in several other communities in Dublin and in a number of provincial centres. In 1978, a “Confederation of Peace Corps” was also established to promote the ideas of the organisation and to develop and maintain bonds of friendship between individual corps.

Since 1978, Peace Corps has had many achievements. In 1987, the organisation received approval and funding from the Youth Affairs Section of the Department of Education and Science. This funding has been instrumental in the growth of our organisation. In 1989 Peace Corps members both won and came runner-up in the Young Citizen of the Year Awards. And in 1991 President Mary Robinson presented Peace Corps with the AIB Better Ireland Award.

In 1997, our present director of services, Derek Cleary, conceived the Localise Programme based on the need for an easy to follow method that would give schools and communities a structured approach to engage young people in community work. The Localise Programme presented the organisation with a great opportunity for further growth and development in several educational areas.

In recent times, there has been a focus on the area of Active Citizenship and with our 38 years of experience and knowledge in this area, Localise as a Service Learning module, has successfully entered into second and third level education settings, taking us into 2010 with the potential for engaging schools and third level institutions nationwide.

In 2007 we established our first Localise Integration Programme engaging foreign nationals in community work in Ireland and allowing communities to see the benefits of a caring multicultural society. The programme has been a success and we now have members from Poland, Slovakia, Mauritius, Germany, Hungary, Togo, Mexico, India, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, USA, China, Russia and Romania.