Kyrgyzstan: Incoming Peace Corps Cohort Cancelled Last Minute

On May 20, the U.S. Peace Corps posted a brief statement on its website announcing that the volunteer cohorts scheduled to depart in June for Cameroon and the Kyrgyz Republic were cancelled.

“As part of agency’s restructuring of its domestic and overseas workforce, in alignment with an assessment by the Department of Government Efficiency, the Peace Corps has cancelled the volunteer cohorts due to depart in June for Cameroon and the Kyrgyz Republic,” the statement said, adding that the Peace Corps would work with the individuals scheduled to depart to identify another country program.

“At this time, the cancellations do not impact current agency operations in either country,” the statement noted.

The Peace Corps is an independent agency initially established by a March 1961 executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy, and codified into law by Congress in September 1961 with the passage of the Peace Corps Act. Per the original executive order, the Peace Corps’ purpose was to train Americans to serve abroad “in new programs of assistance to nations and areas of the world, and in conjunction with or in support of existing economic assistance programs of the United States and of the United Nations and other international organizations.”

Launched amid the Cold War, the Peace Corps was intended to deploy a critical and strategic asset of the United States – its own citizens – in the global fight against communism, which Kennedy characterized as a “moral” battle.

In the decades since, it has evolved into a small but mighty arm of U.S. soft power, one that not only introduces Americans to citizens of other nations as providers of assistance, but embeds those Americans in foreign communities, allowing both to deepen their understanding of the other. It’s an experience that has a lifelong impact on the volunteers, not to mention the locals they live and work with.

“Cashiers in Bishkek grocery stores and village bodegas alike nod knowingly when I explain I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyz,” Colleen Wood, a former Peace Corps volunteer, also referred to as a Returned Peace Corp Volunteer (RPCV), who served in Kyrgyzstan told The Diplomat, describing her experiences whenever she travels back to the country. “Taxi drivers in rural corners of Naryn and Jalalabad provinces brighten up and tell me about their nieces and cousins and friends whose lives were changed by working with Peace Corps volunteers.

“This is an impactful program, not only in the number of laptops and libraries purchased with American grant money or English-language proficiency scores, but in memories and deep relationships and doors opened,” Wood, who went on to earn a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and wrote regularly for The Diplomat, said.

Given its focus on providing assistance with goodwill and without expectation of repayment, the Peace Corps appears fundamentally out of step with how the Trump administration views the world and its narrow understanding of the sources of U.S. power.

Former Peace Corps volunteers who spoke to The Diplomat noted the administration’s apparent animosity toward agencies and programs “perceived as more liberal.”

The abrupt cancellation of the soon-to-depart Kyrgyzstan cohort clashes with a recent memorandum signed on April 25 between the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Peace Corps “reaffirming their joint commitment to advancing English language education and supporting the professional development of teachers in the Kyrgyz Republic.”

A press release posted by the U.S. Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic notes that the memorandum “strengthens the longstanding cooperation between the Ministry and Peace Corps, including on their shared goal of increasing the number of English Education Volunteers assigned in educational organizations of the Kyrgyz Republic.”

Since 1993, more than 1350 volunteers have served with the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan. As of April, there were 44 English education volunteers and four eco-tourism response volunteers in the country.

Kyrgyzstan is the last country in Central Asia to still host Peace Corp volunteers, following the shutdown of programs in Uzbekistan (2005), Kazakhstan (2011), and Turkmenistan (2013). Tajikistan, which was in the opening throes of a civil war when the regional programs were launched in the wake of the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, never hosted Peace Corps volunteers.

In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic exploded across the world, the Peace Corp suspended its operations globally for the first time, evacuating nearly 7,000 volunteers from 60 countries, including Kyrgyzstan. In June 2022, 12 American volunteers arrived in Kyrgyzstan, marking the restart of the program after the pandemic interregnum. At the time, 24.kg reported that the Kyrgyz Republic was “the first country to welcome [Peace Corps] volunteers in the Europe, Mediterranean and Asia Region.” The volunteers were scheduled to spend two years co-teaching “English alongside local teachers in secondary schools in Chui, Naryn, Issyk-Kul and Talas regions.”

In a 2023 interview with The Diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Lesslie Viguerie commented on the immense enthusiasm in Kyrgyzstan for English language education in particular, noting the role the Peace Corps played in that space in addition to other programs. Specifically, he characterized English as “vital” in Kyrgyzstan's effort to diversity trade connections and for Kyrgyz to expand their employment opportunities. “It really does open doors here and the enthusiasm for it is just astounding,” he said.

The 30th cohort of volunteers in Kyrgyzstan arrived in the country in June 2024. In August 2024, they were formally sworn into service and dispatched to their posts. An embassy press release at the time quoted Viguerie as saying, “For more than 30 years, Volunteers and their communities have collaborated to increase student and teacher capacity in English and have built relationships that continue long beyond the two years of a Volunteer’s service. These relationships promote friendship and mutual understanding between the people of the Kyrgyz Republic and the United States.”

“DOGE's move to axe the K31 departure for Kyrgyzstan in late May 2025 is particularly cruel and inefficient,” Ryan, an RPCV that served for three years in the Kyrgyz Republic, told The Diplomat, referring to the 31st cohort scheduled to depart the U.S. in June. (Ryan asked to be identified only by his first name in this article.)

The American volunteers, Ryan stressed, basically shut down their lives “to prepare for a 27 month commitment to the U.S. government.”

“These are people who quit their jobs, who sold their cars, who packed up their lives in preparation of serving the United States and Kyrgyzstan for two years,” Wood noted.

The Peace Corps statement announcing the cancelled departures noted that it would “work with cohort members to identify another country program that aligns with their unique skills and preferences.”

“Maybe these placements will also leave this summer,” Wood mused, when asked about what the cohort affected can expect. “But if the Peace Corps is going through a broader restructuring, I would expect that the announcement of the Kyrgyz Republic’s and Cameroon’s cancelled cohorts won’t be the last.”

“This is devastating news for the volunteers, but it is also devastating news for local staff,” she added.

“Their Pre-Service Training has been planned and prepared, which means trainers, villages, host families, housing, and training venues have been identified and vetted by medical and security staff,” Ryan explained. “Host families, trainers, and local partners had undergone training and the language curriculum and training sessions were being finalized.”

Newly arrived Peace Corp volunteers undergo training in the Kyrgyz language and culture before heading to their posts, often located in the homes of host families around the country. “These people are also suddenly cut off from economic support,” Wood stressed.

“A team of Kyrgyzstani citizens has been working tirelessly all year with local contacts both in government and in civil society to ensure this training goes off without a hitch and now that time, money, goodwill, and effort has been flushed down the drain,” Ryan explained.

It is not clear from the currently available information whether this is a temporary interruption or merely the first step in the dismantling of the Kyrgyzstan Peace Corps mission.

“Preemptively canceling K32 would be a dumb decision in my opinion,” Ryan said, referring to the next scheduled cohort. “But it would allow staff and partners time to adapt and plan. Cancelling K31 last minute is an act of thoughtless destruction at best.”

“While the announcement formally speaks only to the incoming cohort, it’s hard not to read this as a rollout of bigger plans to shut down the post. If it closes, this combined with the vacuum from shuttering USAID will mean the U.S. has very little meaningful leverage left in Kyrgyzstan,” Wood commented.

The overall trend in regard to the softer elements of U.S. foreign policy – such as foreign aid – does not bode well for the Peace Corps writ large. In late April, when DOGE’s cost-cutting eye turned to the organization, staff at the Peace Corps were offered a second “deferred resignation program” – effectively an opportunity to quit before they’re fired. A spokesperson at the time said that “the agency will remain operational and continue to recruit, place, and train volunteers, while continuing to support their health, safety and security, and effective service.” It’s difficult to take such a statement seriously given the DOGE efforts to downsize Peace Corps staff and the recent announced departure cancellations.

“I’m surprised it took this long to target Peace Corps, a scrappy agency focused on person-to-person diplomacy and service-oriented changemaking,” Wood said.