KUALA LUMPUR: The fifth MyCorps mission under the Youth and Sports Ministry is set to fly to Sudan and Lebanon for volunteer projects at the year’s end.
Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said 40 youths would be selected for the mission and applications for it officially opened today.
"We invite applications from youths with skills such as communications, construction, photography, education as well as becoming general volunteers.
"The mission is from Dec 24 to March 3 next year," he said at the MyCorps@South Asia Ignition Ceremony here today.
The fourth editon of the mission - the MyCorps@South Asia - travelled to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka from Aug 20 to Oct 18, with 40 volunteers consisting of university graduates and youths from non-governmental organisations.
Khairy said the programme was not only beneficial to the people in need who were aided in various parts of the world, but also to the volunteers.
Seeing the hardships experienced by the volunteers and their willingness to sacrifice their lives for voluntary work, Khairy was confident that the future of the country was in good hands.
"Previous missions have been successful, but MyCorps@South Asia has been the mission with the most number of projects," he said.
He praised the mission that had also managed to collect more than RM120,000 from Malaysians for the good cause.
"I hope that one day, MyCorps will be as big as the US Peace Corps.
"Youths are sent all over the world to participate in volunteer projects to help unfortunate people."
Khairy said he hoped that the ministry would be given enough allocation in the 2018 Budget to continue to expand the programme in the future.
For 2018, Khairy aimed for two to four MyCorps missions to be held.