Author - Joanne Roll

1
NPCA’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award given to John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil
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President Biden nominates David E. White to be Deputy Director of Peace Corps
3
Bill Josephson, One of the Founding Fathers of Peace Corps, Writes About False Information
4
Does Peace Corps Refute False Information? Evidently not.
5
Cornell University revisits Vicos, Peru
6
Here is the current count of Peace Corps Volunteers and Trainees in Service
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Number of Peace Corps Volunteers and Trainees as of October 31, 2022
8
Advocacy Update: Peace Corps Funding Increase, But No Legislation
9
Carol Spahn formally confirmed as Peace Corps Director
10
NPCA Urges RPCV Community to Take Action and Contact Congress
11
Glenn A. Blumhorst (Guatemala) writes about his new job
12
Peace Corps CEO Carol Spahn visits The Philippines to celebrate 61 years of Peace Corps in the Philippines
13
As of August 23, There were 405 Peace Corps Volunteers Serving
14
Former Peace Corps Directors call on Senate to pass the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act
15
Peace Corps Chief Executive Officer Carol Spahn announces climate initiative

NPCA’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award given to John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil

Here is a short video of Marian Haley Beil talking about creating Peace Corps Writers website with John Coyne.The link to the video: https://youtu.be/y7lLWyXQ_zw?si=fVXR7IQ8lJqE2ztq

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President Biden nominates David E. White to be Deputy Director of Peace Corps

  David E. White Jr. currently serves as Special Assistant to the President in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel (PPO). Prior to this role, he served on the National Security Council as Senior Advisor to the White House Coordinator for Operation Allies Welcome, where he facilitated whole-of-government efforts to provide housing, health care, education, employment, and other resources at scale for nearly 90,000 Afghan allies resettled in the United States. An attorney by training, White joined the Biden-Harris Administration as Deputy Associate Counsel in PPO. He was previously a member of the Biden-Harris Transition Team and an attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. White began his career in public service as a cavalry officer in the U.S. Army. He served on active duty in a variety of domestic and overseas assignments, including as a Scout Platoon Leader in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in support of . . .

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Bill Josephson, One of the Founding Fathers of Peace Corps, Writes About False Information

Please note:  This letter is in response to a query about Peace Corps and information from Alana DeJoseph, Producer of the Peace Corps historic Documentary, A Towering Task: “Dear Alana and Joanne: Thanks for Alana’s of March 30, 2023. She is certainly keeping me busy these days as I hurtle toward 90. I have maintained a file with respect to charges and publications about the Peace Corps that may jeopardize Peace Corps volunteers.  I do not warrant its completeness. Sarge never wanted to have a security office, as such, in the Peace Corps.  He assigned such issues to me, and I generally handled them personally without delegation to other lawyers. Consequently, I was the Peace Corps liaison to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and so forth. The General Counsel’s office also screened Peace Corps volunteer and employee applicants who . . .

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Does Peace Corps Refute False Information? Evidently not.

When an errorous statement is published about the Peace Corps and our experience knows the statement is not true, what should the response be?   A professor  had written  a book about federal agencies and included the Peace Corps with glowing praise, but he also wrote that only men were sent to Puerto Rico for Outward Bound Training. I had no success in convincing him to include that women also went  to Puerto Rico for that vigorous training. More recently, an RPCV  friend explained to me that she had received an inquiry from a student in Europe writting about the history of Peace Corps.  He had learned in a conference that Peace Corps had intervened in the Netherlands in 1962 and stayed for ten years  He later said it found the same information in an AI website.  That statement about Peace Corps is not true. It was time to query . . .

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Cornell University revisits Vicos, Peru

  Cornell was involved with the community of Vicos, Peru in the ’50s and the ’60s.  Decades later, the Vicos community invited Cornell University to return and evaluate what happened with the  Cornell innovations after so many years.  In the sixties, Cornell University also trained Peace Corps Volunteers to work in Peru.  I believe this report should be a model for all RPCVs and Peace Corps staff.  It simply, at the request of the host community, reviews and reports what worked and what did not.  That is what, I believe, Peace Corps should do. A half-century later, Cornell revisits a small Andean village By Bill Steele July 23, 2009 More than 50 years ago, a Cornell mission to a small village in the Andes introduced social changes that made a profound improvement in the life of the village. Today, echoes of that mission are still visible and may help the community . . .

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Here is the current count of Peace Corps Volunteers and Trainees in Service

This information is from FOIA 23-0037,  as of Friday, January 13, 2023 “A search conducted by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer provided the following information: There are 49 Peace Corps Volunteer Trainees, 783 Peace Corps Volunteers, 56 Peace Corps Response Volunteers 16 Volunteers serving in virtual programs. In total, there are 1,004 Volunteers in service as of January 13, 2023.”

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Number of Peace Corps Volunteers and Trainees as of October 31, 2022

  This information is from FOIA 23-0021: “A search conducted by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer provided the following information: there are 506 Peace Corps Volunteer Trainees, 345 Peace Corps Volunteers; and 53 Peace Corps Response Volunteers. In total, there are 904 Volunteers in service as of October 31, 2022. I am closing this case in our Office. There are no fees associated with this response.” I made this FOIA request on November 13, asking for the number of Serving Peace Corps Volunteers, the number of Peace Corps Trainees and the number of Peace Corps Response Volunteers, as of October 31, 2022.  I received a response today.  It is, of course, not a current count.  I received no explaination for the long delay in responding,

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Advocacy Update: Peace Corps Funding Increase, But No Legislation

This is the news from the National Peace Corps Association.  Thank you to Jonathan Pearson. “As the 117th Congress finishes its work for the year, final results for the Peace Corps are mixed.” “On Friday, the House completed work on a $1.7 trillion Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) omnibus spending package to fund the federal government through next September. The Peace Corps received a funding increase in its baseline budget. The omnibus legislation includes President Biden’s request of a $20 million, five percent increase for the agency (from $410.5 million to $430.5 million). It’s the first increase in seven years, matching the president’s request and responding as well to the House and Senate appropriations letters that 43 Senators and 146 Members of Congress sent, calling for an increased budget. This increase comes as more than 900 Volunteers and Trainees have returned to service in 45 countries. The remaining nine months of . . .

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Carol Spahn formally confirmed as Peace Corps Director

Thank you to Jonathan Pearson, Advocate Director of the NPCA for this news.   Last night, December 14th, the United States Senates formally confirmed Carol Spahn, (Rumania 1994-1996)  as the 21st Director of the Peace Corps.  This was the final step in the namination process. From the Peace Corps website: Spahn brings more than 25 years of public and private sector experience to the director position. Most recently, she served as Peace Corps’ chief of operations in the Africa Region covering Eastern and Southern Africa. Previously, she was the country director of Peace Corps/Malawi for five years. Spahn served as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1994 to 1996 in Romania, where she worked as a small business advisor. Before returning to the Peace Corps as Country Director, she was the senior vice president of operations at Women for Women International. Prior to that, Spahn was executive director of Accordia Global . . .

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NPCA Urges RPCV Community to Take Action and Contact Congress

 NPCA is Advocating for YOU! URGENT ACTION ALERT FOR THE PEACE CORPS COMMUNITY With only a few weeks remaining in the current Congress, we need all members and friends of the Peace Corps community to mobilize and rally to make sure key National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) legislative priorities are approved this year. Our top priority is to pass the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act (S. 4466; H.R. 1456). As more than 900 volunteers have returned to Peace Corps service, this is the moment to pass this once-in-a-generation legislation. Write to Republican Senators NOW: We need the bipartisan Senate bill (S. 4466) to be passed, and key to that is building further support of Republican Senators. If you are represented by one (or two) Republican Senators, please take this action now, and share it with others from your state. Other Senate Action: If you are represented by Democrats in the Senate, . . .

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Glenn A. Blumhorst (Guatemala) writes about his new job

  November 9, 2022 Dear Friends, Sargent Shriver urged us to “Serve, serve, serve! For in the end, it will be the servants that save us all.” It is fitting that today – Shriver’s birthday – I continue my service to the Peace Corps community in my new role as the lead fundraiser for the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation (PCCF). I am grateful for the warm welcome extended by Tony Barclay and the PCCF Board of Directors as we embark on an $8 million capital campaign to underwrite the design and construction of a commemorative work on the National Mall that honors the creation of the Peace Corps in 1961 and those aspects of the American character exemplified by Peace Corps service. Peace Corps Park will forever be a place in which to gather and reflect; to be inspired by the Commemorative’s meanings and messages; and to share in programmed activities embodying . . .

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Peace Corps CEO Carol Spahn visits The Philippines to celebrate 61 years of Peace Corps in the Philippines

  October 27, 2022   MANILA – Today, Peace Corps Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Carol Spahn, participated in a joint press conference with Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency (PNVSCA) Director Donald Gawe. CEO Spahn’s remarks: “I am here this week to celebrate the 61st anniversary of Peace Corps Philippines, witness the tremendous work of our staff and partners in support of Filipino communities, and share how excited we are to welcome Peace Corps Volunteers back to the Philippines in January 2023. In January, 60 volunteers will arrive and work for two years at the invitation of host communities across Luzon and the Visayas in the project sectors of education, youth development and coastal resource management. “I am excited to say that this group will be one of the largest that the Peace Corps has organized since resuming overseas operations in March 2022. By September 2023, I expect more than . . .

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As of August 23, There were 405 Peace Corps Volunteers Serving

I am sorry for the aging information.  I received the final response to my original August 5. FOIA request on October 7, 2022. The FOIA request is 22-0141. I do not know what caused the long delay,  In June, I had made a FOIA request for the number of serving Volunteers and received a prompt and detailed response. (https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/number-of-peace-corps-voluntees-serving-as-of-june-28-2022/) This is what I had requested, anticipating the same kind of response I had received earlier.  “Documents which show how many more Volunteers entered service after June 28, 2022 and were in service as of August 4, 2022;” and on August 30, 2022, you clarified your request to indicate you would, “like to know the number of Volunteers as of  August 23, 2022.” ” A search conducted by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer provided the following information: between the dates of June 28, 2022 and August 23, 2022, an additional . . .

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Former Peace Corps Directors call on Senate to pass the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act

  Read this news and link to  text of the letter at the NPCA website: https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/articles/former-peace-corps-directors-call-on-senate-to-pass-the-peace-corps-reauthorization-act • “In a bipartisan show of support, ten former Peace Corps Directors who have served under Republican and Democratic administrations alike call on the Senate to pass the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act. The most sweeping Peace Corps legislation in a generation, it would bring important reforms and support for Volunteers as the agency seeks to meet the needs of a changing world.” From the Press Release: Today, 10 former Peace Corps Directors who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), calling on them to pass the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act (S. 4466). These bipartisan former Peace Corps Directors specifically asked the Senate to move the legislation, co-authored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Ranking . . .

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Peace Corps Chief Executive Officer Carol Spahn announces climate initiative

  WASHINGTON – Peace Corps Chief Executive Officer Carol Spahn announced that over the next year the agency will implement a climate initiative to support over two million hours of volunteer and staff service in approximately 50 countries around the world. Speaking via video at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City, CEO Spahn described how approximately 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers will work with host country partners to identify and implement strategies that contribute to climate priorities and national plans. “Climate change disproportionally impacts the Global South, including many countries in which Peace Corps Volunteers serve,” said CEO Spahn. “The world is at an inflection point when it comes to the climate emergency; it is now or never, and we are choosing now.” Volunteers and their host communities will work together to promote climate-smart agriculture practices, develop community tree nurseries, and increase climate literacy through environmental education. Additionally, the Peace Corps . . .

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