Step # 7: Curtailing APCDs

I remember a period of time–perhaps six months–in 1965 when there were 450 PCVs in Ethiopia working mostly teachers, nurses and highway surveyors and there were a total of 4 APCDs.

Like all bureaucracies overseas staffs have grown and grown in 50 years. It is the nature of the beast. Now is the time to try it a new way.

A couple true stories. A good friend would worked in HQ in the early days, then much later as a CD in Africa, said that what was needed as a CD was someone with  counseling skills, not management or development experience, and that she spent much of her days talk with emotionally distraught PCVs. It is not for naught that psychological payments are so high in the agency when the PCVs come home again.

Working as an APCD in Ethiopia, I had under my supervision a 100 PCV spread over a 1000 miles. I usually spent 24-27 days a month traveling from town to town visiting the Volunteers, check up on then, seeing what they needed. It is what I thought (and what I believed at the time) what an APCD did. Other APCDs never left Addis Ababa. They kept in touch by mail. At the time, telephones were chancy.

My approach was the wrong approach. Once you start hand holding, you can never do it enough. It is best to set up another kind of paradigm between APCDs and the Volunteers and the Peace Corps has done a good deal at turning the Volunteer loose overseas, beginning with Training.

I remember stopping on the Dessie Road in the provinces of Ethiopia and picking up a hitchhiking young woman. She was one of five Swedish Volunteers building a school in one of the small villages off this main artery of the country. Her LandRover had broken down and she was headed back to her village to get help from one of the other Volunteers.

These Volunteers operated on their own with very little organization support from their government. While they worked as teams-5 or 6 together–building two- room elementary schools, they were young kids virtually on their own in Africa.

What the ‘new’ agency needs to do is cut back on the APCDs, as well as, increase the number of HCN APCDs. (I can hear the hue and cry already!)

Yes, at first it will be difficult. Just like getting off a plane in the developing world and moving in with a homestay family a day or two later, and then starting 10-weeks of training, taking on a language, technical skills, cross-culture, community development, personal health and safety and security. It ain’t easy. But as a student here at the college where I work wrote back from Tanzania…”Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania is certainly not easy, but whose to say life should be easy? Each day is a learning experience and I am certain that by the end of my service here I will gain a lot more than I will give.”

Which of us hasn’t said the same thing?

Lets cut the hand-holding, lets send the PCVs off to do the job they are capable of doing, and lets tighten the financial belt of the Peace Corps. It can be done.

When a conservative and right-winger like Senator Bond of Missouri states that the Peace Corps is “Smart Power” and “one of the best examples of our nation’s smart power,” and then go onto say “Peace Corps Volunteers have fostered lasting, positive relationships between the United States and nations across the globe through grassroots efforts” we have to start asking, “What’s in the water on Capital Hill?

Here a statement by Sen Kit Bond that I picked up off Newsmax.com at 8:06 PM this Monday evening, June 29. (Maybe the More or Bold Peace Corps campaign is really working.)

By: Sen. Kit Bond

In less-developed nations around the world too many people are suffering from governments that don’t work; too little food to feed their families; lack of clean water and other basic necessities like shelter and clothes; and little hope for a better life.

These people, whether they live in Africa, Southeast Asia or the Middle East, are vulnerable to ideologies that promise a better life. One such insidious ideology is extremist violent Islam. Their goal: to destroy Western nations and convert the world to their ideology. Their tactic: terrorism.

These extremists have been attacking our nation for over two decades: from the bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 to the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988 to the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. We had ample warning of the rise of extremist violent Islam, but it was not until the horrifying attacks on September 11, 2001, that the true threat was realized. Since that day, our nation has been resolved to defeating this enemy and preventing another attack on American soil. Thanks to the efforts of some incredibly talented and dedicated patriots in our military, law enforcement and intelligence community, American shores and skies have been kept safe.

But to defeat truly the threat of these bloodthirsty terrorists, we must do more than win on the battlefield; we must ultimately defeat the ideology. To do so, America needs to wise up and invest in “Smart Power” - a term I use to describe the combination of military might with diplomacy, educational exchanges, and economic development.

As the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Defense and State Foreign Operations Appropriations committees, I am working to ensure Congress provides the resources and policy initiatives needed to expand the use of Smart Power.

Smart Power is an effective way to fight radical ideologies like Extremist Violent Islam, recognizing that before a person can choose his politics, he has to have enough to eat, and a stable community in which to live.

One of the best examples of our nation’s smart power is the United States Peace Corps. Since the early 1960s, Peace Corps volunteers have fostered lasting, positive relationships between the United States and nations across the globe through grassroots efforts.

From helping a farmer increase food production, to teaching a child how to read, to working to build clean water infrastructure, to comforting a parent suffering from AIDS, Peace Corp volunteers are transforming communities.

Our Peace Corps volunteers are also transforming hearts and minds, which is increasingly important as anti-Americanism continues to grow throughout the world.

By supporting the important work of our Peace Corps volunteers, the American people are combating this anti-American sentiment with actions and deeds. At no other time in our nation’s history have the efforts of the Peace Corps been more necessary and relevant, which is why I am one of this agency of peace’s strongest supporters and have called for the increase of volunteers around the globe, particularly in the Muslim nations of Southeast Asia.

Over the years, I have frequently visited the countries of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Thailand and the Philippines. This region of the world is home to around one quarter of the world’s Muslims. Despite this fact, the United States too often overlooks this region.

But Southeast Asia and its large Muslim population present our nation with an opportunity we can’t afford to miss: suppress radical ideologies that aim to export terrorism by using Smart Power. Through initiatives like the Peace Corps, we can put sneakers and sandals on the ground, instead of military boots.

I cannot stress enough the importance of this task, which is why I have joined with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lew Simons in writing a book on the need to engage peaceful, mainstream Muslims in places like Southeast Asia.

While sounding the alarm over ignoring Southeast Asia, my book lays out a roadmap to improving relations with countries afflicted with dangerous Islamist terrorist groups. You guessed it; I will be underscoring the importance of the Peace Corps and other Smart Power initiatives.

For too long America ignored the threat of violent extremism and now we are ignoring the need of non-military, Smart Power investment, but it’s not too late. Already the new Administration - particularly Secretary of State Clinton - has given these initiatives an important public boost.

I look forward to partnering with the new Administration and leading the effort in Congress to make Smart Power initiatives a cornerstone in our foreign policy and in our efforts to combat extremism and terrorism around the world.

The war against extremism can only be won by winning the war of ideas and public opinion. In order to be truly successful, the United States must focus the weight of the effort on the ideological front, reaching would-be terrorists before they turn to violence.

By their powerful work fostering development and more productive and stable societies, Peace Corps volunteers are doing just that. Their hard work speaks far louder than the propaganda and self-promoting vitriol espoused by our terrorist enemies.

50 + PCVs

Within the last years of his tour as Peace Corps Director, Ron T­­schetter   launched an effort to target and recruit older Volunteers. This sort of effort has a history within the agency. It has been tried by various directors in years past, going back to Shriver. Ron, by the way, served with “senior cititzen” Lillian Carter, the president’s mother, back in 1968. Recruiting older PCVs is a worthy effort. When I was the Regional Manager of the New York Recruitment Office, Recruiters actively sought out older applicants who proved to be outstanding Volunteers, some returning home to sign up for a second and third tour.

It is not an unwise decision to retire at 55 from a school system in the US, stash the social security checks and TIAA/CREF monies, and let the government pay for two years of travel, adventure, and doing good in the world as a PCV.

Older Volunteers, however, are typically harder to recruit, harder to process, and harder to keep overseas. They come into the Peace Corps with lots of medical baggage and full lives of responsibilities and obligations and, oh, lets not forget, grandchildren. Not many grandmothers like being away from the grandchildren for two years.

Older Volunteers have obligations, homes, and sometimes full employment. It is not ease for them to fit into the weird recruitment cycle that the Peace Corps maintains. It is one thing for a Twentysomething to get word from the Peace Corps to be in New York City in two days to leave for Dembidolo, Ethiopia. Most young people can pack a backpack, kiss Mom goodbye, and be on the plane that afternoon. 

The Peace Corps today has approximately 6% of its Volunteers over the age of 50, and the average age of all PCV is 27. These figures, I’d bet, haven’t changed much in nearly fifty years. Only the 60% women and the 40% men today is significantly different from the first days.   

Yes, it costs money, effort and time to recruit the old, but it is well worth the effort. We all know the advantages of having older PCVs in the village and our schools. Older PCVs bring respect and honor to the Peace Corps. They add wisdom and value to wherever they serve.

But to recruit and keep them in the system, the Peace Corps needs a different recruitment cycle, one that is aware of and pays homage to the experience, obligations, and medical limitations that senior bring to the recruitment table.

The new Director needs to establish within HQ an Office for Older Volunteers, adjust the medical restrictions, plan on accepting more ETs from the +50 age group, and be aware as well that while older Volunteers do ET at a higher rate, they also are more likely to extend their tours. It is worth the time, money and effort for the agency to recruit and select more older PCVs.

After all, when I get to be a Senior Citizen, I’m going to need somewhere to go!

A local Wisconsin paper columnist Amy L. Geiger-Hemmer writes this weekend that RPCV Jim Doyle (Tunisia 1967-69) is President Obama’s pick to be the Peace Corps Director. Amy spins it this way: “Our ethically-challenged Governor, Jim Doyle, is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to sign off on the Wisconsin state budget.  This is a budget that includes huge increases in taxes and fees.  Huge increases in spending - unprecedented during times of high unemployment and a recession.  And when all is said and done, Wisconsin will still be over $2,600,000,000.00 in debt.”

The rumor in Wisconsin is that Doyle is on his way out, headed for D.C. as the new head of the agency.

At the moment Doyle’s approval ratings are in the low 30’s,  and he has little chance, according to Amy Geiger-Hemmer,  of winning another term against Republicans Scott Walker or Mark Neumann in 2010. ”

We’ll see. Remember, Republicans have been wrong before.

At least we know that this governor won’t be headed to Argentina!

 Mr. President:

I rise today to introduce the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009.

For 48 years, the Peace Corps has stood as a uniquely American institution.  What other great nation would send its youth abroad, not to extend its power, not to intimidate its adversaries, not to kill and be killed, but to build, to dig, to teach, to empower - and to ask nothing in return?

And for 48 years, those young men and women - hundreds of thousands of them, myself included - have returned stronger, wiser, and inspired - prepared to live uniquely American lives of service and accomplishment.

For half a century, the Peace Corps has shaped not just these American lives, but the identity of all Americans: who we are as a people, and what we hope to achieve in the world.

Today, I rise to offer this legislation for one simple reason: I want the Peace Corps to continue playing that role for another 48 years to come.  But before we consider how the Peace Corps can grow going forward, it’s worth remembering how it became what it is today.

Like most groundbreaking ideas, the Peace Corps might not have survived a board meeting or a subcommittee hearing when it was first proposed.

It was a wild notion, so breathtakingly outrageous that it could only have been born out of idealism, youthful energy, and, perhaps the key element, too much caffeine.

The Peace Corps, you see, was born at two in the morning.

It was October 14, 1960, and Senator John F. Kennedy was running hours late for a campaign stop at the University of Michigan.

He assumed that most of the crowd would have gone home, but when he arrived at the student union, he found ten thousand students waiting outside in the frigid dark to hear him speak.

We can all sympathize with Senator Kennedy: having endured months of late nights, uncomfortable beds, and bad food, he must have been sorely tempted to offer a perfunctory thank you to the Michigan students, recite a stump speech from memory, and send them home.

But something besides a chill was in the air that night in Ann Arbor.  Floodlit and shivering, the crowd began to chant his name as he climbed the steps to the student union, and Senator Kennedy realized that this was special.  He realized he owed them more.

So he challenged them.

“How many of you,” he asked, “who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana?  Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?”

I believe that challenge is the Peace Corps’s founding document.  It didn’t begin with a white paper or a TV ad.  It began with a question.

In the days that followed the Kennedy rally at the student union, Michigan students drafted a petition, circulating it to colleges across the state and just a couple of weeks later presenting several scrolls to JFK containing thousands upon thousands of names.  Thirty thousand additional letters flooded into Kennedy headquarters.

So, it’s fair to say that the answer to that question - are you willing to serve your country by serving the world? - was an overwhelming “yes.”

Kennedy’s top advisors were already working on those issues.  After all, they decided, if we don’t start doing our part for the developing world, the Communists will.  At a time much like today, when our nation faced conflicts with people who knew as little of America as we knew of them, this case for a Peace Corps could be made not only in the lofty rhetoric of idealism, but in the cold, hard language of realpolitik.

The notion that service could be part of our foreign policy - indeed, that it could be a powerful weapon in the Cold War - was a truly radical idea.  It suggested that there could be more measures of strength than caliber or tonnage.  It argued that the world needed to see our ideals not just in ink, but incarnate in the young man or woman with dirty hands working under a hot, foreign sun.  It said that you could only hate America if you didn’t know America.

The skeptics quickly descended upon Kennedy and his bold call to action.  Richard Nixon called it “a haven for draft-dodgers.”  Former President Eisenhower called it “a juvenile experiment.” 

And even those old foreign policy hands who supported Kennedy’s plan thought it was a fine idea - as long as it was kept small.  Academic and State Department officials agreed: proceed with caution, start with just a few hundred volunteers, don’t create a fiasco, don’t let this little experiment get out of hand.  If they’d gotten their way, the Peace Could might not exist today.

But just as a late-night burst of exuberance gave birth to the Peace Corps, a similar bolt of sleepless inspiration kept it alive.

Holed up in a hotel room in downtown Washington with a few typewriters and a stack of blank paper, two Kennedy aides, Sargent Shriver and Harris Wofford - comprising the entirety of the Peace Corps staff - had been tasked with figuring out how to put this outrageous idea into practice.

The one thing they knew, Shriver later told us, was that the cautious, conventional approach currently in vogue wouldn’t work.  America would only have one chance to get it right.

So it was that Sargent Shriver happened to be at the office at three in the morning, reading a short paper by a State Department employee named Warren Wiggins.

Wiggins called his paper “The Towering Task,” a reference to JFK’s first State of the Union address, where the young President said, “The problems…are towering and unprecedented - and the response must be towering and unprecedented as well.”

Wiggins called for a towering and unprecedented Peace Corps.  He wrote: “One hundred youths engaged in agricultural work of some sort in Brazil might pass by unnoticed, except for the problems involved, but 5,000 American youths helping to build Brasilia might warrant the full attention and support of the President of Brazil himself.”  Where a handful of kids might present a nuisance to a foreign ambassador, an army of motivated young Americans could make a real difference.  And besides, wasn’t it a moment for great ambition?

At three in the morning, Sargent Shriver read Wiggins’s conclusion: The Peace Corps needed to begin with a “quantum jump,” and it needed to begin immediately, by executive order, with as many as 5,000 to 10,000 volunteers right away.

By nine that same morning, Warren Wiggins himself was sitting alongside Shriver in that hotel room, drafting a report for the President.  Within a month, President Kennedy had created the Peace Corps by executive order.  Within two years, more than 7,000 young Americans were serving abroad.  And that number had more than doubled by 1966.

One of those young Americans was a 22-year-old English major from Providence College who arrived in the small village of Monción in the Dominican Republic.  That young man spoke barely any Spanish.  He had no idea what he was doing, and he certainly didn’t have a clue that, more than 40 years later, he’d be standing on the floor of the United States Senate, explaining that the Peace Corps gave him the richest two years of his life.

I owe those two years, and the impact they had on all my years since, to John F. Kennedy’s 2 a.m. question and the Warren Wiggins paper that Sargent Shriver read at 3 a.m.

From the story of the Peace Corps, and my own story, we can learn three things.

First: the Peace Corps works.  Besides simple labor and good will, every American we send abroad brings with him or her another chance to make America known to a world that often fears and suspects us.  And every American who returns from that service comes home as a citizen who strengthens us with firsthand knowledge of the world. 

As Sargent Shriver said, “Peace Corps Volunteers come home to the USA realizing that there are billions-yes, billions-of human beings not enraptured by our pretensions, or our practices, or even our standards of conduct.”

Second: size matters.  The perils of a small, timid Peace Corps are just as clear today as they were in 1961.  Just as then, advocates of a stripped-down mission make the same arguments: sending untrained, untested students only aggravates our host countries and raises the chance of a mishap-so let’s send a few experts instead.  And just as in 1961, our response is fundamentally the same, and still fundamentally correct: of course we need volunteers of the highest quality.  But we need the highest quantities, too.

Third: size comes at a cost.  The bigger any organism grows, the slower it gets.  The Peace Corps that charted its course in a hotel room with a staff of two now enjoys a staff of over a hundred and a fine office building close to the White House.  But even the most groundbreaking ideas must all make, in good time, what the philosopher Gramsci called “the long march through the institutions.”   And where President Kennedy once predicted that, within a few decades, our nation would have more than one million returned volunteers, today fewer than 200,000 have had the opportunity to serve. 

And so, Mr. President, the legislation I offer today is designed to help the Peace Corps not only grow - and I have joined the many voices calling for it to grow dramatically - but also reform.

To those who know and love the Peace Corps, reform is an uncomfortable subject.  After all, we don’t want to destroy what has made this institution so remarkable and unique.  There wouldn’t be a Peace Corps if JFK had stuck to the script in Ann Arbor.  There wouldn’t be a Peace Corps if thousands of students, acting on their own initiative, hadn’t caught his attention with their movement.  There might not be a Peace Corps if Sargent Shriver had listened to the respectable voices of caution. 

The Peace Corps is unlike any other organ of our government because of its uniquely grassroots origin.  And we can’t treat it like any other organ of our government.

So the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009 does not include a list of mandates.  It does not micromanage.

Instead, it asks those who have written this remarkable success story - from the Director to managers and country directors to current and returned volunteers - to serve once more by undertaking a thorough assessment of the Peace Corps and developing a comprehensive strategic plan for reforming and revitalizing the organization.

Just as JFK’s question to those Michigan students sparked the Peace Corps, asking questions will strengthen it.  How can volunteers be better managed?  How can they be better trained?  Can we improve recruiting?  Are we sending our volunteers to the right countries?  Why do we have volunteers in Samoa and Tonga, but not in Indonesia, Egypt, or Brazil?  Are we still achieving the broader goals of the Peace Corps and helping our country meet 21st-century challenges?

And, most of all: How can we strengthen and grow this remarkable organization without losing the spark - the ambitious sense of the possible that led JFK to stay up late dreaming with those students in Ann Arbor and Sargent Shriver to stay up even later reading Warren Wiggins’s paper?

Mr. President, Warren Wiggins died two years ago at the age of 84.  His obituary quoted Harris Wofford: “I think he embodied the watchwords that were once given to me: We must be more inventive if we’re going to do our duty.”

Inventiveness and duty: two qualities that don’t often go together.  But the Peace Corps is the result of just such a combination.  It has strengthened our nation, improved the world, and stands today as one of the signal accomplishments of the 20th century.  Nothing has meant more in my life, or in the lives of so many others.

Today, we honor that accomplishment.  Let us commit to strengthening and expanding the Peace Corps by passing this legislation.  Let us strive to inspire future generations to walk the path of service and exploration, the one that led me to the Dominican Republic and then, years later, to the U.S. Senate.  And let us never lose that spirit, that idealism, that ambition that led a young President of a young nation to ask a generation to serve.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) author of most recently, Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach published this essay last late night,  June 25, 2009 10:23 PM on the Huffington Post.

Early this evening Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut gave what will probably prove the most important speech in the history of the Peace Corps since that late October night in 1960 when Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy introduced the idea of a volunteers serving in the developing world. Dodd’s Senate speech introduced the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009 to grow and reform the 48-year-old agency. If passed, the legislation will likely make Dodd the father of a bold new Peace Corps for the 21st century, at least double in size, and immensely larger in purpose and impact.

The bill was born not in his office in the Russell Building but in the tiny village of Moncion in the Dominican Republican more than forty years ago. It was there the young Dodd, a senator’s son and a man of privilege, served as a Peace Corps volunteer and was transformed. In his years in public office, the Senator has had many accomplishments, but this moment today on the floor of the Senate is surely one of the greatest. Whatever his legislative monuments, whatever his faults, he may well be remembered for this one act as much as for anything else in his career if this emboldened, renewed institution is created.

The Senator began by celebrating a list of giants who created the historic agency including Kennedy, Warren Wiggins, Sargent Shriver, and Harris Wofford. He spoke about brave leaders taking chances because timidity would have doomed them to failure. But what made his remarks so emotionally powerful is that he talked about his own experience with intimacy and passion. He pointed out that when he joined the Peace Corps in 1966 there were 16,000 volunteer, more than twice what there are now.

“I spoke barely any Spanish and had little idea what I was doing and certainly didn’t have a clue that more than forty years later I would be standing up here on the floor of the Senate explaining that the Peace Corps gave him the richest two years of his life,” he said his voice touched with emotion. “From the story of the Peace Corps and my own story, we learn three things. First of all, the Peace Corps works, Mr. President.. Besides simple labor and good will, every American we send overseas brings another chance to make America known to a world that often fears and suspects us and our motives. And every American who returns to our country comes home as a citizen strengthened with the knowledge of the world that he or she has just lived in.

“Second, Mr. President, the perils of a small, timid Peace Corps are just as strong today as they were in 1961. Of course, we need volunteers of the highest quality but we need the highest quantities to make a difference. Third, growth comes at a price. The Peace Corps that started with a staff of two now enjoys a staff over 100 and a fine office building not far from the White House.”

Dodd’s bill calls for the $450 million appropriation approved by the House subcommittee, $575 million in fiscal year 2011 and $700 million in 2012, enough to move vigorously toward a doubling of the volunteers.

Dodd then turned to reform and suggested that many Peace Corps supporters were uncomfortable with the idea but said that it must be faced straight on. Dodd is the only politician in America with the power and knowledge to say that and write this bill. It is the work of a man who loves the Peace Corps but understands its flaws and knows that you can not mindlessly grow the agency but must reform it from the bottom up. There could have been dozens of specific reforms in this bill but it fundamentally puts the agency on notice. It orders the new director to do a serious study of the agency and how it should be reformed and then carry the mandate out. Dodd ran through a litany of questions that must be answered and then acted upon.

It is clear that if this is not done quickly and well, the wrath of Dodd will be visited upon the agency. In the past few years, Dodd has not given the agency the oversight that he should have given it. But Dodd is not going to strut boastfully about because of the mere passage of the act. He promises to be there overseeing the agency and its new director helping to ensure that volunteers head out into the rich variety of the world, well prepared to help and to learn.

Dodd is one of the most powerful senators, and now with the illness of his dear friend Senator Edward Kennedy, he is overwhelmingly busy. Much of the work on the specifics of the bill was done by two young aides, Joshua Blumenfeld and Ben Weingrod, who were not volunteers but in their commitment well could have been. Dodd has worked with them for months, and it is extraordinary that in the midst of struggling over a health bill to insure all Americans, the senator found the time and the energy to introduce the bill.

President Obama has not kept his oft-repeated campaign pledge to double the number of volunteers by 2011. Although privately administration members admit they made a mistake, the 2010 fiscal budget contains only $373 million for the agency, enough to fund neither reform nor expansion. But there is such an extraordinary groundswell of support for a reborn Peace Corps that in the House of Representatives the entire Appropriations subcommittee chaired by Rep. Nita Lowey, including all the Republicans, voted $450 million for the fiscal year 2010 budget, enough to begin the long march toward a vastly enlarged, reformed agency.

Enter the Senate. The most serious potential adversary of a bold new Peace Corps is an unlikely one: the progressive Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. The Senator is a vociferous foe of the current Peace Corps and as the chairman of the Senator Appropriations Committee his voice matters enormously.. Most of Leahy’s criticisms are valid, and if they are not answered to his satisfaction he is going to sit on the Peace Corps, and no matter what his colleagues on the committee want, to teach the agency a lesson it will not forget. There is bound to be broad bipartisan support for a robust, energized Peace Corps led on the Republican side probably by the formidable Senator Kit Bond, a classic son of Missouri. And Leahy may find himself odd man out on his own committee, but if he feels strongly, that won’t stop him.

No one in American politics has had such a long-term commitment to the Peace Corps as Dodd, but in recent months he had appeared uncharacteristically absent. Everyone in the Senate has been asking the same question about the key player in this drama. “Where is Senator Dodd?” The answer was, “Who knows?” Even Leahy’s staff was asking the question for they knew that nothing would impress Leahy more than his friend coming forward with his much discussed bill.

Dodd was planning to wait to introduce the bill later this year when he had a break in his incredibly busy legislative schedule. He is running in a tough reelection campaign, and his staff was going to make a big deal out of this, setting up all kinds of media, making sure the speech got the attention it richly deserved. But because of the inner politics of the Senate and how important the bill is to this campaign for full funding, Dodd sacrificed the high visibility to get it out there so his colleagues in the Senate, especially Leahy, would see what he had done.

Dodd is calling for the Peace Corps to go backward and forward. It must go backward to the qualities of the bold, fearless men who created the unique institution. And it must go forward to become a lean, tough expanded organization ready to leave the foxholes of caution and match forward into the glorious unknown and unknowable.

“And most of all how can we strengthen and grow this remarkable organization without losing that ambitious spark, the ambitious sense of the possible?,” Dodd asked rhetorically. “The Peace Corps stands today as one of the singular accomplishments of the twentieth century. Let us never lose that spirit, that idealism, that ambition that led a young president of a young nation to ask a generation to serve.”

Today the public galleries were largely empty. The media gallery was quiet. There were few other Senators on the floor. But this was a great moment in American politics. As Dodd spoke, it was not a sixty-five-year old Senator rich in gravitas standing there. It was a twenty-three-year old young man in shorts, a t-short and flip-flops sitting around with a bunch of kids, laughing and joking in Spanish, probably as happy as he had ever been, and if he is like many volunteers, as happy as he ever would be.

 Step # 5 Show Us The Money!

The President’s Transition Team highlighted the fact that the Peace Corps has never fulfilled the promise of the Third Goal. This problem lies with where the Peace Corps money is situated in terms of the government bureaucracy. The Transition Team wrote, “the power of returned Volunteer cultural and linguistic skills in the new multi-cultural America; show that Peace Corps service abroad helps solve problems here at home-completing the loop for Peace Corps; and create a re-employment stream for returned Volunteers. Taxpayers will see an impact at home (as teachers, public health workers and more). Over time, this grows into more support, first for overseas mission, and then for the domestic goal.”

The Peace Corps gets its funding from the “Foreign Operations” account, called in the vernacular, the 150 Account. In Congress, the Peace Corps budget is bunched in with other foreign assistance and national security funding, and that is where the Third Goal loses out. No one wants to fund the Third Goal of the Peace Corps because it is not “foreign.” The Third Goal is domestic. The pressure always is to put as many PCVs in the field. The Third Goal is just “suppose to happen.”

There is also the personal element. When Congresswoman Nita Lowey who controls the budget meets up with fellow New Yorker Secretary of State Clinton in the power room on the Hill, who is going to get the exta $$$, the Peace Corps or State? Hello! 

The Congress influences the spending of the Peace Corps budget through the authorization and appropriations process, but seldom has the Congress been very specific in terms of how the Peace Corps spends the majority of its budget. (After the Power Room Deal.) If, however, the Peace Corps wanted to raise the readjustment allowance (God forbid!), it must seek Congress’ permission as the readjustment allowance is specified in law.

 The Peace Corps has been fortunate, over the years, to avoid too much tinkering by Congress.  That is one reason ( most people who understand the process) strongly opposed Senator Dodd’s “Volunteer Empowerment Act” (drafted by Chuck Ludlum  ((Nepal 1968-70 & Senegal 2005-07), because it tinkered unnecessarily and thus breaks a tradition that has served Peace Corps well. 

What the Peace Corps needs within the agency is to separate Third Goal money and protect it from its entire budget. In this way, the Peace Corps office of Domestic Affairs can have the opportunity and funding to make the Third Goal a reality.

Back in October 2008 Ron Tschetter (India 1966-68) announced “his vision” for a Peace Corps Foundation.  The Foundation would support Third Goal project by RPCCV. It would complete the Peace Corps cycle. It was a great idea that Ron had but alas it came about during the dying days of his Peace Corps tour as Director. He was out the door with his good friend George Bush.

The next director should latch onto Ron’s idea and establish the Foundation, increase its scope and visibility. A Peace Corps Foundation–free of government restrictions-could promote the agency, promote individual projects being done now by RPCVs across America, enlarge the vision of the agency, raise own funds outside of Congress’s oversight. It would be paid for by the contributions of other foundations, RPCVs, and projects such as a first class magazine, much like the one that the Smithsonian publishes now. It’s a great idea. And  the time has come for it to happen.

The June 25 issue of the Recorder CommunityNewspaper in upstate New York has an article on ‘happiness’ today written by Liz Parker. Parker writes about the address that the new graduates of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York received for their president, former Peace Corps Director (1995-99), Mark Gearan.

Mark told the students about a book he had read, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World. The book was written by NPR correspondent Eric Weiner. (Weiner, by the way, will have an article out shortly in The New York Times Magazine about where the Peace Corps is today.)

Gearan quoted from the book:

“Recent research into happiness or subjective well-being reveals that money does indeed buy happiness. Up to a point. That point, though, is surprisingly low: about $15,000 a year. After that, the link between economic growth and happiness evaporates. Americans are on average three times wealthier than we were half a century ago, yet we are no happier. The same is true of Japan and many other industrialized nations.”

Gearan asked his graduates on their Commencement Day:  what will be your happiness index? How will you measure it? What are the metrics you will employ to determine your well-being?” Then he went on to say, “You already know how you will measure other indices of your life: net worth, assets, liabilities, degrees attained, number of children, number of marriages, number of homes, cars, boats. But when you’re back on the quad for your 25th or 50th reunion, will you be happy? How will you know?

Mark advised the students that a life marked by service to others is, statistically and anecdotally, a happy one and summed up with, “I hope your happiness index takes from Henry David Thoreau’s guidance: ‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined’.”

Go Mark!

Step # 4 Laptops For PCVs

The modus operandi of the Peace Corps is that Volunteers arrive in their villages with clothes on their backs and good will in their hearts. The truth is that from day one Volunteers have arrived in the developing world with radios, cameras, enough clothes to outfit a village and, in some cases, even a few extra rolls of toilet paper stashed away in their footlocker! Today, I know, PCVs carry ipods, cell phones, and often enough, their own computers.

The book lockers that the Peace Corps sent along with new PCVs disappeared in the early Sixties, a victim, my guess, of the budget and the increased number of PCVs. Back then the agency had 16,000 Volunteers overseas. That’s a lot of books.

We don’t want to bring back the booklockers (much as we loved them) for this is the Age of Information Technology. We have a new agency, and new techno-savvy Volunteers, and what we want to do is equip all PCVs with laptops to use and leave behind in their schools, hospital, or with whomever they think can best contribute to the town or village or school.

 Nicholas Negroponte at MIT started his foundation–One Laptop per Child (OLPC) in 2002 to give children in the developing world a link to the outside world. “The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege.”

Today, RPCV Maureen Orth (Colombia 1965-67) is an example of someone who believes. Her K12 Wired Foundation in Medellin, Colombia uses OLPC computers to connect this English-speaking school to the world. This school that she supports was one she built as a School-to-School project when she was a PCV back in the ’60s.

Why can’t all PCVs do something similar today?

The One Laptop per Child computer is an XO-1 which costs about $200. If 3,500 Volunteers each year take one overseas to use and leave behind in their Peace Corps town, I think the cost could drop to $100, paid for by the PCV from either cost-of-living allowance or readjustment allowance and the Peace Corps. Fifty bucks a piece.

These computers use flash memory and not a hard drive and can be connected to the Internet. They also have an anti-theft system.

Some critics of the agency, like RPCV Bob Strauss (Liberia 1978-80), complain that today’s Volunteers are ill equipped to do development work. Volunteers lack training, skills, and experience. Well, equip all these B.A. Generalists with a computer and let them go into the villages of the world. If they have a problem, they can Google Bob Strauss and he’ll tell them what to do.