Running this program is Chris Hedrick (Senegal 1988-90) who is now the country director for Peace Corps Senegal and the coordinator of the Peace Corps Stomping Out Malaria in Africa Initiative. Previously, he was CEO of Intrepid Learning Solutions, a leading corporate training services firm, and worked for Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. This is an article that Chris recently published in New York University’s publication Philanthropy NYU.

 In this detail article in NYU magazine, Chris answers many of the questions RPCVs might ask about such new partnerships with companies and NGOs. He lays out the foundation and the future for one successful venture already in operation. Congratulations Carrie and Chris on Malaria No More.]

How an Initiative to End Malaria is Forging a New Peace Corps

May 13, 2013

In the village of Dindefelo, in remote southeastern Senegal, malaria has long been the biggest killer of children. One of my most vivid images from my service there as a Peace Corps Volunteer was of a little girl, Mariama, brought into the health clinic burning with fever. Too far-gone to be saved, she was soon carefully wrapped in a small white sheet before being laid to rest in the community graveyard.

When I arrived back in Senegal as Peace Corps country director in 2007, two decades after serving as a Volunteer, I assessed the development challenges facing the West African nation. I wanted to understand how those issues matched up against the ways that Peace Corps volunteers could meaningfully contribute their skills and energies. I found that the largest cause of child mortality had not changed since I had worked in Senegal in the late 1980s: malaria was still the biggest killer of kids in Senegal and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.

What had changed, though, was the enhanced opportunity for Peace Corps Volunteers to contribute to combating the disease. In recent years, several new technologies for malaria prevention, testing and treatment made it more possible than ever to prevent sickness and deaths. And the success of all of these approaches depends heavily upon the sort of capacity development and behavior change and communication work that Peace Corps volunteers, as trusted partners in their communities, can do so well.

Long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets can prevent mosquitoes from biting sleeping children, but only if they are distributed to every family and consistently used and repaired. New and inexpensive rapid diagnostic tests can cheaply tell if a fever is malaria or not. But that’s only useful information if you get tested soon after falling ill. Medicine to treat malaria is highly effective, curing almost all malaria cases, but only if the treatment is given in time.

In promoting access to and effective use of each of these improved technologies, Peace Corps Volunteers can play a key role in saving the lives of Africans across the continent. Volunteers have been helping to combat malaria since the early days of Peace Corps, but only recently have the access to the new malaria technologies and the explosion of information technologies allowed Peace Corps to scale up its malaria control efforts and be part of a global team that is dramatically cutting deaths from this disease.

A half century after its founding, the Peace Corps is building upon a new generation’s passion and technology to make more of a difference in the lives of people in developing communities across the globe.   Peace Corps is playing a more important role than ever in meeting global development challenges by embracing the characteristics of successful volunteers:  flexibility and nimbleness in the face of changing conditions.

The typical image of the solitary Peace Corps volunteer focused on local community development is an icon of “Peace Corps Classic,” as Sargent Shriver, the agency’s first director, constructed it in the 1960s.  Peace Corps evolved, but much remained unchanged over the decades. Volunteers served in relative isolation, with little outside communication and collaboration. They were deeply integrated into the host community, with language and cultural fluency. Their development impact was largely evaluated anecdotally.

Some initiatives, such as the effort to eradicate Guinea worm and, more recently, HIV/AIDS prevention, joined volunteers with international efforts to address key development issues. But, by and large, the notion of Peace Corps volunteers serving on their own, mostly disconnected from the world, working at the local level with ambiguous results, was the reality.

Why change?

The world is a different place than when Kennedy empowered Shriver to build a brave new agency for global good: 

• A new generation of Americans, the Millennials, born in the 1980s and 1990s, arrived with different expectations for how they want to live and work.
• Technology has revolutionized communications and learning.
• The developing world has, advanced, requiring changed ways to contribute.
• Congress has stepped up its oversight, requiring clear strategies and results to justify budget growth.

To thrive in this environment, the Peace Corps is transforming itself.  At Congress’ request, in 2010 Peace Corps published a Comprehensive Agency Assessment planning reforms toward focus, efficiency and effectiveness.  The “New Peace Corps” incorporates those reforms and goes beyond.

The new approach redefines the Peace Corps development niche, taking advantage of this generation of volunteers and technology. The Millennials are tech savvy and want frequent communication and feedback.  They have grown up working in teams.  They’re goal-oriented and seek a sense of accomplishment and recognition. Millennial volunteers are drawn to projects that tackle big challenges, like helping to end malaria.

This new generation of volunteers is entering service just as a technology revolution is reaching the developing world. Cell phone penetration in some countries in Africa now surpasses the United States, and Internet access is growing exponentially. In the New Peace Corps mobile devices are used to access free, ubiquitous technology tools.

Teamwork is replacing the iconic notion of the lone volunteer. Increasingly, volunteers are collaborating to pursue audacious goals and teaming with partners, such as international NGOs and USAID, to work for important change.  The Peace Corps Stomping Out Malaria in Africa initiative (www.stompoutmalaria.org), launched in 2011, is the model for this fresh approach.  Growing out of our experience in Senegal, we have rapidly built a team across 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to fight malaria. The program uses Skype to beam in world experts for intense training seminars, Google Drive for knowledge collaboration, and Facebook groups to build distributed communities of learning and expertise.

More than 3,000 Peace Corps Volunteers across Africa will be engaged in this campaign at little incremental cost. They aren’t working alone, but are collaborating with the President’s Malaria Initiative and others, providing the unique Peace Corps value to a global fight: community engagement and education at the grassroots level. Peace Corps Volunteers are now part of the team that has helped reduce malaria deaths by a third in recent years.

The New Peace Corps is truly new, leveraging this generation’s passion and this era’s technology.  What will not change, though, is the core competitive advantage of Peace Corps in international development: the volunteer’s deep understanding and love of the host community. This fundamental relationship will continue to link Peace Corps Classic to the New Peace Corps into the future.

In a short piece yesterday on this blog, Acting Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet said, “this type of partnership represents the future of the Peace Corps: working in partnership with other organizations.” 

Her remarks caused something of a minor reaction from RPCVs readers of our site and Carrie has been kind enough to respond to a few of my questions which I will post in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile…..

Doing a tiny bit of research I found that the Mondelēz name came from a Kraft Foods employees at the time, Monde being French for world and delez an alternative to delicious.

However, Kraft Foods forgot to ask any of those ‘old fashioned’ Russian RPCVs’ what the word ‘Mondedlez’ really means.

According to reporter Kate MacArthur of Crain’s Chicago Businessthe word pronunciation, as expressed by Kraft in a press release, is   “mohn-dah-LEEZ” which can sound similar to a Russian term used for oral sex.

“There is a rather vulgar word, ‘manda.’ [Mondelez] includes the sound of that word,” Irwin Weil, professor of Russian language, literature and music at Northwestern University, told MacArthur who went onto write,  “the second half of the name roughly translates into the sex act, say Russian speakers.” Actually, oral sex!

The  Huffington Post went onto confirm with a native Russian speaker that the phonetic description provided in the release refers to oral sex performed on a woman. The Russian speaker described the term as “really dirty.”  He added that while it’s an old term not used frequently anymore, it would be understood by people in many countries of the former Soviet Union, not just in Russia.

Talk about cross culture misunderstanding!

I just want to know one thing: Who’s on top? The Peace Corps or Mondelez International?

By Andrea Useem on 17 May 2013

inShare3

Carrie Hessler-Radelet, meeting here with a Peace Corps volunteer and community members in West Africa, said a partnership with food-and-beverage giant Mondelez International will help modernize the volunteer experience. Photo: Peace Corps.

Earlier this spring, the Peace Corps announced its second corporate partnership, with Mondelez International, a food-and-beverage company previously part of Kraft Foods, to train young entrepreneurs in the Domincan Republic’s cocoa supply chain.  

According to acting Peace Corps Director Carrier Hessler-Radelet, this type of partnership represents the future of Peace Corps: working in partnership with other organizations.

Peace Corps already works with Coca-Cola, through the Water and Development Alliance, a partnership involving the U.S. Agency for International Development that aims to improve water and sanitation conditions for local communities in the developing world.

Hessler-Radelet, along with Corey Griffin, associate director of the Peace Corps’ Office of Strategic Partnerships, talked with Devex Impact about how partnership is modernizing the volunteer experience and what Peace Corps brings to the partnership table.

What’s most exciting for you about the Mondelez partnership?

Carrie Hessler-Radelet: I have long been a proponent of public-private partnerships, having come from the private sector myself. The private sector has taken an increasingly important role in development. Other government agencies, especially USAID, are promoting public-private partnerships, and the Obama administration is deeply committed to it as well. So it seems like a logical thing for Peace Corps to do. Partnership is our strategy going forward across the board.

Our mission has always been to help host countries to achieve their development goals, and the private sector and non-profit partners play an important role in those local agendas. The added value of Peace Corps is that we are at the last mile, working with local communities in 77 countries around the world.

What’s especially exciting to me about this new partnership is that it’s one of the first to go operational. It focuses on entrepreneurship and building the skills of young people to realize their dreams, which plays right to the core of Peace Corps’ work.  It’s our sweet spot, because our volunteers-many of whom are young - really connect with young people.

I also love the innovation that’s part of this: the entrepreneurship training, and engaging local entrepreneurs to help young people develop their business plans through contests.  It’s a fantastic model that’s happening in our own country as well. To be able to take something that’s cutting edge here in our country and apply it to a developing country setting along with a corporate partner is an exciting first step for Peace Corps.

Corey Griffin: The other piece is financial literacy offered through the partnership, which helps move young people from concept to opportunity. It’s about local capacity building and creating a culture of entrepreneurship in the Dominican Republican. A large multinational like Mondelez brings a myriad of resources, and the Peace Corps brings what it does well on the ground, which is operating through our through volunteers and providing the face-to-face interaction with the communities.

How do partnerships fit into the traditional model of Peace Corps, of a single volunteer working alone in a village?

Hessler-Radelet: The way we’re working is changing, because the world is changing.

The iconic view of the Peace Corps is a volunteer working independently in a village.  But what’s happening now is our countries themselves are interconnected, with strong development agendas that go down all the way to the village level. Since we’re there at the invitation of the host countries and the villages, we have to show how our volunteers are fitting in with their development goals.

What that means is our volunteers are no longer working in isolation. We’re part of a larger development program in each country that involves a myriad number of partners, including corporate and NGO partners. And of course we work very closely with local and national government.

Partnership is a strategy we are using to change our business model. We are still volunteers working at the community level at the request of our countries, speaking the language, living as a member of community - that does not change. But what is changing is that our volunteers are not working in isolation, we’re part of a network. We’re using partnerships - and technology - to link us up with the rest of the world.

How is technology changing the way Peace Corps operates?

Our volunteers are very tech-savvy, and they bring their own technology with them. Ninety-eight percent have cell phones, most have laptops, and some have tablets. Volunteers are using available technology to help promote development change in their local communities.

The bandwidth of our countries in changing dramatically too. A fiber-optic cable was just laid along the coast of West Africa, which is going to make all the difference in those countries. A similar cable was laid a few years ago across East Africa, and it’s made an enormous difference. I know I can get a better cell phone signal anywhere Liberia than I can going over the Roosevelt Bridge [in Washington D.C.] 

Peace Corps is committed to using the tools available to us open source. We use Skype and Google Plus, Twitter, all the social media platforms. Very soon we will have a new knowledge-management platform, called PC Live, which will enable us to communicate with all of our staff and volunteers around the world and enable them to communicate with each other. It’s been pilot-tested in various countries, and it will allow us to create communities of practice.

Has Peace Corps incorporated partnerships into volunteer training?

Carrie Hessler-Radelet: We are right now in the middle of the biggest reform we’ve ever undertaken in the history of Peace Corps. A big part of that is our “Focus In/Train Up” training initiative, which is designed to equip our volunteers to do what they do best, which is to deliver excellence in development at the community level. 

They still receive the language and the cross-cultural training, but the difference is now we’re delivering technical training linked to the development work of others through partnership. In all of our six sectors, we are partnering with corporate partners, NGO partners, university partners, to ensure that we are delivering the best possible training for our volunteers.

One of the best examples is our malaria program. We have a malaria boot camp that’s been funded through a partnership with the President’s Malaria Initiative and various other NGOs like Malaria No More. The bootcamp brings staff and volunteers from all over Africa to participate in an intensive training. We use Skype to beam in some of the world’s leading experts in malaria from the [Center for Disease Control], the World Health Organization and PMI. It prepares our volunteers to deliver interventions in malaria in their communities that are proven through evidence to achieve greatest development impact. 

The Mondelez partnership is another good example. We’ve worked with them to create “Build Your Dreams,” the program that the young people in the Dominican Republic will participate in.  It’s also part of a youth entrepreneurship module we use to train our volunteers.

This state-of-the-art training is equipping volunteers for careers in development, diplomacy or even business. When our volunteers come back after their two-year experience, they have already been exposed to development work, and they’ve been working in partnership with other organizations.

Is the idea that the volunteer experience can help launch a career a new one?

Hessler-Radelet: It’s absolutely a career path, and it’s becoming more that way for sure. The nonprofit and development community has been aware of this, but increasingly the corporate world is realizing that returned volunteers have the kind of skills they want. We’ve had discussions with corporates about our training programs, and they are interested in training their corporate managers in how to work internationally.

There’s nobody who’s more globally competent than a returned Peace Corps volunteer.  They are committed, flexible, and they’ve shown they can handle tough situations. They have language skills, experience at managing cross-cultural teams, a strong understanding of how communities in developing countries work, and a good sense of the opportunities and obstacles in their host countries.

Griffin: The agreement with Mondelez is an ideal scenario. They have a business challenge, and there is a Peace Corps volunteer on the ground helping them with that challenge. The returned Peace Corps volunteer will have a knowledge base and skill set of interest to those corporations.

How is your network of returned volunteers responding to these partnership initiatives?

Hessler-Radelet: We have a strong network of returned volunteers who feel passionately that Peace Corps transformed their lives. Some are skeptic about partnering, especially with the corporate sector, because that wasn’t their experience. But once they see it in action, they understand how important it is, and how we’re able to leverage the resources of others to achieve greater impact. Our younger volunteers, those coming right out to college, they get it, because partnership has been a way of life for them.

We are careful about our brand. Many of our staff people, including me, are returned volunteers, and we feel great responsibility to make sure we are doing it right. But we are confident that partnership is an important strategy for us going ahead in the future. We can deliver results at the community level that are just not possible if we hadn’t worked together. It’s good for both partners, and we want to do more of these.

Griffin: It’s also good for the community. Mondelez is addressing the need to ensure there is a crop of young farmers who are carrying on cocoa cultivation. So for Mondelez, it addresses a business need. For the community, it helps the local economy. As much as it helps the Peace Corps with what we are trying to do and helps Mondelez with a business challenge, it’s also benefiting the community. That’s the nexus that is really the value of partnership.

Is the Peace Corps building up new internal capabilities to partner with corporations and other organizations?

Hessler-Radelet: The biggest step was creating our Office of Strategic Partnerships, which has been up and running for about a year. We are structuring ourselves so we can make strategic partnerships a much more important part of our work.

 As a federal agency, we needed to review our legislation and see what we are allowed to do under the law. That’s taken time. Every time we have an agreement, it makes it easier the next time. We’re taking examples from USAID and the White House and other federal agencies who have embraced public-private partnership, and we’ve been able to learn from their experiences.

 Griffin: We’ve seen others take notice of the work we’re doing at the Peace Corps. There is a bit of an awakening, because all the federal agencies are thinking about ways to do public-private partnerships. The Peace Corps has cut its teeth, learning how to do corporate-sector engagement, and I’m hoping we can grow that portfolio over time.

 The White House will be powerful convener in helping us think about how we work with these organizations and corporations more systematically, so that we’re not all reaching out differently. The White House Homeland Security Partnership Council, which brings together 19 agencies, has issued a set of guidelines for federal agencies for creating offices of strategic partnerships. That’s helping a great deal.

Now Rowland Scherman is himself subject of a film entitled, EYE ON THE SIXTIES: The Iconic Photography of Rowland Scherman.

The man who was behind the camera that focused on Scherman and his life is the film’s creative director, Chris Szwedo.

Chris has now done a 12 minute film on how the Rowland Scherman film came to be. This short video is available now.

Take an early look. Soon, the full version of the film will be on PBS and other stations nationwide. On August 25, it will be screened at the documentary theater of The NEWSEUM in Washington, D.C. (Check it out if you are in DC this summer.)

Take a moment and see the man–Rowland Scherman–who made us all (well, almost all) of us famous.

The making of EYE ON THE SIXTIES: The Iconic Photography of Rowland Scherman with commentary by
Director Chris Szwedo.

https://vimeo.com/66046480

check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YTS10nBO5A

A month later, in mid November, the Acting Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet (Western Samoa 1981-83) said  the agency would do so, and on May 2, 2013, in Shriver Hall an event was held by the agency. 

The Celebration of the life and Service of The Honorable J. Christopher Stevens was a simple and touching event, with short words of rememberance from former Morocco Country Director David Burgess; fellow Morocco Peace Corps Volunteer Amie Bishop; Ambassador Stevens’ Father Jan Stevens; Ambassador Stevens’ Sister Hilary Stevens; and Ambassador Stevens’ Mother Mary Commanday. The special event was opened and closed with remarks from the Peace Corps Deputy Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet.

Good Afternoon.  It’s my pleasure to welcome you here as the Peace Corps honors and celebrates the remarkable life of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Peace Corps Deputy Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet

We are sincerely honored to be joined today by so many of the people who knew and loved Chris . . . His mom and dad — Mary Commanday and Jan Stevens; his sisters - Hilary and Anne; his dear friend - Amie Bishop; and his country director in Morocco - our very own David Burgess.  We’re so pleased to have all of you here.  We are sorry that Tom and Carol could not join us, but we know they are here in spirit.

The Peace Corps really is a family - we feel strongly about our Volunteers and our Returned Volunteers - and we are returned Volunteers, not former Volunteers, because once a Volunteer, always a Volunteer.  So  Chris - and Hilary, and indeed all of you, are members of our extended Peace Corps family.  When something happens to one of us, it affects all of us.  And that is why we so passionately wanted to honor Chris here at Peace Corps.  Because he is family to us, and it is important to us to honor him as family.

Before I invite David up to begin the program, I’d like to share a brief quote from our founding director, Sargent Shriver -a quote that is so near and dear to us here at the Peace Corps . . . that we have it on the front of our building:    “Of all of our ideals, none surpasses the importance of service.”   I wanted to share this quote because it so aptly describes the life of Chris Stevens. 

Chris knew that service to others is an extraordinary act of kindness, and he knew that the benefits to service flow two ways — to both the giver and the receiver of service.  He also understood the power of strong personal relationships - relationships based on mutual respect and understanding, developed over time. 

These strong personal relationships are at the heart of every Peace Corps experience and it is these personal relationships that have the power to transform individuals and communities.  Chris understood that.  He developed strong, life-long relationships throughout the world, relationships that were critical to his effectiveness, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and later as a diplomat.

So, when we think of someone like Chris Stevens - a man who served his country in so many ways - and in so many places — one can’t help but be inspired by his commitment to service - and moved by his love for people, especially the people of the Middle East.  

[Following the brief comments by Chris's family and Amie Bishop. Carrie spoke again, bringing the ceremony to a close.]

I again want to thank you all for being here and sharing with us …

Before we end today, I’d like to invite one more person up to the stage. Anne Stevens, Chris’s sister . . . Anne has been so helpful in making this day possible. The Peace Corps would like to present to her - and her family - this Shepard Fairey poster.

And I’d also like to bring to your attention two enduring tokens of the Peace Corps’ appreciation of Ambassador - and Volunteer - J. Christopher Stevens. 

First, this photo of Chris during his Volunteer service in Morocco with fellow English teacher and friend Abderahim Tbany will be permanently displayed just outside in History Hall . . .I’d like to thank Chris’s friend, Amie Bishop, for sharing this photo with us.

In addition, our Office of Gifts and Grants Management is working with the Stevens family on an initiative that would honor Chris and ensure his Peace Corps legacy.

We’re pleased to collaborate with them on this wonderful remembrance of their son and brother.

Thank you.  . .

Chris Stevens with his friend and fellow English teacher Abderahim Tabany

By: Fred de Sam Lazaro

 NewsHour special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro asks Molly Melching about her efforts to educate Senegalese women about the harms of genital cutting.

Molly Melching didn’t think she had much more than curiosity — and a love of the French language — when she ventured off soon after college for Senegal.

It turns out that this product of a conservative Midwestern Lutheran upbringing may have brought exactly the qualities and experiences needed to help engineer one of the most sweeping shifts in social norms and behavior in history. Her organization, Tostan, has helped 6,400 (and counting) communities in Senegal and seven other African nations abandon the practice of female genital mutilation, one that about 3 million girls endure each year and one that governments, aid agencies and missionaries have tried to end for centuries.

Melching’s story from Danville to Dakar is chronicled in a book to be released April 30: “However Long the Night: Molly Melching’s Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls Triumph.”

Arriving in 1974, Melching quickly shed the mini-skirt wardrobe she’d packed from her years at the University of Illinois, in favor of the long flowing boubous worn locally.

“Senegalese are very accepting,” she says of people in that predominantly Islamic West African nation. “But they would never have opened up to me if I did not show respect.”

Molly Melching shows a video to villagers of Netti Daga, Senegal. Photo by Fred de Sam Lazaro for the PBS NewsHour.

That respect came naturally in an almost-instant embrace of her adoptive country, where she has now lived for nearly four decades. Melching quickly learned Wolof, a language in far wider use in the region than the colonial French of the urban elite and one that opened the door to a far wider circle of friends. Living in a thatched hut in rural villages afforded a peek into the myriad problems women endured with their health and that of their children — most of which they attributed to evil spirits and curses.

When you lack information, superstition fills the vacuum, Melching says. “It was no different than when witches were burned at the stake.”

When she began what would become Tostan, which means “breakthrough” in Wolof, her goal was simply to provide basic health information, things like germ transmission and infection. She had no intention of broaching the sensitive and extremely taboo subject of genital cutting. That cause was championed by her Senegalese colleagues and friends, newly armed with health information and driven in at least one compelling case — a “cutter” named Oureye — by her own guilt. Oureye is one of several strong characters in the book, written by New York-based journalist and author Aimee Molloy and published in a partnership between the Skoll Foundation (an underwriter of the NewsHour) and the HarperOne division of HarperCollins.

Also publicly revealed for the first time in the book is Melching’s own encounter with sexual violence while in college, an experience that fed strong empathy for the women she would get to know in Senegal. That empathy is a hallmark of Tostan’s approach to female genital cutting, a non-judgmental term she prefers to “mutilation” used by the World Health Organization.

The message is “we know you love your daughters and would never want to harm them,” she says.

People cannot be shamed into behavior modification, Melching insists. They need good scientific information to make their own decisions. It’s a simple powerful lesson that applies to just about any development endeavor, one she hopes the book will help spread widely.

Watch for Fred de Sam Lazaro’s report on efforts to end the practice of female genital cutting on Thursday’s PBS NewsHour. And read about more Social Entrepreneurs.

One Woman’s Power of Persistence

Award-winning director Mirra Bank heard about the plight of a people halfway around the world and decided she wanted to help-but it took six years. Here, the story of what she did, the film she made (”The Only Real Game”), the obstacles she overcame…and how you can help now

by Judith Coyne

Devika, a mother in Manipur, India, hopes to support her family by becoming a baseball coach.Photograph: Axel Baumann for Baseball Dreams, LLC

More: The film, The Only Real Game, is wonderful-detailed and absorbing, and very inspiring without being sentimental. How do you think the film will help Manipur?

MB: It’s like many other problems in the world-shed light on it, bring attention to it, bear witness, and then there’s a chance that something will change.

More: The film depicts the political and economic situation in Manipur, but also a specific recent episode: when Major League Baseball International sent over two American representatives to train Manipuris. How did that come about, and what was the idea behind it?

More at: http://www.more.com/news/womens-issues/one-womans-power-persistence

We’re here today to remember Chris Stevens - particularly his service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco from 1983 to 1985.  In some respects that’s a bit of an oxymoron:  In three decades, I haven’t come across anyone who met Chris Stevens who didn’t remember him quite well.  He was truly a remarkable person and made a profound impression on people he met. So we do remember him.

Thirty years ago next month, Chris Stevens had his first encounter with North Africa when he arrived for Peace Corps training in Azrou, a predominantly Berber town in Morocco’s Middle Atlas Mountains.  And North Africa had its first encounter with Chris Stevens.

It was evidently love at first sight, for North Africa and the Middle East kept calling him back; and Chris spent the better part of his life either working there, or moving the necessary levers so he could work in that part of the world.  I don’t doubt that his Peace Corps experience had something to do with that.

Chris spent two years living and working in the Middle Atlas mountains, in the small community of Ouaouizerth.  It was rural, rustic and a bit remote.  He was the only Volunteer in the community.  Like so many Peace Corps Volunteers, he was going to live life in a fishbowl.

So let me take you back to Morocco in the 1980s:  Here was Chris - 23 years old, tall, lanky, blond, and athletic.  And he was a Californian through and through.  In many respects he fit a stereotype of a young Californian.  He was a jogger - indeed a runner.  He ran marathons and played tennis.  He helped organize the infamous Azrou-to-Ifran “Ifran-athon” that amused and perplexed security forces at 2 or 3 of the King’s palaces.

Chris was in constant motion - physically and intellectually.  He was idealistic, interested and interesting.

But of course Chris really didn’t fit anyone’s stereotypes.  He was clean-cut and very preppy - unlike many Volunteers of the day who sported t-shirts, beards and Birkenstocks.  But he was also down-to-earth.  And despite his blond-blond hair or his laid-back, comfortable California air, Chris wasn’t a California surfer boy.  He was a Northern Californian.

Even at the time, Chris was more mature and substantive than many of his fellow Volunteers.  He knew himself well, and showed self-confidence, without the arrogance or self-centeredness of some.  Chris had gracious manners, and at times was almost courtly - But not stuffy or full of himself.  He was intelligent, thoughtful and considerate.

Chris appreciated all kinds of art - and was inquisitive in absorbing Morocco’s culture, whether in its architecture, paintings, carpets or tiles.  He was immensely curious and thoroughly immersed himself in Morocco’s Arabic and Berber and Muslim cultures.  He also acknowledged Morocco’s French influence - Chris definitely appreciated a good bottle of Boulmane or Biére when he was outside his conservative community of Ouaouizerth.

As in so many aspect of his life, Chris’s tastes in music were sophisticated.  And wide-ranging.  As a sax player, he appreciated Getz, Coltrane and Konitz, as well as whatever was current in American rock, or local Arabic pop.  He appreciated the sonorous sounds of the indigenous Berber music he heard in Ouaouizerth.  Jajouka “trance” music was fashionable at the time, and was the latest influence on the Rolling Stones.  But Chris wasn’t entranced by it, and thought it a bit of a Euro-fad.

Chris was witty, irreverent and lyrical.  He had an affection (a weird affectation?) for conjuring up “alternative” [or at least slightly clever] lyrics to musical standards.  Even though there were some 280 PCVs in Morocco at the time, Chris was apparently the only one who knew all the words to “The Vatican Rag,” and wasn’t too shy to ham it up over a few beers, or to suggest that PC/Morocco really should produce the entire campy off-off-Broadway musical, “Nunsense.”

No, Chris Stevens was no stereotype - he was as individual and unique as they come. All in an open, gregarious, engaging, and even goofy way.

Please indulge me a minute more as I look back these 30 years and recall a young man who showed the world even then that he was a Rock and a Star.  It’s appropriate that his first taste of North Africa was in Azrou - the town’s name means “Rock” in the local Berber dialect.  And Chris showed himself to be a rock for others:  stable, reliable, and self-aware, without being self-centered.  He always seemed to have time and consideration for others, whether they were fellow Volunteers, residents of Ouaouizerth, or even strangers.

Chris was also a Star.  Not as a “look-at-me” celebrity Volunteer, but rather as a fixture who could shine brightly on everything and everyone who came into his orbit.  He brought out the good in others.  He obviously didn’t suddenly develop that personality and charm in Morocco; he must have been on that path during his years at Berkeley and in high school.

From my vantage, Chris was an ideal Volunteer - he worked hard and was a good teacher; his principal, counterparts, and PC staff respected him, as did his fellow PCVs.  He loved his village, he drank life in, and made himself part of Morocco.  He excelled.

When he died, we pulled up the “Description of Service” document that I wrote for him in July 1985.  This rather dry document tells us that Chris completed over 200 hours of Arabic during PST; that he attained an FSI score of 3+ in spoken Arabic; that he was one of 40 faculty members at Lycée Sidi Mohamed in Ouaouizerth; that he taught English to hundreds of 10th, 11th and 12th grade students from 1983-1985; etc., etc.  But it says little about the man he was, and was becoming.  By design (and by regulation) the DOS statement excludes the judgments that differentiate outstanding Peace Corps Volunteers from those who merely complete their service.  It’s just a factual narration. - But every Peace Corps CD knows which Volunteers are exceptional.  So it’s not hard to remember Chris.

Chris could be as frustrated as any Volunteer, yet he handled it maturely, stoically  ̶  and also with good humor.  He understood the benefits of being challenged, and was self-reliant enough to deal with daily obstacles.  He said he was happy to be assigned to a Berber village in the Middle Atlas region - even though we had trained him in the Darija dialect of Arabic - and not in any of Morocco’s Berber languages.  Chris was OK accepting his luck/fate [Qisma or Kismet] and he made the most of the lemons he found in his basket.  He was gregarious, yet he ended up in a relatively isolated mountain community.

His nearest Peace Corps neighbor was Amie Bishop - true Kismet!  These two Volunteers practically became soul-mates - and they both spent considerable efforts trying to convince others that they really weren’t a couple!

Chris brought Spanish, and a smattering of Italian, and some school-level French with him, but no matter:  he cheerily compensated for (i.e., he faked) whatever he didn’t have.  He claimed he would learn Maltese if he went there on his way home.  J  I didn’t doubt that he could.

Chris Stevens was creative and determined.  He got it done - whatever “it” was.  He made others look good; he shared credit and he accepted responsibility.  He wasn’t afraid to make mistakes, or to apologize and ask for forgiveness when he did.  He smiled - a lot.

He could and did laugh at himself.  He was serious - but didn’t take himself too seriously.  Chris lived in the present, but was usually also looking far ahead - not in an overly ambitious way, although he was ambitious.  But rather because he saw endless possibilities and was trying to figure out his future.  These are not the traits one normally sees in 23-year olds!  We all knew that Chris was destined for success, and quite possibly greatness.

As a PCV, Chris was intellectual and had an abiding appreciation of history.  And of tradition — And of meaning.  When he went to Tangier with other Volunteers, it wasn’t just to exhale after coming out of the mountains of Ouaouizerth.

Nor was it to inhale aboard the Marrakesh Express with other Volunteers who were practically pilgrims, pursuing the aura of Tangier expats and Beat Generation writers and poets like Bowles and Burroughs.

No, Chris went to Tangier to help organize the then-163-year old American Legation Library - the most comprehensive collection of books, monographs, maps, photographs, and articles on Morocco and North Africa in the world.  Quite a Secondary Project.  As I said, he had a great sense of history.  Including his own  ̶  he often seemed to have a journal with him, recording his own narratives.  Like many PCVs, he was searching, and finding, and testing himself.

Chris was professional and responsible - not only for himself but for others.  In 1984 we held Morocco’s first All-Volunteer Conference.  It was a great success, and a chaotic and emotional time as well.

For example …. Late one afternoon, one Volunteer had succumbed to the stresses of his service, and the emotions of the event.  He self-medicated his frustrations with as much beer and bourbon as he could find.  That effort eventually found him standing in the back of the room, loudly heckling me and others involved in the training.  As the Volunteer teetered back and forth, Chris went over and put a friendly arm around the young man and helped him out.

In doing so, Chris not only showed the Volunteer back to his hotel room, but he also showed compassion for another, as well as professional consideration for the other PCVs in the training.  Later, Chris prevented the same Volunteer from attempting an ill-advised midnight swim, and instead delivered him to my care.  J   A bit later, Chris urged the imprudent Volunteer to publicly apologize to the entire PC/Morocco community for his interruptions and entertainments.

As Chris contemplated the end of his own PC service, he occasionally talked with me about his future.  He really wanted to be a Foreign Service Officer - a Diplomat.  [It was Peace Corps's gain that Chris didn't pass the Foreign Service exam the first time he took it.  Whatever were they thinking??]

But he also felt the pull of law school.  He wanted to be an Attorney.  His love of family, the idea of a career in law, and his desire for a professional life in international relations, were all tugging at him.  He missed his siblings; and he wanted to find the best possible future.

I had pursued both law and foreign affairs with some success, and Chris was eager to see how he might do the same.  He obviously had the intelligence, drive and experience to get into almost any law school in the country.  I pushed him to my alma mater, Georgetown, with its joint degrees in Law and Foreign Service.  But Chris knew that he had to return to California.  He’d already decided that Hastings was the best law school in California  ̶  as well as its oldest.  And it was unique as an independent law school.  Perfect for Chris Stevens! Chris did appreciate tradition and history.

I was more than happy to write letters of recommendation for him.  Although I couldn’t include judgmental adjectives in the Peace Corps DOS Statement, I so wasn’t constrained in writing recommendations.  I described Chris in terms such as: outstanding; exceptional; unlimited potential; a leader among his peers; well-regarded by colleagues, students and superiors; dedicated and determined; a respected member of his community; analytical; an intelligent risk-taker; personable and outgoing; resourceful and resilient.

Over the years, I followed Chris’s legal and diplomatic careers at a distance.  I saw that he found success in both law and diplomacy.  And that he was a star among the State Department’s experts in the Arab world.  His early love affair with North Africa and the Mideast had continued.

Chris was committed to making a difference in the world and always seemed to find a way to do so.  His YouTube introduction to the Libyan people last year was masterful.  It says so much about Chris Stevens in 1985, and in 2012.  How many other Ambassadors would even think of doing something so imaginative?

Peace Corps lost an extraordinary RPCV when Chris died.  America lost a committed public servant, and an exceptional Ambassador.

We can all learn good lessons from a life so well lived.

David Burgess  has been Chief of Operations of the Peace Corps Europe, Mediterranean and Asia (EMA) Region since August 2006, and was Acting Director of the Region from January 2009 to July 2010.  He has also served as Acting Country Director of five Posts in the EMA Region.  David previously served with the Peace Corps in the 1980s, as Country Director in Morocco and Niger, and Acting Country Director for six Africa Region Posts.  He also worked in Peace Corps headquarters as the agency’s Director of Planning and Policy Analysis, and served as a deputy to the Associate Director of Management.

Before returning to Peace Corps in 2006, David was an International Democracy and Development Consultant, and director or Chief of Party on several USAID-funded programs in the US and abroad.  He provided strategic advice and problem-solving assistance to clients in the US and overseas in a dozen countries in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa.  He was the Director of the US Democracy Fellows Program in the 1990s, and previously served for six years as the State Department’s Director of Human Rights Policy, Programs, Legislation and Public Diplomacy, in the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.  He has worked with a variety of internationally focused organizations including World Learning, the US State Department, the US Institute of Peace, and America’s Development Foundation. He is an Adjunct Professor and Faculty Secretary at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, and previously was on the faculty of Georgetown University and in the Academy of Public Service.  David is a veteran of the US Air Force, where he served in command and staff positions in US and foreign assignments.  David practiced law for some years, and holds J.D., M.S.F.S. and B.S.F.S. degrees from Georgetown University.

David Burgess has been Chief of Operations of the Peace Corps Europe, Mediterranean and Asia (EMA) Region since August 2006, and was Acting Director of the Region from January 2009 to July 2010.  He has also served as Acting Country Director of five Posts in the EMA Region.  David previously served with the Peace Corps in the 1980s, as Country Director in Morocco and Niger, and Acting Country Director for six Africa Region Posts.  He also worked in Peace Corps headquarters as the agency’s Director of Planning and Policy Analysis, and served as a deputy to the Associate Director of Management.

Before returning to Peace Corps in 2006, David was an International Democracy and Development Consultant, and director or Chief of Party on several USAID-funded programs in the US and abroad.  He provided strategic advice and problem-solving assistance to clients in the US and overseas in a dozen countries in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa.  He was the Director of the US Democracy Fellows Program in the 1990s, and previously served for six years as the State Department’s Director of Human Rights Policy, Programs, Legislation and Public Diplomacy, in the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.  He has worked with a variety of internationally focused organizations including World Learning, the US State Department, the US Institute of Peace, and America’s Development Foundation. He is an Adjunct Professor and Faculty Secretary at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, and previously was on the faculty of Georgetown University and in the Academy of Public Service.  David is a veteran of the US Air Force, where he served in command and staff positions in US and foreign assignments.  David practiced law for some years, and holds J.D., M.S.F.S. and B.S.F.S. degrees from Georgetown University.

CD Morocco David Burgess

 

 

 

Marian Beil (Ethiopia 1962-64) and Tino Calabia (Peru 1963-65) set up a petition on SignOn  on October 19, 2012 to rally the Peace Corps Community to ask the Peace Corps to honor RPCV and Ambassador Chris Stevens (Morocco 1983-85) at the Peace Corps Headquarters.

A month later, in mid November, the Acting Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet (Western Samoa 1981-83) said  the agency would do so, and on May 2, 2013, in Shriver Hall an event was held by the agency. 

The Celebration of the life and Service of The Honorable J. Christopher Stevens was a simple and touching event, with short words of rememberance from former Morocco Country Director David Burgess; fellow Morocco Peace Corps Volunteer Amie Bishop; Ambassador Stevens’ Father Jan Stevens; Ambassador Stevens’ Sister Hilary Stevens; and Ambassador Stevens’ Mother Mary Commanday.

In the days to come, we will post the remarks by the friends and family of Chris Stevens.

Peace Corps Dedication to Chris Stevens- May 2, 2013

By Amie Bishop (Morocco 1983-85)

I am deeply honored to be asked to speak today—to be here with Chris’ family, friends, former co-workers, and some of our fellow volunteers from Morocco.  I want to share some reflections of Chris, the Peace Corps, and of the legacy Chris has left us.

Chris’s easy, laid-back California nature and understated sense of humor endeared him to everyone pretty quickly during the first months of training. I believe it is safe to say that we were all were impressed by his impeccably pressed and seemingly endless supply of khakis. How was he doing that? Speaking for myself, by our second year, I was quite sure he was receiving secret shipments of pants.

In any case, he and I quickly became friends-we both had California roots, loved to run, and found humor in many of the same situations we found ourselves in. Our observant Peace Corps training director mistakenly thought that we were dating and posted us in neighboring villages-this turned out to be hugely important to me, especially, because, while Chris was posted in an idyllic Atlas mountain village, I was assigned to what turned out to be the prostitute hub for the region. Needless to say, I spent a lot of weekends visiting him and we were each other’s main support during that first year, growing up together, not realizing at the time what an incredibly formative period in our lives this time would be. Our favorite past time, aside from hiking in the hills around his village, was comparing our latest cultural blunders. My favorite of his was when he confused the hours of the town’s 1 hammam (public bath) and walked in on a bunch of half-dressed Berber women, who went screaming from the front room. But he was unflappable and rather than withering with embarrassment, he found the humor and goodness to glide right past it.

Our walks in the hills around his village were usually accompanied by one of his students or a teacher from the school, especially his fellow English teacher, Abderahim Tbany, with whom Chris remained in touch until his death in Benghazi. Chris was well-liked by his community. I am sure they were responding to the clear happiness and joy he took from immersing himself in their world. He was committed to doing his best—–supported by a wonderful combination of humility, dedication, warmth, and humor. And his Arabic was improving much faster than the rest of us…. About 6 months into our assignments, he came to visit me in my town and my neighbors invited us for lunch. Very soon after we settled in, the mother in the family started poking me and asking why Chris spoke Arabic so much better than I did-”Why can’t you speak like him?!”

There is no question in my mind that Chris’ Peace Corps experience, built upon his already kind, open, and inquisitive nature, laid the foundation for the kind of diplomat he would become. He truly exemplified the sort of cultural intelligence that can be gained only through deep respect of others, through the hard work of learning another tongue, and through participating fully in new surroundings: for example, by partaking in simple acts such as sitting on a tree stump in an olive grove to share tea with a Berber family, as we did once on one of our hikes.

The world needs more Chris’s, although he himself is irreplaceable. Rather than focus on the terrible loss we all suffered upon hearing the news of that tragic night, I have tried to find comfort in appreciating what Chris has left behind. For me, personally, that has been a reawakening of long-faded memories of the most impressionable time in my life, as well as the awareness of the power and endurance of the friendships forged at that time. Born out of this loss, as well, has been an emerging and wonderful friendship with his sister, Anne, who also lives in Seattle. I am so grateful for this new friendship and for the glimpses I sometimes see of Chris in her.

For the world, he has left behind the finest testament there is to the power of total immersion into unfamiliar realities as a way of bridging and even solving the world’s ills. His sort of diplomacy was characterized by participation, respect, listening, learning, and laughing. He already had those innate abilities, but I have no doubt that his Peace Corps experience allowed those qualities to blossom so that, whether as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, or a diplomat in Egypt or Syria or Israel or Libya, or, finally, as an Ambassador, Chris was just as likely to be found, on any given day, sipping tea on a tree stump with the locals.

Thank you, Peace Corps, for honoring my friend, Chris; for giving him and me, and my fellow former volunteers the opportunity to share an unforgettable chapter in our lives; and for helping shape one of the finest diplomats of our time.

 Amie Bishop (Morocco 1983-85)