Miscellany

As it says!

1
El Salvador Deemed Too Dangerous For Peace Corps, But Not For Deportees
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The Peace Corps El Salvador Program Suspended
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Harris Wofford Event Wednesday at New York Public Library
4
Peace Corps Volunteers petition to reinstate sexual assault victims’ advocate who was pushed out
5
Gearan Center for the Performing Arts–Former Peace Corps Director (1995-99) Honored at HWS College
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Julie R. Dargis (Morocco 1984-87) Asks: What MORE Can You Do For Your Country?
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Inspector General Recent Report on the Peace Corps
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Bob Vila (Panama 1969-70) And His Hemingway Connection
9
Don Schlenger (Ethiopia 1966-68) Speaks His (and Our) Minds
10
RPCVs from Morocco in Opposition to Islamophobia
11
Martin Puryear (Sierra Leone 1964-66) Reviewed In NYTIMES
12
Washington Post: After their return, some Peace Corps volunteers find byzantine health system neglects them
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RPCV Artists in NYC
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Meet Senator Harris Wofford at New York Public Library on January 13, 2016
15
Harris Wofford & George Stephanopoulos: A Conversation

El Salvador Deemed Too Dangerous For Peace Corps, But Not For Deportees

Thanks to a “heads up” from Tom Hebert (Nigeria 1962-64) this story from The Huffington Post El Salvador Deemed Too Dangerous For Peace Corps, But Not For Deportees The Central American country is on track to become the homicide capital of the world. Elise Foley Immigration & Politics Reporter The Huffington Post Emergency workers gather bodies after at least five people were killed, allegedly by gang members, in Ciudad Delgado on the outskirts of San Salvador, El Salvador. The Obama administration considers El Salvador too dangerous for Peace Corps volunteers, but will continue to send mothers and children with orders for deportation to the country. The Peace Corps announced Monday that it is temporarily suspending its El Salvador program “due to the ongoing security environment.” “Volunteers’ health, safety and security are the Peace Corps’ top priorities,” the agency said in a statement. “More than 2,300 Peace Corps volunteers have worked on . . .

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The Peace Corps El Salvador Program Suspended

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 11, 2016 – The Peace Corps today announced the suspension of its program in El Salvador due to the ongoing security environment. The agency will continue to monitor the security situation in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador to determine when the program can resume. The Peace Corps has enjoyed a long partnership with the government and people of El Salvador and is committed to resuming volunteers’ work there in a safe and secure environment. Volunteers’ health, safety and security are the Peace Corps’ top priorities. More than 2,300 Peace Corps volunteers have worked on community and youth development projects in communities throughout El Salvador since the program was established in 1962. PROGRAM OVERVIEW In 1962 the government of El Salvador invited Peace Corps into the country, and in April of that year the first 20 Peace Corps Volunteers to serve in El Salvador arrived.  By 1977, . . .

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Harris Wofford Event Wednesday at New York Public Library

Event Information By: Corporation for Civic Documentaries Event Description Support the upcoming documentary film on Harris Wofford and join us for an evening withSenator Wofford at the New York Public Library. As a special web offer, we are offering a limited number of tickets at $50 (normally $150) to enjoy the event and the reception afterwards, hosted by New York Public Library CEO Anthony Marx. The evening begins with an exclusive preview of the upcoming documentary on Harris Wofford, featuring Senator Ted Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, James Carville, Bill Moyers, and others.  Anthony Marx then interviews Harris Wofford about the themes of the film, including national service, advancing Civil Rights with Martin Luther King and President Kennedy, helping to start the Peace Corps, and fighting for national health care in the U.S. Senate, and we will hear from other special guests. RSVP today, this special offer is only available for a limited time! . . .

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Peace Corps Volunteers petition to reinstate sexual assault victims’ advocate who was pushed out

The Peace Corps was mandated by Congress to hire its first advocate for victims of sexual assault. Now the agency has pushed her out. By Lisa Rein January 11 at 6:00 AM Washington Post (Courtesy of Kellie Greene) Two hundred current and returned Peace Corps volunteers around the world have signed a petition to Congress to reinstate an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual assault who was pushed out four years after lawmakers demanded that the agency show it was serious about volunteers’ security. “Survivors and their allies are asking for the immediate reinstatement of Kellie Greene as Director of Office of Victims Advocacy,” says the petition started on Change.org in December. “Kellie Greene has proven herself to be a fierce advocate for Peace Corps Volunteers who become victims of crimes during their Peace Corps Service,” the petition says. “She holds Peace Corps to a incredibly high but necessary standard. She has ushered in . . .

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Gearan Center for the Performing Arts–Former Peace Corps Director (1995-99) Honored at HWS College

Gearan Center for the Performing Arts The new performing arts building at the heart of the Hobart and William Smith campus – which will unite academic and performance spaces for theatre, music,dance, and media and society – has been officially named the Gearan Center for the Performing Arts in honor of President Mark D. Gearan and Mary Herlihy Gearan. Mark and Mary Herlihy Gearan and their daughter Kathleen listen as Chair of the Board of Trustees Maureen Collins Zupan announces the naming of the building The announcement was made on Friday, Oct. 23 during a commemorative cornerstone installation which brought together students, faculty, staff, alums, the Board of Trustees and the Alumni and Alumnae Councils to celebrate the occasion in advance of the Center’s grand opening in January 2016. The largest project in the history of the Colleges, the fundraising goal of $28 million for the 65,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility was surpassed . . .

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Julie R. Dargis (Morocco 1984-87) Asks: What MORE Can You Do For Your Country?

Wake Up, Peace Corps! Lest you think me crazy, or worse, an irritant, let me assure you that I am not tying to shame. I am advocating for civilized debate. Yet, as Americans we are more interested in one man’s scripted quest for love then we are about our own welfare and that of our neighbors. On Monday, 7.5 million Americans in the 18-49 age group tuned into Season 20 of the Bachelor. Many were disappointed that there was only one brown-eyed crazy, although their interest was piqued with the inclusion of a set of blonde twins. How do I know this?  I also tuned in, spiking the documented viewers with the addition of the 50-78 demographic. Meanwhile, across the pond, the petition to ban Donald Trump from entering the UK was put on the docket in Parliament. The debate is scheduled to appear on www.parliamentlive.tv on January 18, 2016. . . .

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Inspector General Recent Report on the Peace Corps

The Peace Corps’ Office of Inspector General (IGO) today is directed by a woman named Kathy A. Buller. The IG Office does not report to the Peace Corps Director, though they work in the same building and I am told Kathy and Carrie are friendly. You might they are “equal” though, as we know, some are more “equal” than others. Ms. Buller has a reputation, I’m told, of wanting to increase her own status in DC by being a touch SOB. (Not surprising, knowing government career types.) The IG Office has few friends. (Where is the famous Charlie Peters and his gang of Evaluators from the early days of the agency? We need them again. Everyone loved Charlie! ) IG employees get a lot of flak. And there are plenty of stories about them.  When I was in DC several years ago I heard about another IG, another woman, and . . .

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Bob Vila (Panama 1969-70) And His Hemingway Connection

It’s been a year since the U.S. and Cuba began normalizing relations. Tourism, business and cultural exchanges are booming. And there is another curious benefactor of those warmer ties – Ernest Hemingway, or at least, his legacy. The writer lived just outside of Havana for 20 years, and that house, called the Finca Vigia, has long been a national museum. But years of hot, humid Caribbean weather has taken a toll on the author’s thousands of papers and books. A Boston-based foundation is helping restore those weathered treasures, and who better to lead that effort than the original dean of home repairs: Bob Vila, of public televison’s This Old House. He tells NPR’s Carrie Kahn that he has a personal connection to Cuba. “I’m American-born Cuban,” he says. “My Havana-born parents emigrated during the latter part of World War II, and I was born in Miami, raised there and partially in . . .

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Don Schlenger (Ethiopia 1966-68) Speaks His (and Our) Minds

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” was the question asked of Senator Joseph McCarthy by army lawyer Joseph N. Welch during the infamous Army-McCarthy Hearing of 1954. A question most Americans might asked today of that loathsome and insufferable Republican candidate Donald John Trump. It is not a question, however, that will be asked by the news media or 24/7 cable networks. They see Trump’s raging’s as an easy and quick way to increase ratings and revenue. The pundits say Trump speak of the ‘rage’ in blue collar America, but, in truth, Trump represents nothing and nobody.  Like the Wizard of Oz, there’s nothing behind the curtain. Donald Trump is an empty suit.  He will not win a primary or collect more than a handful of delegates in this campaign season of 2016.  He will, however, try and leverage the ‘support’ he allegedly has to ‘make a deal’ with . . .

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RPCVs from Morocco in Opposition to Islamophobia

I received this Petition from Sharon Keld (Morocco 2006-08) and Ann Eisenberg (Morocco 2006-08) who wrote me “Many of my RPCV colleagues were individually speaking out against Islamophobia and in support of Syrian refugees on social media, drawing from their Peace Corps service in Morocco.  A few of us agreed that the RPCV perspective could have a more powerful impact if we spoke out together, so we drafted the open letter and are circulating it in petition form.  We felt we had an important point of view and a unique duty to speak out as members of a very small group of Americans who have lived and engaged in public service in majority-Muslim countries for non-military reasons. Here is the link to the petition that I have copied below:https://www.change.org/p/the-american-public-statement-in-support-of-syrian-refugees-and-in-opposition-to-islamophobia?recruiter=452278202&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink Petitioning The American Public Statement in Support of Syrian Refugees and in Opposition to Islamophobia Concerned Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Secretary . . .

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Martin Puryear (Sierra Leone 1964-66) Reviewed In NYTIMES

In the New York Times, on Friday, December 25, 2015, there was an article about Martin Puryear (Sierra Leone 1964-66) and his current art exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum. It was written by Jason Farago. Puryear’s exhibition entitled, “Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions” continues through January 10, 2016 at the Morgan. The exhibition will then travel to Chicago where it was first organized by the Art Institute of Chicago. Later, it will go to Washington and the Smithsonian. Puryear is from Washington, graduated from Catholic University of America, then joined the Peace Corps. In West Africa he drew proficient sketches of local architecture, palm trees and cactuses, and a few Sierra Leoneans he met while teaching English, French and biology. After his tour, he studied printmaking in Sweden and then attended Yale, where he turned to doing sculptures. Puryear is our most famous of RPCV artist and I did . . .

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Washington Post: After their return, some Peace Corps volunteers find byzantine health system neglects them

After their return, some Peace Corps volunteers find byzantine health system neglects them By Lisa Rein Washington Post, December 23 at 11:08 AM Returned Peace Corps Volunteer William Harless with his students in Thailand. (Courtesy William Harless) The Peace Corps says its top priorities are the health, safety and the security of its volunteers. But a new internal report acknowledges that some Volunteers who come home sick or injured have been waiting years – even decades – for adequate medical care and have fallen deeply through the cracks of a federal insurance bureaucracy. The report, by a task force set up by the agency in March, is a particularly candid assessment by top Peace Corps officials of government failure to provide top-notch health-care access to thousands of young people who serve in far-flung developing countries. “A wide variety” of returned volunteers “shared their experiences not only about the health issues that impact the quality of their lives but the . . .

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RPCV Artists in NYC

I heard recently from Dan Ingala, Public Affairs Specialist at the Peace Corps Northeast Office in New York, about the Peace Corps Art Show that has been organized for the last three years by the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of New York. Dan connected me to Sarah Porter (Macedonia 2005-07) president of the group and vice president Nicole Ethier (Indonesia 2011-13) Sarah wrote me in an email that the show started in Brooklyn at the co-working space called BrooklynWorks 159, saying, “Some of the art is based on or shaped by the Peace Corps experience – there have been several pieces that were made during the volunteer’s experience – but many pieces are independent of that.” BrooklynWork 159 is owned by an RPCV, Vic Puri (Samoa 2002-04), and as Sarah says, “it is not only beautiful and conducive to becoming an art gallery for an evening, having the exhibition at an RPCV-owned . . .

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Meet Senator Harris Wofford at New York Public Library on January 13, 2016

On January 13th at the New York Public Library (5:45 pm) there will be an evening to celebrate Harris Wofford.  Harris helped Sargent Shriver start the Peace Corps and organized the Ethiopia program, serving as Peace Corps Director for Sub-Saharan Africa.  He later become a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and was president of two colleges, an advisor to President Kennedy and to Martin Luther King.  On the evening of January 13th, he’ll be interviewed live by George Stephanopoulos and we will see an exclusive preview from the upcoming documentary on Harris’s life, including his return to Ann Arbor 50 years after John Kennedy’s 2 am speech where he first proposed the Peace Corps. This event is being organized to raise the funding needed to complete the documentary by Harris’s 90th birthday next April.  It normally costs $150 to attend; however, a limited number of $50 tickets are available here: wofforddocny.eventbrite.com RSVP today. Act fast. . . .

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Harris Wofford & George Stephanopoulos: A Conversation

Support the upcoming documentary film on Harris Wofford and join George Stephanopoulos as he interviews Senator Wofford live at the New York Public Library. The evening will feature an exclusive preview of the upcoming documentary on Harris Wofford, including interviews with Senator Ted Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, James Carville, Bill Moyers, and others. George Stephanopoulos will interview Harris about the stories of eight decades, including advancing Civil Rights with Martin Luther King and President Kennedy, helping to start the Peace Corps, fighting for national health care in the U.S. Senate, and growing national service. Wednesday, January 13, 2016 NYPL: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street Sponsored by Corporation for Civic Documentaries As a special web offer, a very limited number of tickets at $50 (normally $150) to enjoy the event and the reception afterwards, hosted by New York Public Library CEO Anthony Marx. Go to:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/george-stephanopoulos-and-harris-wofford-a-conversation-tickets-19997099864

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