The Peace Corps

    Colombo, March 06, 2024 – In a ceremony held in Colombo on March 6, Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn, U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung, First Lady Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe, and Minister of Education Dr. Susil Premajayantha officiated the swearing-in of 20 Peace Corps Volunteers from the United States. This marks the 25th group of Peace Corps Volunteers to serve in Sri Lanka since 1998. The cohort of skilled, diverse Trainees arrived in November 2023 to begin 12 weeks of training. Following three months of intensive training in language, culture, and effective engagement within Sri Lankan schools, these Volunteers will now embark on a two-year service journey as English teachers in the Central and Uva provinces. They will work alongside their Sri Lankan counterparts, including English teachers and principals, to deliver English language instruction to Sri Lankan school children. Addressing the swearing-in ceremony, U.S. Ambassador Julie Chung . . .

In the news By Rachel Lewis Hilburn WHQR, Wilmington, NC February 26, 2024 . . . they worked in Ukraine, Namibia, Armenia, and Tonga   Since 1961, the Peace Corps, envisioned and created by President John F. Kennedy, has sent volunteers around the globe to help developing countries.  The obvious aim is to meet the goals identified by the host country – not the Americans.  But just as important are the relationships that develop from this work, promoting world peace and friendship. “How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana?… on your willingness to contribute part of your life, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete.” Those are the words of then-Senator John F. Kennedy, delivered in a 2 AM impromptu speech at the University of Michigan. It was October 14, 1960, during his presidential campaign, when . . .

  by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65)   Charles C. Adams, jr. was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the son of a career diplomat in the U. S. Department of State. He was raised in the countries of his father’s assignments, including Canada, France, Germany, Ghana, Morocco and Senegal, including Washington, D. C. Charles attended Dartmouth College, receiving a BA degree in 1968. From 1969 to 1970, he was a Peace Corps Volunteer, serving in Kenya, where he taught French, German and Swahili. Following his service, he attended law school at the University of Virginia, and received  his J. D. degree in 1973.  Thus was he was prepared to undertake a professional life focused on international Humanitarian activities and foreign service. He became a partner in an international law firm based in the U. S. and he lead the firm’s international arbitration practice, with a focus on high-value disputes, and serves . . .

    A screening of the documentary, “A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps,” will be presented at 5 p.m. Feb. 29 in the Nebraska Union’s Swanson Auditorium at the University of Nebraska. In the film, host country nationals, Peace Corps Volunteers and staff, and scholars and journalists take a closer look at peace building, economic development, and political independence through the Peace Corps’ more than six decades of trials and transformations. “A Towering Task” asks what role should the Peace Corps play in the 21st century? Sponsored by the Global Experiences Office, School of Global Integrative Studies, and Forsythe Family Program on Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, the screening is free and open to the public. Popcorn and soda will be served. Learn more on the events calendar and RSVP by Feb. 28. This event takes place during Peace Corps Week (Feb. 25 to March 2), which commemorates March 1, 1961, . . .

On February 20, 2024 journalist and political commentator, Nicholas Donabet, published in the New York Times a column where he called on young people to Study Spanish in Bolivia. Or teach English in South Korea. Or volunteer in Nepal. Never once did he mention THE PEACE CORPS! What does he think we have been doing since 1961? Well, today Jane Albritton (India 1967-69) in an “Op-Ed” letter,  answers the New York Times commentator with Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone With Travel Feb. 25, 2024, 11:00 a.m. ET To the Editor: Re “The Isolationism Antidote,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Feb. 11): I was surprised that in his column addressing the need for Americans to spend time abroad Mr. Kristof failed to mention the fact that the Peace Corps has been doing exactly that since 1961. In 2011, the Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary, and for the occasion three other . . .

  Tree Bernstein served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia (2015-17). She taught writing and literature at the Brooks Photography Institute for over a decade. Before serving in the Peace Corps she was the area coordinator for California Poets in the Schools and poetry coach for Poetry Out Loud. Bernstein holds a MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University. Her book of short stories, The Last Tourist in Bali, was published by Baksun Books in 2020. Her memoir Mistranslations is about her journey as a 65-year-old Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English and Art in a rural Cambodian village for two years. Her work has also been anthologized in Thus Spake the Corpse—An Exquisite Corpse Reader, Black Sparrow Press; Low Down & Coming On! Poems About Pigs, Red Dragonfly Press; If Bees Are Few—a Hive of Bee Poems, University of Minnesota Press; Askew Poetry Journal, and other journals and . . .

  Eyes to See Africa: From the Verandahs of Sierra Leone by Judith Kinney Thiele (Sierra Leone 1985-87) Self Published February 2024 471 pages $4.99 (Kindle); $23.00 (Paperback)   Kinney’s dark room echoes a monk’s spare cell. Mosquito net. Metal cot. Two suitcases. A two-year vow of near-poverty. Outside on the road, chickens chase giant bugs. Goats weave through the foot-traffic as people balance baskets, bundles, and buckets on their heads. It will get better. She’ll figure it out. Taking a break from her Silicon Valley desk job gives service to a needy world and brings her middle-aged self back to basics. A new community center seeks her health and rural development skills, introducing her to the people of the chiefdom. She meets kindness and acceptance amid the complicated “how-do” of days lived without electricity or clean water. Unfamiliar noises, food, and taboos shape her new life. From landing to . . .

Before He Was George Orwell, He Was Eric Blair, Police Officer   Paul Theroux’s (Malawi 1963-65) new novel, “Burma Sahib,” explores the writer’s formative experiences in colonial Myanmar. Reviewer William Boys writes in Sunday’s New York Times, “The late Martin Amis once declared that “novelists tend to go off at 70. … The talent dies before the body.” Theroux is now in his early 80s and this novel is one of his finest, in a long and redoubtable oeuvre. The talent is in remarkable shape.”

Nicholas Donabet Kristof is an American journalist and political commentator. A winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he is a regular CNN contributor and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. Born in Chicago, Kristof was raised in Yamhill, Oregon, the son of two professors at nearby Portland State University. He published a Commentary this weekend in The New York Times entitled “The Isolationism Antidote” calling on young people to “Study Spanish in Bolivia. Or teach English in South Korea. Or volunteer in Nepal.” Never Once Does He Mention The Peace Corps! Where have you been Nicholas? What do you think we have been doing since 1961? We’re older than you! Read It And Weep The Isolationism Antidote By Nicholas Kristof Opinion Columnist Feb. 10, 2024 Why has the isolationist wing of Congress been blocking aid to Ukraine and become, in effect, a tool for President Vladimir Putin of Russia? Republican politics explain . . .