The Peace Corps

Agency history, current news and stories of the people who are/were both on staff and Volunteers.

1
Murray Frank Died on January 3rd at age 93 (Nigeria staff)
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Pakistan’s First Peace Corps Director, King Berlew
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Talking to Kyle Henning (Ethiopia)
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The Latest News from the Musesum of the Peace Corps Experience
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RPCV David Hibbard (Nigeria) has died
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THE LIFE OF AN AFRICAN PEACE CORPS CHILD by Chia Tasah (Cameroon)
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Jane Campbell (Ethiopia APCD) Remembers Her Trip Up The Omo River
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Dear President Biden: Double the Peace Corps! — from former Peace Corps Directors
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An important opportunity in a “Pioneer” Peace Corps country
10
YouTube Video on Peace Corps Failure to Protect PCV Women
11
Reinvent the Peace Corps — Climate Change Volunteers
12
The NPCA Publishes Article on the USA Report on Sexual Assault
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Here is the USA Today Report on Sexual Assault in the Peace Corps
14
Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn Statement on USA Today Article
15
“Hurricane Greta” by Alan Jackson (Belize)

Murray Frank Died on January 3rd at age 93 (Nigeria staff)

  FRANK, Murray Walter Age 93, died peacefully at his home in Jamaica Plain on January 3. Murray was born February 17, 1927 in the Bronx. He and his brother Arnold were raised by their parents Jacob and Elizabeth (Neitlich) in an orthodox Jewish home. Murray lived a productive life, his endeavors unified by striving for a more just society. He served in the Pacific during World War II. Afterwards he went to New York University on the GI Bill. There he joined the Student Division of the World Federalists, embracing post-war idealism in the spirit of the United Nations. He took a gap year to organize for the group, launching a lifetime of social engagement. He earned a masters degree in social work at Columbia University in 1954. In 1956, he married Ginna (deConingh); they moved to Chicago, where he worked at a settlement house. In 1961, he joined . . .

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Pakistan’s First Peace Corps Director, King Berlew

F. Kingston Berlew Date of Death: February 21, 2021 Date of Birth: April 9, 1930 Biography: F. Kingston Berlew passed away peacefully on February 21st, 2021 in Topsham, Maine. King is survived by his brother David, son Derek and daughter Sarah. He was predeceased by his wife Jeanne of 64 years. King, son of Herman and Lillian Berlew was born in 1930 in Bangor, Maine. He grew up in Orono on the banks of the Penobscot River. He married Jeanne, the love of his life, in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1952. He proposed to Jeanne by sending her a box of stationery with Mr. and Mrs. F. Kingston Berlew printed on it for a Christmas present. King’s Mother was horrified by this and immediately dispatched him to Amherst to propose in person. Upon arrival, he threw snowballs at Jeanne’s window to get her attention and then proposed properly. He attended Wesleyan . . .

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Talking to Kyle Henning (Ethiopia)

  In 2013, Kyle Henning, a recent PCV in Ethiopia, rode his bike from Lake Assal in Djibouti to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds and public awareness for The New Day Children’s Centre in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Called Low2High: Africa, the expedition topped off his Peace Corps tour as an HIV/AIDS PCV in Ethiopia. Kyle is publishing a book about his journey entitled, From Afar, and also has 11 UTube videos of his journey from Dijouti, through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I interviewed Kyle about his Peace Corps tour and his bike trip through East Africa. JC  Kyle, where did you go to college? I am originally from the Buffalo, NY area. Prior to my Peace Corps service, I studied music at SUNY Fredonia with a focus on string bass. After completing my Peace Corps service, I earned a degree in Homeland Security Studies from Tulane University in . . .

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The Latest News from the Musesum of the Peace Corps Experience

Visit the Museum’s website at: https://www.museumofthepeacecorpsexperience.org/cpages/home ALERT! Help us collect Peace Corps posters, particularly posters published by the Peace Corps agency, for a summer 2022 exhibit. If you have Peace Corps posters, please email  contactus@peacecorpsmuseum.org The Peace Corps poster exhibit will be installed at ArtReach Gallery in Portland OR summer 2022. March was a busy and fulfilling month at the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. We hope you were able to join with us in celebrating 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Executive Order creating Peace Corps, March 1, 1961. This newsletter brings you an overview of our March 3 exhibition opening Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Peace Corps Experience and the March 31 webinar Peace Corps 2.0: A Symposium. The exhibition and two events celebrate Peace Corps founding, preserve its history, consider its impact, and encourage discussions about its future. This newsletter offers a story . . .

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RPCV David Hibbard (Nigeria) has died

  David Hibbard (Nigeria 1961-63) died peacefully at home on 7 April, surrounded byhis loving wife, Chris, and their beloved children and grandchildren. David lived gracefully for the last 14 years with Parkinson’s and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He lived a life of service, from being in the very first Peace Corps group in Nigeria, and as a Peace Corps doctor in India (1967-69), to practicing family and hospice medicine.  David was inspired as a young man by JFK and embodied the spirit of ‘’Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’’ He graduated from Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve Medical School and the University of North Carolina where he earned his Public Health degree, and then received a Ford Foundation grant to work at Chogoria Hospital in Kenya. David and his wife Chris were married in 1980 and together founded the . . .

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THE LIFE OF AN AFRICAN PEACE CORPS CHILD by Chia Tasah (Cameroon)

  The Life of an African Peace Corps Child by Chia Tasah (Kom, Cameroon) Pageturner Press and Media 252 pages March 2021  $12.99 Paperback; $2.99  Kindle   My autobiography recounts my life from 1980 as an African Peace Corps child until I became a US citizen in 2012. I lived a full life as a needy child from a poverty-stricken nuclear family of nine and believe I have something fascinating to share with the world. Despite my pennilessness, I made great strides in my endeavors and thrived. I call myself a Peace Corps child of Africa because American Peace Corps Volunteers, with benevolent and philanthropic gestures, encouraged my growth into an authentic adult. Mr. Alan Lakomski (Cameroon 1985-86) whisked me away from my job as bartender and manager of a confidential decadent brothel at Club 185 Njinikom at the age of fourteen, and sent me to secondary school. He returned to . . .

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Jane Campbell (Ethiopia APCD) Remembers Her Trip Up The Omo River

In 1966 a UN advisor, Marmalade Brown, was named to Ethiopia to help establish game reserves and, in general, take on environmental issues for the Emperor. In early 1967, as I was planning my final days in Ethiopia, this UN gentleman asked me if I would like to go on a trip to Lake Rudolf and from Lake Rudolf up the Omo River to one of the new game reserves. It sounded like a great adventure and I signed on. The story was that there was a fishing boat in a western small port of the lake which had been owned by the Duke of Gloucester (I think) who was giving it to the emperor for use in one of his game reserves. We flew to Nairobi and then took a small chartered flight to the western shores of Lake Rudolf. When we arrived we joined the other gentleman slated . . .

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Dear President Biden: Double the Peace Corps! — from former Peace Corps Directors

Thanks for the heads up from Steven Saum (Ukraine 1994-96)  at the NPCA —  All eleven living former Peace Corps agency directors have signed on to a letter to President Biden with a ringing message: “Now is the right time for the Peace Corps to build back better than it ever was before.” Read the entire letter to POTUS from the former directors below. • April 26, 2021 President Joseph R. Biden The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Biden, We write to you today as a bipartisan, unified group of former directors of the Peace Corps to express our full support for a revitalized Peace Corps, one that advances our nation’s critical foreign policy goal of world peace through international cooperation and service. We believe that now is the right time for the Peace Corps to build back better than it ever was before. We therefore . . .

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An important opportunity in a “Pioneer” Peace Corps country

by Steve Kaffen (Russia 1994–96) The United States has, to-date, missed a unique opportunity to provide critically urgent medical assistance to the world’s most populous democracy, and solidify our relationship with an important regional ally · India. Imagine a “Berlin airlift” by the U.S. and E.U. of vaccines, oxygen, beds, makeshift shelters and treatment centers (such as DOD provided to Ebola-stricken West Africa). This mobilization should have been initiated a week ago, and it is still possible. The outreach ideally should be regional and include its neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are in similar dire circumstances. India was an important Peace Corps “pioneer” country from 1961 to 1975, and its present demographics of a young population (median age under 30) and largely rural subsistence make it ideal for Peace Corps’ future return with programs geared to health, agriculture, the environment, and specialized education. The agency might be able to obtain . . .

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YouTube Video on Peace Corps Failure to Protect PCV Women

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Joanne Roll (Colombia 1963-65)   This video is brief but comprehensive.   The “professional” speaker is Meagan Kallman, who wrote the book on the Death of Idealism: Development and Anti-Politics in the Peace Corps. She wants to change Peace Corps into a cultural exchange program. She “offered the services of her university” to “help” Peace Corps transition.  She is now  Rhode Island State Senator.

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Reinvent the Peace Corps — Climate Change Volunteers

    Those of us who were around when the agency was created know why and how it was. Peace Corps was a hope and a vision for the developing world. We could help poorer nations of the world. And we did. The Peace Corps changed the lives of many host country nationals and it also changed our lives. Today, 60 years after the first PCVs went overseas, we have another world with new needs. One of those needs is the climate all of us are living with. It is a problem we have wherever we live in the world. President Biden has recently spoken about what must be done here at home. What he hasn’t done is link today’s Peace Corps Volunteers with the needs for  Climate Change in the developing world. This is the role, many of us think, that should be a new role for Volunteers in . . .

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The NPCA Publishes Article on the USA Report on Sexual Assault

An in-depth work of investigative journalism has shone light on a horrific problem. There are steps we can take now.” A statement from the Chair of the Board of Directors of National Peace Corps Association. By Maricarmen Smith-Martinez Today USA Today published an in-depth investigative piece chronicling the experiences of multiple women who have been victims of sexual assault while serving as Peace Corps Volunteers. Their stories are devastating. And the statistics cited in the article about the prevalence of sexual assault are profoundly disturbing. We owe it to these women to read their stories — and to truly hear what they are saying. Those of us who have been victims of sexual assault know firsthand that it takes immense courage to come forward, especially given how the initial reports of these women were handled. And let us be unequivocal: There must be zero tolerance when it comes to sexual . . .

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Here is the USA Today Report on Sexual Assault in the Peace Corps

  by Hannah Gaber, USA Today Three women tell their stories of sexual assault while volunteering in the Peace Corps, and how the agency’s bungled response compounded their trauma.   Emma Tremblay, then a 25-year-old Peace Corps volunteer from Seattle, was 4,000 miles from home on an exam table in Ecuador. A physician selected by the Peace Corps loomed over her and firmly placed his hand on her shoulder to keep her still. “Do you feel good?” he asked, then leaned in, pressing his erection against her arm. Tremblay feared he might go further. Half undressed, in pain and unsure whether she could fight him off, she stared him down. I’m fine, she said. When he backed away, Tremblay gathered her things and rushed onto Quito’s crowded streets. Then, another violation of her trust: The Peace Corps had been warned the doctor was a threat. Ashley Lipasek, a fellow volunteer, told . . .

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Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn Statement on USA Today Article

April 22, 2021 “USA Today recently published an article on sexual assault experienced by volunteers during their service. To those volunteers who have told their stories about sexual assault in the Peace Corps: I am so very sorry for the trauma you have experienced. You have each shown tremendous courage, and I am grateful that you have come forward. “These are devastating stories, and the agency is working to get to the root of the very serious issues that were raised. “As we approach the return to service of volunteers, we are intensifying and cementing our commitment to mitigating risk, wherever possible, and providing victim-centered and trauma-informed support to sexual assault survivors. We must always be an agency that empowers survivors and tears down barriers to reporting, services and care. “As the new Acting Director of the agency and a returned volunteer myself, I am personally committed to ensuring the following . . .

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“Hurricane Greta” by Alan Jackson (Belize)

    I was a Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to the Fisheries Unit Laboratory in Belize City from August 1976 to October 1978. Initially I stayed in a small boarding house on Prince Street during a four-week Peace Corps orientation. After that I was expected to find my own housing. My monthly stipend was BZ$300 (US$150) a month, which would have to cover all my living expenses. Most Peace Corps Volunteers in Belize City doubled or tripled up and shared flats wherever they could find reasonable rent. I had heard good things about a family that had just hosted two Volunteers during our orientation. One of those Volunteers decided to continue boarding with that family while the other was moving to his jobsite in San Antonio, Toledo District. I asked the family if I could board with them, and they welcomed me into their home. They were a young and . . .

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