Warren Wiggins began his ‘New Approach’ with this cardinal point:
“Don’t think about the institution as the Peace Corps, rather think about its intrinsic ideas and then ask what role do these ideas have in the next 40 years and then think how to give them an institutional format.”
Warren then listed his “central, intrinsic ideas of the Peace Corps”
- Volunteers-short term, 2 years for the healthy and well adjusted
- Middle level person power
- Fill needed slots-functions for which host countries don’t have people
- Young, largely single, unattached, not in a career path yet, with a dose of idealism, and footloose.
- Work hard, no vacations, live poor, leave home culture and all family and friends behind for a couple of years.
- Speak the language-behave aboard.
Having expressed who the ‘volunteer’ was, is, and should be, Wiggins outlined next, in a series of 8 points, how they would function in the developing world, entitling it: Peace Corp “Idea” in the Decades Ahead.
End of Part Two
Comments are closed or deactivated
I always liked the idea that the Peace Corps was not the volunteers but that each volunteer was an individual Peace Corps.
In retrospect, and with a few years under my belt, I think Wiggins is profiling me!!
Dennis Grubb
Trust all the Washington area based RPCV’s visit the Peace Corps at the Folk Life Festival on the Mall resuming Thursday the July 7th with the premier of a film entitled “Peace Corps in Colombia “at 6PM in Baird Auditorium , Natural History Museum. Apanal discussion follows with D.C. award winning filmmaker Susan Koch , and local luminaries.
Dennis,
Tell more about the film. Will it be shown anyplace else?
The Friends of Colombia website: http://www.friendsofcolombia.org
has a description of the film that Dennis Grubb cites. It also has beautifully written articles on Peace Corps in Colombia.