Archive - May 2011

If you missed yesterday morning’s live showing of the Hearings, then missed them last night after midnight, you can watch them now at:http://www.c-span.org/Events/House-Foreign-Affairs-Cmte-Hearing-on-the-Peace-Corps-50th-Anniversary/10737421475-1/ Thanks to Stan Meisler for the ‘heads up’ on this link.

May 10, 2011 Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG WASHINGTON – Jess Smochek arrived in Bangladesh in 2004 as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer with dreams of teaching English and “helping the world.” She left six weeks later a rape victim after being brutalized in an alley by a knife-wielding gang. When she returned to the United States, the reception she received from Peace Corps officials was as devastating, she said, as the rape itself. In Bangladesh, she had been given scant medical care; in Washington, a counselor implied that she was to blame for the attack. For years she kept quiet, feeling “ashamed and embarrassed and guilty.” Today, Ms. Smochek is among a growing group of former Peace Corps volunteers who are speaking out about their sexual assaults, prompting scrutiny from Congress and a pledge from the agency for reform. In going public, they . . .

AFTER THE APRIL FIRST-ROUND CONTEST for the Peruvian presidency that involved five top candidates, two remaining candidates are slugging it out before the June 5th run-off. The turnout could prove enormous when voters choose either Ollanta Humala, a former army colonel who lost in the 2006 election, or Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori. Recently in Washington, DC, Peru’s Deputy Consul General Maria Eugenia Chiozza de Zela met with Tino Calabia (Peru 1963–65) and Sarah Stewart (Guatemala 2004–6, Honduras 2006–7, PC Response/Panamá 2009–10) to discuss getting help with the election at polling sites in this country from Spanish-speaking RPCVs. Both Tino and Sarah had joined 13 others recruited by RPCVs Mike Wolfson and Gloria Levin, (President of Amigos de Bolivia y Peru), to assist with the April elections. Chiozza now needs more help, and Sarah and Tino agreed to contact Spanish-speaking RPCVs who once served in Peru . . .

Tom Neilson (Colombia 1970-74 & Senegal 1976-78, plus a gig as Kenya Training Officer 1981-82) is really a singer, and his song “Biomess” about about the proposed biomass plant in Greenfield, Massachusetts is nominated for an Earth Day song of the year award. If you support the environment, (or Tom!) you can vote for the song, but you need to do it by the end of today. (midnight, I think) The more votes the song gets, the more publicity for clean energy, forest protection, clean air, water, sustainability. You vote by selecting the download option under his photo at this site. Thanks. http://earthday.sonicbids.com/BandDetails.aspx?b=28241&bn=Tom+Neilson

You might have missed Stan Meisler’s  comment on the proposal someone named  Charles Kenny  wrote for the Center For Global Development entitled: “The Peace Corps in a Smaller World: A New Model for the Next 50 Years.” Kenny is a fellow at Global Development, or whatever they call   such ‘Think Tanks’. Judging from his CV, he is a Brit so we have to cut him some slack for not knowing what he is talking about. Stan Meisler, however, does know what he is talking about. Stan was a Peace Corps Evaluator in the early days of the agency and recently wrote, When the World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years. Charlie James Kenny as it  appears from his CV, has a blog: http://www.charleskenny.blogs.com but has never volunteered for anything or ever had a real job (you know, as Republicans like to say, “has he met a payroll?”) Charlie recently published his . . .

The hearing on issues of sexual violence in the Peace Corps has been announced for next Wednesday, May 11, at 9:30.  This hearing is open to the public.  If you are in or near D.C., or planning to fly in, First Response Action would love to have your support!   First Response Action Coalition www.firstresponseaction.org http://firstresponseaction.blogspot.com Join First Response Action on Facebook Hearing Information  Wednesday, May 11, 2011  9:30 AM  Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building Witnesses Panel 1: Problems of Safety and Security Ms. Jessica Smochek RPCV Ms. Carol Clark RPCV Karestan Chase Koenen, Ph.D. RPCV Ms. Lois Puzey Parent of Late Peace Corps Volunteer Ms. Jennifer Wilson Marsh Hotline and Affiliate Service Director RAINN Panel 2: Assessment and Reform The Honorable Aaron S. Williams Director Peace Corps Panel 3: A View from the Inspector General Ms. Kathy A. Buller Inspector General Peace Corps

[If you don’t have the time to read Charles Kenny’s full report (not long, 15 pages) here is his conclusion…and what he recommends. While his brief bio doesn’t say, my guess is that Charlie at one point early in his life was awarded a Fulbright and loved his time outside of the U.S. Anyway, here are his Policy Conclusions for the Peace Corps.] Policy Conclusions In a globalized world with a growing number of different opportunities for young Americans to live and volunteer in developing countries, there may be ways to increase the efficacy of the Peace Corps in delivering on the promotion of world peace and friendship. It is perhaps fair to conclude that the most unarguably accomplished of the three goals the Peace Corps strives towards is promoting a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. But perhaps particularly when it comes to maximizing the . . .

Thanks to Kevin Lowther (Sierra Leone 1963-65) who later went onto work in Washington, D.C. and with C. Payne Lucas wrote Keeping Kennedy’s Promise: The Peace Corps, Unmet Hope of the New Frontier, (a book that beat-up, in some ways, the agency) for giving me a heads-up on an essay produced for the Center For Global Development (I know, I never heard of them either) that was penned by Charles Kenny and entitled: “The Peace Corps in a Smaller World: A New Model for the Next 50 Years.” Don’t you just love essays about the Peace Corps written by people who never were PCVs? Anyway…. Charles is a is a senior fellow at the Center. His current work covers the demand side of development, the role of technology in quality of life improvements, and governance and anticorruption in aid. He is also a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine and a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. Charles . . .

Here’s a famous Peace Corps story from the early years that has been told and retold a couple thousand times, and is retold in the late Coates Redmon’s book Come As Your Are: The Peace Corps Story.[Coates was a a writer for the Peace Corps in the early days, later a speech writer for Rosalynn Carter, and later still, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.] It is a story [as all good Washington, D.C. do] that begins in Georgetown. It was a Sunday evening in the fall of 1961 and Dick Nelson, who was Bill Moyers’s assistant, and Blair Butterworth, whose father was ambassador to Canada, and who worked as a file clerk at PC/W, were living together at Two Pomander Walk in Georgetown. That Sunday, Moyers’ wife and kids were in Texas and he came over to see the two guys, who had been roommates at Princeton. . . .