Archive - 2016

Alana DeJoseph (Mali 1992–94), director of the film “A Towering Task” was recently interviewed by Ann Paisley Chandler for HuffPost Impact. The interview, entitled “A Towering Task: A Peace Corps Documentary.” The Peace Corps is more relevant today than it ever was, but it’s not the same Peace Corps of the 60s. There is a fascinating story that has never been told. Please consider supporting this campaign today. • Ann Paisley Chandler: What inspired you to start A Towering Task? Alana DeJoseph: One in every 1,450 Americans is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. As Americans we care about how we show up in the world, and I think lately people are frustrated rather than proud about our interactions with the rest of the world. The foreign aid budget is less than 1% of the entire US budget, and of that 1%, the Peace Corps’ budget is about 1%. The Peace Corps has had incredible ripple . . .

  Emphasize the Peace Corps’s Third Goal Most people are aware of the Peace Corps’s first two goals—contribute to the developing of critical countries and regions, and promote international cooperation and goodwill—but few have ever heard of the Third Goal, which many RPCVs view as the most important. The Third Goal states that RPCVs should help to educate Americans about the world beyond its borders, enabling citizens to participate in foreign affairs with greater sophistication and sensitivity. The agency could continue the service of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers by establishing opportunities for RPCVs to tell their stories through public schools and a variety of national organizations, including the Library Association, Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, League of Women Voters, National Council of La Raza, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Organization for Women. While today there is a Third Goal Office in the agency it should be . . .

It isn’t until you lose something that you realize how important it was. For several years now, I have appreciated John Coyne and Marian Beil’s amazing website on so many levels. I have used it for research, to keep up-to-date on everything Peace Corps, for historical information, to fritter away many an hour, and to learn of the next great Peace Corps book. It made me feel good to know this incredible body of work was at my fingertips anytime I needed a dose of Peace Corps in my life. And then the website went down. To be revamped, John assured me. It would be back up soon, he said. Days went by without John’s familiar emails in my inbox, enticing me to spend another few educational minutes on one of the great articles at peacecorpsworldwide.org. When just weeks before I had filed away several of John’s updates, knowing that I would . . .

                                                                                                            In 21st century campaigns we’ve become accustomed to candidates stating their priorities by saying what they’ll do on Day One. On that day, he or she will end Obamacare or defund Planned Parenthood. What John F. Kennedy did, on the first day of the second month of his administration—March 1, 1961—was sign an executive order creating The Peace Corps.  This grass-roots, volunteer approach to the social and economic development of Third World countries, Peace Corps “symbolized what America wanted to be, and what much of the world wanted America to be: superhero, protector of the disenfranchised, defender of the democratic faith,” wrote Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman in her 1998 book, All You Need Is Love. In the U.S., in 1961, a new generation of citizens took it as a challenge and a gift when Kennedy called on Americans to “ask what you can do for your country.” Mostly young volunteers . . .