Archive - 2017

As Chief Impact Officer, Juliana Essen strives to heighten NPCA’s capacity as a social impact organization in an integrated and comprehensive way. Her key responsibilities include strengthening strategic thinking and evidence-based decision making; stimulating an environment of learning and improvement; prioritizing communications as a primary vehicle of impact; supporting membership, development, and revenue-generating efforts; building collaborative relationships within and beyond the Peace Corps community; and developing NPCA’s third strategic goal: amplifying the Peace Corps community’s global development impact. Before joining NPCA, Juliana enjoyed a first career in academia. She earned a PhD in cultural anthropology specializing in sustainable development and spent 12 years teaching at a small, private liberal arts college in southern California. In 2015, Juliana left academia for the social impact sector where she could more fully engage her values. She completed a professional degree in social enterprise and launched her new career as Operations Director at Tandana . . .

The Peace Corps Office of the Inspector General reports to Congress twice a year. Here is the link to the latest report from the OIG to Congress.  It is of interest because it describes the trial and outcome regarding the  murder of Kate Puzey.  The section dealing with that report is printed here. The OIG also is charged with various audits.  In this report, there is the evaluation of programs in China and Georgia. Semiannual Report to Congress October 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017 https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.peacecorps.gov/documents/inspector-general/OIG_Semiannual_Report_to_Congress_Oct_2016_-_March_2017.pdf  Here is the section describing the investigation into the murder of Kate Puzey (page 24) “The U.S. Government has been assisting the Government of Benin with the ongoing investigation into Ms. Puzey’s death since 2009. Peace Corps OIG’s initial involvement in the case focused on the circumstances surrounding the related disclosure of confidential information, including the role of agency staff and contractors. Subsequently, OIG . . .

Tonight’s CNN program entitled  “Race for the White House” captures the drama of how a high-stakes presidential election can turn on a single issue. The issue involved Harris Wofford who created our Peace Corps with Sargent Shriver but before that ‘saved’ the presidential campaign of JFK with one phone call. If you saw the Monday night CNN program you saw how Martin Luther King was arrested in October 1960 and Coretta King called Harris Wofford, a friend, and asked for his help.  King had been arrested and sentenced by a Georgia judge to four months of hard labor for driving with an out-of-state license. Coretta was afraid that her husband would be killed and she asked Wofford, then working on the Kennedy campaign for the presidency, for his help. As the CNN program details, and as Wofford described in his book, Of Kennedys and Kings, he called Shriver in Chicago . . .

  JFK: A Vision for America by Stephen Kennedy Smith & Douglas Brinkley was published by HarperCollins this May on the centennial of President Kennedy’s birth. The book has a compendium of JFK’s most important speeches, hundreds of photographs, and commentary and reflections on Kennedy’s administration, policies, and programs by leading American and international authorities. The “authority” selected to write the Peace Corps story is none other than Paul Theroux. What’s amusing to RPCVs is that Theroux was perhaps the first Volunteer to be sent home (ETed) by the agency because of his involvement in Malawi political affairs. This just goes to show that even in the Peace Corps “writers always have the last word.”      

West Virginia Writers’ Workshop Expands Focus; New This Summer: Writing about Health and Healing In addition to its usual focus on fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, this summer’s West Virginia Writers’ Workshop will include talks, readings, and classes on health and healing (sometimes called narrative medicine). The Workshop, in its 21st year, will be held on WVU’s downtown campus from July 20 to July 23. Visiting writers and lecturers will include West Virginia poet and children’s book author Marc Harshman, who will kick off the event with a talk entitled “The Poetry of Healing,” and faculty members from the Narrative Medicine program in Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies. Other faculty members include novelist Courtney Angela Brkic, a professor at George Mason University and the author of The First Rule of Swimming; poet Geffrey Davis, a professor at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and the author of Revising the Storm, winner of . . .

  CLICK for full information about the Commemoration. MAY 27, 2017 @ 2:00 PM EST John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Columbia Point, Boston, MA The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is proud to partner with National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) and Boston Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (BARPCV) to host the Peace Corps community at a centennial commemoration of President Kennedy. Since President Kennedy founded the Peace Corps in 1961, over 225,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in 141 countries around the world. This special centennial event will celebrate the lasting legacy of President Kennedy and the enduring impact that Peace Corps Volunteers and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers continue to have at home and abroad. Details: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm: Museum open to visitors Free admission for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and former Peace Corps staff 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm: Special Program . . .

Thanks to a “heads up” from Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962-64) Colin Powell: American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free By COLIN POWELL May 24, 2017 New York Times Op-Ed At our best, being a great nation has always meant a commitment to building a better, safer world — not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren. This has meant leading the world in advancing the cause of peace, responding when disease and disaster strike, lifting millions out of poverty and inspiring those yearning for freedom. This calling is under threat. The administration’s proposal, announced Tuesday, to slash approximately 30 percent from the State Department and foreign assistance budget signals an American retreat, leaving a vacuum that would make us far less safe and prosperous. While it may sound penny-wise, it is pound-foolish. This proposal would bring resources for our civilian forces to a third of what . . .

Paul Nelson (Malawi 1963-65) remembers that Paul Theroux was always writing while a PCV. As Nelson told me, “Paul on many occasions in Malawi would show up late or disappear or not show up at all because he was writing. I don’t think he let a day go by without writing—writing all sorts of things: poetry, essays, letters to the editor, short stories, novels. His discipline was remarkable. So the Peace Corps did not provide his motivation or discipline.” The Peace Corps did, however, provide him was new experiences that enhanced his writing. In the introduction of Sunrise with Seamonsters published in 1985, Paul writes about Africa and describes the moment when he realized he had a mother lode of material to write about. “I remember a particular day in Mozambique, in a terrible little country town, getting a haircut from a Portuguese barber. He had come to the African . . .

  Congressional Budget Justification: Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs   Portion of report regarding the Peace Corps: 1/ The FY 2017 Estimate reflects funding from the annualized Continuing Resolution. The FY 2018 Budget request for the Peace Corps of $398.2 million of which $5.5 million is for the Office of Inspector General, will allow the Peace Corps to meet its core goals: to help countries meet their development needs by building local capacity, to promote a better understanding of Americans around the world, and to bring the world back home by increasing Americans’ knowledge of other cultures. This request supports a cost-effective investment in strengthening the nation by advancing sustainable development and promoting a positive image of the United States. The Peace Corps also helps develop the next generation of American leaders who return home and leverage their leadership and entrepreneurial skills to shape communities across the United . . .

LEITA KALDI (Senegal 1993–96) worked at the United Nations in New York, UNESCO in Paris, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard University. She then joined Peace Corps and went to Senegal. This year she was awarded the Lillian Carter Award. At the presentation in Atlanta, Leita spoke about her experiences as an older Volunteer in the Peace Corps. •   WHEN I LEARNED that I was to receive the Lillian Carter Award, I was as overcome with emotion as on that day in 1993 when I was told that I’d been accepted into the Peace Corps.  Beside myself with joy! Thank you, President Carter,  for this wondrous award. It’s not surprising that the President would honor his mother so, as he and the Carter Center have been supporting women across the globe for decades, in their struggles not only for equality, but for survival. I also wish . . .

THE MIGRAINE A PUBLICATION FEATURING GENTEEL INTROSPECTION SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER, 1965 Written and published by Peace Corps/Malawi, P.O. Box 700, Blantyre, Malawi. The editors welcome correspondence arising out of articles in The Magraine. Essays, poems, etc., all given serious consideration. EDITORIAL The horrors multiply in Vietnam. The editorial staff of The Migraine openly condemns President Johnson for his recent decision to send 20,000 more troops into that country. This is a time when our vanity must be forgotten in the interests of those awaiting their own murder by United States and Chinese forces. We do not share President Johnson’s views and we earnestly hope that he will summon the courage to begin withdrawing troops. He has recognized that he can blunder–the withdrawal of the troops from the Dominican Republic was a recognition of his fecklessness in the crisis. We do not approve of totalitarianism in any of its forms, masquerading as a democrat or . . .