Archive - September 2018

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Joanne Roll (Colombia 1963-65) Foreign aid as a cash-only transaction? It’s worth a try. By Christine Emba Columnist September 26 Washington Post “The United States is the world’s largest giver in the world, by far, of foreign aid,” said President Trump during his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. Unlike some other claims he made during that speech, this happens to be true. In 2018, the United States budgeted nearly $40 billion for foreign aid, for interventions ranging from global health initiatives to disaster relief. But trumpeting — or, in Trump’s case, complaining about — the big numbers leaves an essential question unanswered: Are we giving our money well ? This month, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) released the results of a landmark study on the best strategies for poverty reduction. Past evaluations relied on comparing aid recipients with control groups that received no aid. The ones who were given aid tended to . . .

COMMENTS AT C PAYNE LUCAS’s  “Witness to the Resurrection in Celebration of the Life and Legacy of C Payne Lucas” AFRICARE created an opportunity for the first time for African Americans across the USA to contribute to Africa In a substantive way. C. Payne would not accept a raise. The board had to convince him after many years that he had to accept a raise because his salary was keeping the staff’s salaries too low. Africare was first located in the basement of the Niger Embassy. He then found a building that needed a lot of repairs in an undesirable (at the time) location in DC, With his legendary persuasive and visionary skills, C Payne bought it for a low price with many donations. No one could say “no” to C. Payne. He could persuade anyone to do anything –  anywhere all of the time. He was a combination of a . . .

Born in Castleton, Va., Don Romine was raised at the base of the Blue Ridge. He attended Winchester Business College while working summers as a carpenter’s helper in Culpeper. For two and a half years, beginning in January, 1954, he ran a farm in Castleton. After working as a stock clerk for the Merrill Motor Company in Washington, Va., he joined the government as a clerk for the National Security Council. In March, 1961, he became a statistical clerk for the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. He was enthusiastic enough about the Peace Corps to take a drop of two civil service grades in order to get into the Washington staff, which he did on August 23, 1961. Two months later, he became an administrative aide to Bill Moyers, then Associate Director for Public Affairs. In this role, he was named supervisor of all Peace Corps publications, a job he . . .

RPCV Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) won an Emmy for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Limited Series Or Movie “Best Limited Series for “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” based on her book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History. It was presented on September 17, 21018 at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards. The Emmy Awards honored the best in U.S. prime time television programming from June 1, 2017 until May 31, 2018, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The ceremony was held on September 17, 2018, at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California, and was broadcast by NBC. Congratulations, Maureen!

  Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Joanne Roll (Colombia 1963-65) In 1978, C. Payne Lucas and Kevin Lowther  published Keeping Kennedy’s Promise: The Peace Corps, Unmet Hope of the New Frontier. It was critical of some aspects of Peace Corps. Kevin wrote a follow-up summary of the book in 2002, and repeated the criticisms.  Here are Kevin Lowther’s comments on the book. • Keeping Kennedy’s Promise: The Peace Corps’ Moment of Truth Kevin Lowther (Sierra Leone –65)   The Peace Corps — and the society from which it springs — has not always faced hard truths. This was so when we first published Keeping Kennedy’s Promise in 1978. It is no less true today, in a world — and a country —which needs the Peace Corps even more than it did at its founding in 1961. Many of those who helped to create and build the Peace Corps in the 1960s regarded . . .

  Congratulations to the RPCV advocacy group, “Health Justice for Peace Corps Volunteers” who have worked so hard for years to get improved health care for Volunteers and RPCVs. From their Face Book page, about an hour ago: Success on our to obtain legislation to improve care for Peace Corps Volunteers!!!! The House Bill: HR 2259 – “The Sam Farr and Nick Castle Peace Corps Reform Act” was signed by the Senate today and awaits being signed into law by the President. It is a step forward. Unfortunately, the increase in disability income was dropped as were many other improvements we had written into the bill. Rep. Judge Ted Poe noted in his submitted remarks to the committee, “I fought long and hard to increase the disability payment provided to disabled returned volunteers so they can make ends meet. I hope that this provision will one day become law. Peace . . .

The Peace Corps Office of Inspector General announced that yesterday, September 19, 2018, a former Peace Corps trainee was charged with three counts of video voyeurism stemming from conduct he engaged in while a trainee in Zambia. Matthew Walker, 30, was charged by an information in the Northern District of Florida at the U.S. District Court in Panama City, Florida. As alleged in the information, Walker was a Peace Corps trainee in Zambia in 2016. On three occasions Walker is alleged to have used his GoPro camera to record a fellow trainee, without consent, while the fellow trainee was naked and changing in areas where the fellow trainee had a reasonable expectation of privacy.  The name of the victim is being withheld from the public to protect the victim’s privacy. Inspector General Kathy A. Buller said of the matter, “Our Volunteers are some of the best and brightest that America . . .

Bill Kruse, who flew into Addis Ababa on August 5, 1962, was born in Chicago and raised in Des Plaines, Illinois. He was a student at the University of Illinois in 1944 when he became a flight engineer with the Army Air Corps and was shipped off to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Defense Command, where he became the founder and editor of the Caribbean Defense Command News Digest. After his army discharge, he returned to the University of Illinois and before earning his B.A. in English in 1949, he knocked off one semester to hitch-hike with a friend through the South and back to Chicago working as common laborers on the way. For a few years after his graduation he moved from job to job—to the steel mills of South Chicago, to Marshall Field’s furniture department, to the stockyards, a trucking firm. In June, 1953, he became a copywriter . . .

C Payne Lucas, leader of relief efforts across Africa, dies at 85 Payne Lucas, who died Sept. 15 at 85, led Africare for more than three decades. (Dudley M. Brooks/The Washington Post) By Emily Langer Payne Lucas, who was credited with improving lives across Africa as a founder and longtime president of Africare, a Washington-based relief organization that has constructed roads and wells, established schools and literacy programs, and improved health care in some of the neediest countries in the world, died Sept. 15 at a hospital in Silver Spring, Md. He was 85. The cause was advanced dementia, said his wife, Freddie Hill Lucas. Mr. Lucas, one of 14 children born to a lumber mill worker and his wife, was once described by The Washington Post as an “accidental idealist.” He grew up in poverty, achieved an education through scholarships and rose through the ranks of the fledgling Peace Corps before . . .

From the website at the National Archives: “Act of September 22, 1961 (Peace Corps Act), Public Law 87-293, 75 STAT 612, Which Established a Peace Corps to Help the People of Interested Countries and Areas in Meeting Their Needs for Skilled Manpower, 9/22/1961” Read the Act  here: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/299874 Coincidentally, RPCV Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968-70) host of MSNBC’s Hard Ball, ended his show last night with a tribute to his Peace Corps group, from whose reunion he had just returned. He spoke of  pride in his fellow RPCVs and his affection and appreciation for them and all the people of Swaziland, who had welcomed and helped them.  What a fitting way to commemorate the 57th!

  C. Payne Lucas, early Peace Corps Director in Togo (1963)  and co-founder of Africare, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 15th. His stewardship of Africare for many years build the organization to unparalleled status in the African development community. It all began for C. Payne in the Peace Corps as CD for Togo. In November 1963 Payne arrived in Togo on temporary orders from PC/HQ. He had been there for a few days, living in the Benin Hotel, when the Acting Director, Robert Haves, decided to return to L.A. and rescue his law practice. This left Lucas in command of a complicated program. He quickly showed that he could handle it. Payne had come to the Peace Corps after being a research intern with the Democratic National Committee. He saw the Peace Corps, he said at the time, “as an instrument of foreign aid in areas where AID had . . .