Archive - November 2020

  Due to the overwhelming positive response to the nomination of Kathleen Corey as Peace Corps Director, please send any further recommendations to nextpeacecorpsdirector@gmail.com.      

  To express your support write Reema Dodin at rdodin@jbrpt.org who is accepting letters of support for this position.  Also, send this letter to your Senators. I have included Corey’s qualification statement and short resume for your review and use in crafting a letter. KATHLEEN MARIE COREY coreykath@yahoo.com 253-627-5000     PEACE CORPS Country Director, North Macedonia                                                                                     2013-2016 Country Director, Sri Lanka                                                                                                . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Laurette Bennhold (PC Staff 1994-1999)   Senior executive with over 30 years leadership experience with Peace Corps, the Department of State, and international non-governmental organizations. Substantial diplomatic experience promoting U.S. interests abroad. She works exceptionally well in culturally diverse settings. Experienced public speaker and media relations manager. Kathleen Corey has been the president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Seattle and Tacoma. Prior to joining the World Affairs Council, Ms. Corey lived and worked in eighteen countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern and Central Europe, Europe, and Central America. She began her overseas career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, West Africa and spent twenty years managing international and domestic management programs for the Peace Corps and the Center for Applied Linguistics, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit educational institution. From 1994-1998, Ms. Corey was Country Director for the Peace Corps in Sri Lanka . . .

From the NPCA website: “The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing national crisis that requires a creative and focused response by local and national governments as well as by individual Americans. There is an immediate need in communities across the country, particularly among minority and underserved populations to identify and trace the sources of COVID-19 infection. The Peace Corps community can help meet this immediate need. Contact tracing on this scale requires large numbers of trained personnel to be quickly deployed to priority-need communities, in coordination with state and local public health professionals.” NPCA’s first Emergency Response Network project was with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of Seattle and King County, Washington.  Dr. Anthony Fauci commended  these RPCVs as they began training as contract tracers for  COVID-19, in his moving address. The only contact I could find for RPCVs who might  want to apply to be a member of . . .

  NPCA President Glenn Bumhourst announces CONNECT WITH THE FUTURE.  It is NPCA’s  Plan, months in the making, for a Path to the Future for the Peace Corps.  Here is the announcement with links to read the Report. Today we present a community report on how to reimagine, reshape, and retool the Peace Corps for a changed world.  Read the Report Online Amid a time of unprecedented crisis for the Peace Corps and our nation as a whole, the Peace Corps community has come together to chart a way forward: with specific, actionable steps that will help reimagine and retool the Peace Corps for a changed world. Those steps are outlined in “Peace Corps Connect to the Future,” a report months in the making and made public today. The report itself was prepared by a special National Peace Corps Association advisory council drawn from the broad Peace Corps community inside and . . .

Here is our new list — as of March 2021 — 329 RPCV & staff authors who have published two or more books (of any type). If you know of someone who has and their name is not on this list, then please email me at: jcoyneone@gmail.com. I know I don’t have all the writers who have been Volunteers or Staff in the Peace Corps over these last 59 years. Thank you. Jerome R. Adams (Colombia 1963–65) Tom Adams (Togo 1974-76) Thomas “Taj” Ainlay, Jr. (Malaysia 1973–75) Elizabeth (Letts) Alalou (Morocco 1983–86) Jane Albritton (India 1967-69) Robert Albritton (Ethiopia 1962-65) Usha Alexander (Vanuatu 1996–97) James G. Alinder (Somalia 1964-66) Richard Alleman (Morocco 1968-70) Hayward Allen (Ethiopia 1962-64) Diane Demuth Allensworth (Panama 1964–66) Paul E. Allaire (Ethiopia 1964–66) D. Allman (Nepal 1966-68) Nancy Amidei (Nigeria 1964–65) Gary Amo (Malawi 1962–64) David C. Anderson (Costa Rica 1964-66) Lauri Anderson (Nigeria 1963-65) Peggy . . .

  Botswana is one of Africa’s great showplaces. It has the continent’s largest concentration of wildlife and the largest elephant population. It also has a network of strikingly beautiful waterways and scenic landscapes. The country has benefited from sustained political stability and an economic policy that has balanced growth and development with environmental sensitivity. Author and explorer Steve Kaffen takes readers to two Botswana highlights, Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, with revealing photographs of animal and birdlife in natural surroundings, pristine waterways, varied landscapes, and local lifestyles. Steve writes in his introductory note: “Africa is exhilarating. I feel a rush of energy upon arrival. I soon encounter the first African smile–huge, warm, and genuine–welcoming me back. I love the feeling of freedom, the open spaces, the unfiltered conversations and hospitality, and the naturally beautiful places. The entire experience is enveloping.” Amazon.com will be offering the book free Friday . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Nancy Tongue (Chile 1980-82)   by Jane Turner November 9, 2020 Sara Thompson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but she moved with her parents to Omaha, Nebraska, when she was nine months old. She also lived around Memphis, Tennessee, for an extended period but considered herself a Midwesterner and a “nomad,” traveling and living in many different places. Her mother was a computer programmer, and her father was an insurance claims examiner. Both parents were “super smart, and good role models.” They were Catholic and had principles and values that Thompson was exposed to and impacted by. Her father was a fan of Sir Thomas More (venerated as Saint Thomas More), and he loved More’s sense of integrity. Growing up with her parents, Thompson said there was always a strong “sense of right and wrong.” “My parents are really to blame for my adventures, for . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Arias (Colombias 1964-66)   The PCVs returned to Colombia in September 2010, after a 29-year hiatus. Then Vice-President Biden attended and celebrated the reentry in Bogota. Jason Cochran (PTO-DPT)–on the far left–took 3 PCVs to meet the Vice President at a Meet and Greet with Embassy Personal. At the time Colombia reopened with 9 PCVs. Cochran was a PCV in Panama (1997-2000) and later on the staff in Panama, Paraguay, and Colombia. Since 2010, Peace Corps Colombia has supported approximately 90 communities along the Caribbean coast through the work of 250 traditional and Response Volunteers.

Thanks for the “heads up” from Jack Allison (Malawi 1966-69) By James M. Dorsey and Alessandro Arduino The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer   Ethiopia, an African darling of the international community, is sliding towards civil war as the coronavirus pandemic hardens ethnic fault lines. The consequences of prolonged hostilities could echo across East Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Fighting between the government of Nobel Peace Prize winning Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigrayan nationalists in the north could extend an evolving arc of crisis that stretches from the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict in the Caucasus, civil wars in Syria and Libya, and mounting tension in the Eastern Mediterranean into the strategic Horn of Africa. It would also cast a long shadow over hopes that a two-year old peace agreement with neighbouring Eritrea that earned Mr. Ahmed the Nobel prize would allow Ethiopia to tackle its economic problems and ethnic divisions. . . .