Archive - 2020

  John Lewis, the iconic civil rights activist, passed away at the age of 80. He had already lost his wife, RPCV Lillian Miles Lewis, in 2012 after she suffered a long illness. Lillian Miles Lewis was 73. She died at Emory University Hospital, on the 45th anniversary of when she and John Lewis met, PCV Lillian Miles Lewis taught in Nigeria in 1960 and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria for two additional years before meeting John Lewis in 1967. They were married in 1968. She had a bachelor’s in social studies and an English minor from California State College at Los Angeles. She had a master’s in library sciences from the University of Southern California. From 1989 to 2003, she was the director of external affairs for the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Clark Atlanta University. John Lewis and Lillian Miles Lewis had one son: John . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66)   Wednesday, July 15, 2020 by Tom Rogan Wednesday, July 15, 2020 Some Democrats are adopting a harsher tone and more aggressive policy approach toward China. But based on their new State Department funding bill, House Democrats don’t appear to support this effort. Consider the bill’s requirement that “none of the funds made available by this Act or prior Acts under this heading may be used to permanently close the United States-China Friendship Volunteer Program.” This refers to the Peace Corps’s China mission, which “from its main office at the Sichuan University, Peace Corps works closely with provincial departments of education and the counterpart universities to assign and support qualified and well-trained volunteers.” Sounds good, right? I mean, whatever U.S.-China political tensions, this is simply a U.S. volunteer effort to help improve impoverished lives. The Trump administration cut funding to that program in January, . . .

PEACE CORPS Washington 25, D. C. Descriptions of the first 9 projects, including purpose, training, Volunteer skills needed, technical qualifications of Volunteers, and information about the training officials.   Released November 1, 1961   T    A    B    L    E        0    F        C O N T E N T S   COUNTRY                                                                                 PAGE N0. Chile •    •    •     •   •    •     •     •     •   •     •     •     •             21 Colombia •    •     •     •    •     •    •     •     •     •     •     •          4 Ghana  •    •   •    •    •    •     •    •     •    •     •     •     •           18 India  •     •    •   •   •    •   •    •    •    •    •    •    •                   15 Nigeria •     •     •    •    •     •     •     •    •     •     •    •             27 Pakistan (East and West)  •     . . .

The Couscous Chronicles — A Peace Corps Memoir Richard  Wallace (Morocco 1977–79) Self-published July 2020 260 pages $14.95 (paperback), $0 (Kindle)   Make movies in the Peace Corps? Richard Wallace (Morocco 1977-79) did just that. Fresh out of college and packing his film production degree, he wanted to travel. In 1977, he joined the annual deployment of trainees to Morocco’s capital city of Rabat, learning French, some Arabic and the nuances of Islamic culture. Richard’s job post: a media team for the Ministry of Agriculture, producing training films and printed materials for farmers. Sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with a new job to tackle, he was challenged to assimilate into the Moroccan way of life. Associations with his female roommate and co-worker, plus a steady parade of visitors, proved both entertaining and educational. Richard’s memoir, The Couscous Chronicles,  relates the adventures a bunch of ambitious, curious and mostly dedicated twenty-somethings . . .

  In the 1960s, twenty-thousand young Americans landed in South America to serve as Peace Corps volunteers. The program was hailed by President John F. Kennedy and by volunteers themselves as an exceptional initiative to end global poverty. In practice, it was another front for fighting the Cold War and promoting American interests in the Global South. This book examines how this ideological project played out on the ground as volunteers encountered a range of local actors and agencies engaged in anti-poverty efforts of their own. As they negotiated the complexities of community intervention, these volunteers faced conflicts and frustrations, struggled to adapt, and gradually transformed the Peace Corps of the 1960s into a truly global, decentralized institution. Drawing on letters, diaries, reports, and newsletters created by volunteers themselves, Fernando Purcell shows how their experiences offer an invaluable perspective on local manifestations of the global Cold War. Fernando Purcell is . . .

  by Bill Bowden Arkansas Democrat Gazette • Touring the backcountry of Turkey, a Peace Corps group came upon a man with a dancing bear. “This is our newest Volunteer,” Ross Pritchard told Sargent Shriver. Then Pritchard made up a name for the bear. “Daddy had a wicked sense of humor,” said Irene Pritchard. Ross Joseph Pritchard, 95, of Fayetteville died Wednesday after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The bear incident took place in 1964, when Pritchard was the Peace Corps’ representative in Turkey and Shriver was the organization’s first director. Pritchard was born Sept. 3, 1924, in Paterson, N.J. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Navy to fight in World War II. While Pritchard was playing football during officer candidate school, Coach George Cole told him that he should enroll in the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville after his discharge and play for the Razorbacks. So he did. In . . .