Archive - May 2021

These three announcemnts describe Peace Corps’ Virtual Service Pilot Program. It is hoped that a more comprehensive description will be published soon. “December 18, 2020 WASHINGTON – Peace Corps Director Jody K. Olsen announced the completion of the first phase of the agency’s new Virtual Service Pilot program, which connected host country communities with returned volunteers who were evacuated due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nine posts participated in the first phase of an 11-week pilot. A total of 45 returned volunteers donated their time voluntarily serving as private citizens to conduct virtual engagements with our host country partners and, were selected based on a match between their skills and host country partner needs. “Feedback from everyone involved has been overwhelmingly positive, and we have learned a great deal about how we can continue to be of service to our host countries from thousands of miles away,” said Director Olsen. “I . . .

    In the early days of the Peace Corps there was a Placement Test given to all applicants. Actually it was two tests. A 30-minute General Aptitude Test and a 30-minute Modern Language Aptitude Test. The areas of testing were in Verbal Aptitude, Agriculture, English, Health Sciences, Mechanical Skills, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, World History, Literature, United States History and Institutions, and Modern Language Aptitude. One-hour achievement tests in French and Spanish were also offered during the second hour. The instruction pamphlet that accompanied the tests said that the results would be used “to help find the most appropriate assignment for each applicant.” For those who missed the opportunity to take the tests, which were given — as best I can remember — from 1961 until around 1967, I am including a few of the questions. Lets see if you could still get into the Peace Corps.1. Verbal Aptitude . . .

    THOSE OF US WHO follow the history of the Peace Corps agency know the term “peace corps” came to public attention during the 1960 presidential election. In one of JFK’s last major speeches before the November election, he called for the creation of a “Peace Corps” to send volunteers to work at the grassroots level in the developing world. However, the question remains: who said (or wrote) “peace corps” for the very first time? Was it Kennedy? Was it his famous speechwriter Ted Sorensen? Or Sarge himself? But — as in most situations — the famous term came about because of some young kid, usually a writer, working quietly away in a back office that dreams up the language. In this case the kid was a graduate student between degrees who was working for the late senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Today, sixty years after the establishment of the . . .

  I Let me start with a quote from Gerard T. Rice’s book, The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps: In 1961 John F. Kennedy took two risky and conflicting initiatives in the Third World. One was to send five hundred additional military advisers into South Vietnam; by 1963 there would be seventeen thousand such advisers. The other was to send five hundred young Americans to teach in the schools and work in the fields of eight developing countries. These were Peace Corps Volunteers. By 1963 there would be seven thousand of them in forty-four countries. Vietnam scarred the American psyche, leaving memories of pain and defeat. But Kennedy’s other initiative inspired and continued to inspire, hope and understanding among Americans and the rest of the world. In that sense, the Peace Corps was his most affirmative and enduring legacy. Historical Framework Gerry Rice, in The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps, . . .

  FRANK, Murray Walter Age 93, died peacefully at his home in Jamaica Plain on January 3. Murray was born February 17, 1927 in the Bronx. He and his brother Arnold were raised by their parents Jacob and Elizabeth (Neitlich) in an orthodox Jewish home. Murray lived a productive life, his endeavors unified by striving for a more just society. He served in the Pacific during World War II. Afterwards he went to New York University on the GI Bill. There he joined the Student Division of the World Federalists, embracing post-war idealism in the spirit of the United Nations. He took a gap year to organize for the group, launching a lifetime of social engagement. He earned a masters degree in social work at Columbia University in 1954. In 1956, he married Ginna (deConingh); they moved to Chicago, where he worked at a settlement house. In 1961, he joined . . .

F. Kingston Berlew Date of Death: February 21, 2021 Date of Birth: April 9, 1930 Biography: F. Kingston Berlew passed away peacefully on February 21st, 2021 in Topsham, Maine. King is survived by his brother David, son Derek and daughter Sarah. He was predeceased by his wife Jeanne of 64 years. King, son of Herman and Lillian Berlew was born in 1930 in Bangor, Maine. He grew up in Orono on the banks of the Penobscot River. He married Jeanne, the love of his life, in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1952. He proposed to Jeanne by sending her a box of stationery with Mr. and Mrs. F. Kingston Berlew printed on it for a Christmas present. King’s Mother was horrified by this and immediately dispatched him to Amherst to propose in person. Upon arrival, he threw snowballs at Jeanne’s window to get her attention and then proposed properly. He attended Wesleyan . . .

  In 2013, Kyle Henning, a recent PCV in Ethiopia, rode his bike from Lake Assal in Djibouti to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds and public awareness for The New Day Children’s Centre in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Called Low2High: Africa, the expedition topped off his Peace Corps tour as an HIV/AIDS PCV in Ethiopia. Kyle is publishing a book about his journey entitled, From Afar, and also has 11 UTube videos of his journey from Dijouti, through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I interviewed Kyle about his Peace Corps tour and his bike trip through East Africa. JC  Kyle, where did you go to college? I am originally from the Buffalo, NY area. Prior to my Peace Corps service, I studied music at SUNY Fredonia with a focus on string bass. After completing my Peace Corps service, I earned a degree in Homeland Security Studies from Tulane University in . . .

Visit the Museum’s website at: https://www.museumofthepeacecorpsexperience.org/cpages/home ALERT! Help us collect Peace Corps posters, particularly posters published by the Peace Corps agency, for a summer 2022 exhibit. If you have Peace Corps posters, please email  contactus@peacecorpsmuseum.org The Peace Corps poster exhibit will be installed at ArtReach Gallery in Portland OR summer 2022. March was a busy and fulfilling month at the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. We hope you were able to join with us in celebrating 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Executive Order creating Peace Corps, March 1, 1961. This newsletter brings you an overview of our March 3 exhibition opening Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Peace Corps Experience and the March 31 webinar Peace Corps 2.0: A Symposium. The exhibition and two events celebrate Peace Corps founding, preserve its history, consider its impact, and encourage discussions about its future. This newsletter offers a story . . .

  David Hibbard (Nigeria 1961-63) died peacefully at home on 7 April, surrounded byhis loving wife, Chris, and their beloved children and grandchildren. David lived gracefully for the last 14 years with Parkinson’s and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He lived a life of service, from being in the very first Peace Corps group in Nigeria, and as a Peace Corps doctor in India (1967-69), to practicing family and hospice medicine.  David was inspired as a young man by JFK and embodied the spirit of ‘’Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’’ He graduated from Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve Medical School and the University of North Carolina where he earned his Public Health degree, and then received a Ford Foundation grant to work at Chogoria Hospital in Kenya. David and his wife Chris were married in 1980 and together founded the . . .

  The Life of an African Peace Corps Child by Chia Tasah (Kom, Cameroon) Pageturner Press and Media 252 pages March 2021  $12.99 Paperback; $2.99  Kindle   My autobiography recounts my life from 1980 as an African Peace Corps child until I became a US citizen in 2012. I lived a full life as a needy child from a poverty-stricken nuclear family of nine and believe I have something fascinating to share with the world. Despite my pennilessness, I made great strides in my endeavors and thrived. I call myself a Peace Corps child of Africa because American Peace Corps Volunteers, with benevolent and philanthropic gestures, encouraged my growth into an authentic adult. Mr. Alan Lakomski (Cameroon 1985-86) whisked me away from my job as bartender and manager of a confidential decadent brothel at Club 185 Njinikom at the age of fourteen, and sent me to secondary school. He returned to . . .