June 2022 – Page 3 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Peace Corps Volunteers Return to the Americas

Jun 03 2022

Peace Corps Volunteers Return to the Americas for First Time since 2020 Evacuation WASHINGTON – Today, the Peace Corps announced that Peace Corps volunteers have arrived in seven countries in North, Central, and South America. These volunteers are the first to return to the region since the agency’s unprecedented global evacuation in March 2020, when global operations were suspended and nearly 7,000 volunteers from more than 60 countries were evacuated. “Our volunteers are ready to work hand in hand with communities across the Americas to meet this moment,” said Peace Corps CEO Carol Spahn. “The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are far-reaching and the work of our partners and volunteers is critical to response and recovery efforts across the globe.” As of May 31, Peace Corps Volunteers are serving in Belize, the Eastern Caribbean, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru, in the Americas region. Volunteers will collaborate with their host . . .

11 new Peace Corps Volunteers take their oath in the Dominican Republic

Jun 03 2022

Santo Domingo .- The Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of the United States in the Dominican Republic, Robert Thomas, swore in 11 new Peace Corps volunteer technicians, the first new group to start their work after the pause caused by the pandemic of the COVID-19. The volunteers will be sent to different communities in Azua, Monte Plata and Peravia, to work on community development and education projects, respectively. Thomas commended the volunteers for their dedication, level of commitment, and willingness to share their knowledge and American culture with the Dominican people. In addition, he recognized the hospitality of the Dominicans who receive the volunteers. “On behalf of the United States, I extend my gratitude and appreciation to the Dominican people who have opened their arms to receive our volunteers and have allowed our collective friendship to grow through exchange, placed in strategic places.” The first PCVs went to . . .

Talking with Tim Suchsland (Kazakhstan)

Jun 02 2022

Where and when did you serve in the Peace Corps, and what was your Peace Corp project assignment? Kazakhstan, 2007-09 — I was a TEFL teacher in a village near the Russian border called Yavlenka. Tell us about where you lived and worked. Yavlenka is in northern Kazakhstan about 50 miles from the Russian border and 1.5 hours from a city called Petropavl. The village was a regional center so it had quite a bit of activity and business for rural Kazakhstan. It was also a big agricultural area so lots of farming in the area. The landscape was fairly flat where the Kazakh steppe met the West Siberian Plains. I lived with host families my entire time in the PC. During training, I lived with a Kazakh family. My first year in Yavlenka I also lived with a Kazakh family of 5. In my last year, I lived with . . .

CHALLENGING PREGNANCY by Genevieve Grabman (Kyrgyz Republic)

Jun 02 2022

In Challenging Pregnancy, Genevieve Grabman recounts being pregnant with identical twins whose circulatory systems were connected in a rare condition called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Doctors couldn’t “unfuse” the fetuses because one twin also had several other confounding problems: selective intrauterine growth restriction, a two-vessel umbilical cord, a marginal cord insertion, and, possibly, a parasitic triplet. Ultimately, national anti-abortion politics — not medicine or her own choices — determined the outcome of Grabman’s pregnancy. At every juncture, anti-abortion politics limited the care available to her, the doctors and hospitals willing to treat her, the tools doctors could use, and the words her doctors could say. Although she asked for aggressive treatment to save at least one baby, hospital ethics boards blocked all able doctors from helping her. Challenging Pregnancy is about Grabman’s harrowing pregnancy and the science and politics of maternal healthcare in the United States, where every person must self-advocate for . . .

Archive - June 2022