May 15, 2023 – Peace Corps Worldwide

The Volunteer Who Created Compelling Novels out of Her Family’s Oral History — Mildred Taylor (Ethiopia)

May 15 2023

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Mildred Taylor served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, 1965-67, after having graduated from University of Toledo in 1965. She was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1943, and is the great-granddaughter of a former slave who was the son of an African-Indian woman and a white landowner. After returning to the U. S. following her Peace Corps experience, she earned a MA degree in journalism at the University of Colorado where she was instrumental in creating the Black Studies Program as a member of the Black Alliance. Mildred’s works are based on oral history, told to her by her father, uncles and aunt. She said that without her family, and especially without her father, her books “would not have been.” She’s stated that these anecdotes became very clear in her mind, and in fact, once she realized that adults talked about the . . .

Israel Collier advocates for Roma minorities in Moldova

May 15 2023

POSTED BY TIM WOMBLES Israel Collier (Moldova 2014-16) never saw herself on the other side of the world in Moldova, advocating for the ethnic Roma population and speaking Romanian, Moldova’s official language, but she always envisioned a life of service. Growing up across from Beaumont High School in north St. Louis, Collier inherited a sense of empathy for others from her dad, who was a mentor to many fatherless children in the neighborhood. “We shared our father with them,” Collier says. “That was foundational for me.” It was in that spirit of service that Collier enrolled at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, earning her BS in biology with a minor in chemistry. While at UMSL, Collier worked as a mentor for multicultural students, volunteered at clothing drives and tutored in French and biology. “I had every intention to become a physician,” Collier says. But while she was in medical school . . .

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