Advisory council created by Kate Puzey Law issues first annual report

But you won’t read it on the Peace Corps’s official main website.   The RPCV women of First Response Action are the courageous ones who worked so hard to make the law that protects Peace Corps Volunteers a reality.  The report is posted prominently on their website: http://firstresponseaction.blogspot.com

Finding the report on the official Peace Corps website is instead  a “scavenger hunt”. Go to peace corps.gov and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you will find a wealth of links to important agency documents, including the Peace Corps Manual and Evaluation reports from the Inspector General’s office. But you won’t find a report entitled “Peace Corps Volunteer Sexual Assault Advisory Council Annual Report”. You have to know to scroll down, on that main website, to the heading labeled “Media”, click on ” News Releases”. The disclaimer on this webs page is that only press releases for the last 90 days are posted, but right now the list is almost a year old. If the page were to be updated, the link to this report would disappear. But if you hurry, you can  scroll down to look in the press releases for December 4, 2012, titled: “Statement from Acting Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet on the Sexual Assault Advisory Council’Annual Report.” Clinking on that press release will bring you to the statement that does include, finally, a link to the actual report.

You can also use this directly: http://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/media/press/2150/

This link was provided by Emily Dulcan, Director, Press Relations Peace Corps. I appreciated her prompt response when I asked for help in finding the report. When I asked why the report was so difficult to find and added that prospective Volunteers should be able to easily access the report, Ms. Dulcan replied:

“The home page of the website caters to a wide audience, and there is not enough room on the home page to feature all the information that is relevant to prospective volunteers. A variety of information on Volunteer safety and security is featured prominently in the Friends & Family section of the website.”

I think that the “wide audience” may have also been the audience that viewed the ABC 20/20 report on violence in the Peace Corps and may not know what has happened to deal with the problems described in that report. I think Peace Corps should be proud of how the RPCV women of First Response Action were able to influence  legislation that dealt with those problems. I think the report should be highlighted on the Home page of the Peace Corps.