Author - John Coyne

The Fabulous Peace Corps Booklocker by Jack Prebis (Ethiopia 1962–64) For a short period of time in the very first years of the Peace Corps all Volunteers were given booklockers by the agency. The lockers were meant to provide leisure reading for the PCVs and then to be left behind in schools, villages, and towns where they served. There is some mystery as to who first thought of the lockers and one rumor has it that the idea came from Sarge Shriver’s wife, Eunice. It is believed that the books were selected for the first locker by a young Foreign Service officer. A second selection was done in 1964, and that same year Jack Prebis was made responsible for the 3rd edition of the locker that was assembled in the fall and winter of 1965. JC DEVELOPING THE Peace Corps booklocker was the best job I ever had. As sometimes . . .

A Peace Corps Test 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. . . .

KENNEDY SETS UP U.S. PEACE CORPS TO WORK ABROAD Creates Pilot Plan and Asks Congress to Establish a Permanent Operation RECRUITS TO GET NO PAY President Aims to Have 500 on Job by the End of ’61 — Training Will Be Pushed Kennedy Sets Up Peace Corpse Of Volunteers to Work Abroad WASHINGTON, March 1 — President Kennedy issued an executive order today creating a Peace Corps. It will enlist American men and women for voluntary, unpaid service in the developing countries of the world. CONTINUE READING: PDF BYLINE By PETER BRAESTRUP Special to The New York Times.

Happy 62nd Birthday to the Peace Corps! Happy Peace Corps Week! And happy 62nd birthday to Peace Corps today. The agency has organized a number of events in celebration of our community’s birthday this week, such as tonight’s Franklin H. Williams Award Ceremony, which I look forward to attending. Also, I’m thrilled to see several Peace Corps posts across the world have been hosting events — including tomorrow’s Connect with Sri Lanka event. We have already seen many of you online and look forward to more engagement over the coming days. Peace Corps Week kicked off in earnest yesterday with a powerful “Connect with the World” event led by Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn, who presented a compelling vision of Peace Corps’ place in a rapidly changing world. Director Spahn discussed the path ahead, refocusing on Peace Corps’ strengths to “address power inequities, professionalize service, improve sustainability, link youth leaders to opportunities, and enhance locally-led development.” A . . .

As for Marjorie. She returned to Peace Corps HQ from Puerto Rico with Ruth Olson and Tim Adams and went to work with Betty Harris and Sally Bowles to put out the first issue of The Peace Corps Volunteer. It was, of course, an appropriate job, as Coates Redmon states it in her book on the early days of the agency, Come As You Are: The Peace Corps Story, since Marjorie was the first returned Volunteers. In a memorandum to Sargent Shriver–attached to an Evaluation Report on Morocco (1963) done by Ken Love–and written by the legendary early Peace Corps Director of Evaluations, Charlie Peters, Charlie wrote, “Marjorie was as sensitive and as intelligent a Volunteer as we ever had in the Peace Corps.” The lesson that was learned by the Peace Corps was that “even the best young people can be damned silly at times.” At the Peace Corps HQ the feeling was that the agency had weathered this early . . .

45 Specialized Manuscript Publishers that Accept Direct Submissions [There is no particular organization to this list. Not all of the publishers on this list are currently open to submissions. However, there are many listed here who are interested in international topics and experiences such as you have had. There might be a publisher listed who would be interested in your articles or books. JC] SmartPop is “actively looking for smart, quirky, engaging non-fiction titles on television, books, and film.” They are open to anthologies, as well as single author titles. The work could be an official, authorized guide, or an unofficial one. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (JKP) focuses on publishing high quality books for professional and general readers on a variety of subjects. They are best known for their books on the autism spectrum, social work, arts therapies, mental health, counseling, palliative care, practical theology and gender diversity. They also publish graphic novels . . .

Ukraine: One Year On: A Light in the Darkness by Jeff Walsh (South Africa 2016-18) When one of the Ukrainian refugees in the class I was teaching in Poland told me she was studying to become an opera singer, I didn’t know what to expect. She was a thin teenager with a slight build wearing a white pullover, safe from the violence she’d recently fled. She sang for a few moments and I was stunned. Her soprano voice was like a songbird. When I think of a “Soprano”, I tend to think of those rough and tumble, made-for-tv mobsters  from New Jersey, not a beautiful talented songstress who can hit silky, satin high notes of every octave. Kate was my student at UNICEF in Poland, a safe haven for refugees away from war torn Ukraine and great place for kids to learn. I had no idea that I had a songbird in my . . .

As we prepare to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of an  agency that appears to be ‘disappearing’ from the view of most Americans, if not Congress and the White House, we might ask why? How often do we hear, “Is there still a Peace Corps?” from the men and women on the street. It seems that for the public the Peace Corps faded away with the “Kennedy Generation.” But what brought about the Peace Corps in the first place? I thought I might try and chart the impulses that brought about its creation. These ‘impulses’ we might say are close to being lost in the fog of history. There were, however, several generally accepted desires that coalesced in the last days of the Fifties, framed by a number of people in speeches and in prose, and with the election of John F. Kennedy, became a reality as a federal agency. Most . . .