Miscellany

Charlene Duline (Peru 1962-64) had just moved to Paris in 1969 and Christmas was approaching when she read in the newspapers about a Christmas Eve Mass that the new Ambassador was having in the ancient Sainte Chappelle Church. Well, why don’t I let Charlene tell her story of meeting up with Sarge once again, this time in Paris. The Ambassador Will Vouch For Me It was 1969 and Christmas was approaching. I was settling into life in Paris, France after moving there two months previously. I saw an article in the newspaper about a Christmas Eve Mass Sargent Shriver, U.S. Ambassador to France, was having in the tiny, ancient Sainte Chappelle church and inviting diplomats, friends and family. It was going to be an intimate and elegant affair, and I decided that I would like to attend. A friend who was a volunteer in Morocco was coming to spend Christmas . . .

Jon Ebeling (Ethiopia 1962-64) spent five years with the Peace Corps as a PCV and APCD in Ethiopia. Upon returning he entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International where he earned his Ph.D. in Economic and Social Development. As he graduated from the University, he came down with a severe case of juvenile diabetes and could not return to Africa. He taught statistics and public finance in the Department of Political Science at CSU, Chico for 32 years while directing over 200 master’s degree thesis until his retirement. He has done extensive consulting with governments and private industry in the area. He specializes in revenue forecasting, evaluation research, and public opinion research. He has taught off and on in the Economics Department as needed since the early 1970’s. Jon and his wife, Frederica Shockley, Chair of the Economics Department now have a . . .

Watching the event this afternoon, Monday, July 15, 2013, where the President and  former president George Bush, honored an Iowa couple as part of Point of Light Awards, I was struck again how the Peace Corps has been cast aside by the current cast of characters in Washington. Obama wouldn’t even meet with RPCVs during the 50th celebration, and here we have been ‘volunteering’ for 50 years, way before 1989 when George H.W. Bush talked about “points of light” in his inaugural address. Bush said he wanted citizens who make a difference through their volunteer work. Hello! What about us? RPCVs, some 220,000, have been volunteering since 1961, and continue to ‘do good’  in the world, as well as at home, fulfilling the Third Goal of the Peace Corps Act. One reason Marian and I wanted to focus part of  www.peacecorpsworldwide.org website on Third Goal Projects is because RPCV projects . . .

Third Goal Projects Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962-64) and John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) in the late 1970s published a newsletter RPCV Writers & Readers that developed by early 2000s into the website:www.peacecorpsworldwide.org. Today, this is an online community and resource for RPCVs, Peace Corps Volunteers, their friends and families, and all who share a desire for international understanding. Peace Corps Worldwide is not officially connected with the Peace Corps or the National Peace Corps Association. As the publisher and editor of this site, we are continually impressed by the Third Goal activities of RPCVs back in their host countries, the projects that RPCVs have developed in-country over the last fifty-plus years, from school and community libraries to health initiatives, to peace keeping efforts, to scholarships for students, and many other such efforts on behalf of their former hosts and the lifelong friends that they have made. We would like to . . .

This is from Ronald A. Schwarz (Colombia 1961-63). After the Peace Corps he became an anthropologist and spent 12 years in research and training undergraduates in Colombia and Africa. He  taught at Williams College and the Johns Hopkins University and later established a development consulting firm in Africa where he lived for 20 years. He has been writing a book about Colombia One PCVs since their Termination Conference. If you have ever met a Colombia One RPCV, the first thing they will say is their name, and then they’ll  say: “We were the first PCVs. I think that they must have been inoculated with this phrase by their Peace Corps Doctors.) This is Ron’s great piece about Shriver’s first visit to a Training Site in the summer of ’61. Sarge’s First Words “Looking more like the freshman football team than America’s latest weapon in the cold war, the first contingent . . .

[About 10 years ago I put up a series of stories about Sarge Shriver  and I thought I might ‘reintroduce’ them as so many PCVs have come-and-gone through the agency since then and they might not know about the man. I remember in the mid-90s when running the New York Recruitment Office an RPCV recruiter came up to me and asked, “Now was Shriver the first Peace Corps Director?” I didn’t know whether I should hit him over the head or fire him! If there is one legend that we want to maintain, it’s Sarge’s…..so send me your experiences with the Man and I’ll post them on our site. We begin with a story sent to me by Thaine H. Allison, Jr., a PCV in Borneo (1962-64) assigned as an agricultural extension agent in the village of Bandau, a place that is now called Kota Marudu, in Sabah Malaysia. Since . . .

Jack Prebis (Ethiopia 1962-64) who was later an APCD in Ethiopia (1965-67) sent me this photo from his days working in ACTION. This ‘sit in’ happened in 1975, I believe. RPCVs  were protesting Nixon/Ford Administration cutting the Peace Corps budget. Some Volunteers occupied Peace Corps offices when the agency was located in its original site, the Maiatico Building at 806 Connecticut  Ave. They hung banners out the windows. The office then closed and the staff went home. No one called the police. The head of ACTION at the time was Mike Balzano. Balzano was an avid Nixon supporter. Walking down the halls one time, he was heard to say “I can just smell the hate the RPCVs have for me in the air.” Balzano made a concerted effort  (complete with mandatory seminars and questionnaires) to ID and get rid of the Kennedyites and fill the Peace Corps with folks of his own political ilk. He personally . . .

Phil Lilienthal has won the NPCA 2013 Sargent Shriver Award to be presented this coming weekend in Boston. The award is well deserved. I first met Phil and his lovely wife Lynn in Ethiopia in 1965 when they were new PCVs. Lynn was doing social work in Addis Ababa, and  Phil was a lawyer working for one of the ministers. As a secondary project, Phil and Lynn started a summer camp at Lake Langano in the Rift Valley. This was the only lake, as I recall, that was free of schistosomiasis. The camp, I know, was the first of its kind, though other Volunteers had done other types of summer camps. Our own Marian Haley Beil was one of three women who had a summer camp in Debre Berhan back in 1963. Phil and Lynn had their first child in Addis Ababa. Their son would grow up to become a PCV . . .

Carrie Hessler-Radelet has served as deputy director of the Peace Corps since June 23, 2010. She was a PCV in Western Samoa 1981-83 and has had more than two decades of experience in public health focused on HIV/AIDS and maternal and child health. When she came into the Peace Corps as the deputy, she was determined to do something about the poor health support that RPCVs receive after their come home from their tours. Now, she has just announced a new program to help PCVs and RPCVs. Carrie emailed me today from Africa where she is visiting PCVs, “John, we are trying to reach out to currently serving  Volunteers and RPCVs who have concerns about their health care.  We have created two separate email hotlines. — one for currently serving Volunteers who have concerns about their health care or would like a second opinion; and a second for RPCVs who . . .

Dennis Grubb (Colombia 1961-63) forwarded the story in today’s Washington Post of the ceremony yesterday by the Irish Embassy where the eternal flame from JFK gravesite will go to Ireland for the 50 anniversary of Kennedy’s visit. Kennedy in the summer before his death visited Ireland and  vowed to return–but that never was.  The event was organized by the Embassy of Ireland with a reception afterwards at the residence. Tim Shriver, Head of the Special Olympics, spoke at the Ireland Embassy, spoke about service  and the fact that because of JFK, “as we are gather here today at the Embassy of Ireland to celebrate  thousands of Peace Corps Volunteers are working around the world.” Tim Shriver related a personal story, saying that once at  a Sunday dinner he asked his Uncle Ted why he thought JFK sparked “hope” in people he met. Ted responded with a story of a party in Palm . . .

Last week shortly before Deputy Director of the agency, Carrie Hessler-Radelet  (Western Samoa 1981-83 ), rushed out her office door for a trip to Morocco, she was kind enough to pause and respond to a few questions I had about what is happening with the Peace Corps, given the recent news that the agency and Kraft Foods had reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a ‘collaborative relationship.’ This MoU promoted (of course) comments from RPCVs, such as, “The Peace Corps Eats Junk Food.” RPCVs also wanted to know about the agency’s new training ‘model’ (yet again, the Peace Corps has a new training model) as well as this special project on malaria control that we reported on several weeks ago? Here’s what Carrie had to say. Carrie, describe this new Training Model: “Focus In/Train Up.” Clever phrase but give us an example of what makes it different and better. . . .

 [Acting Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet mentioned in her interview we posted earlier this week the types of partnership tha represents the future of Peace Corp. One of the best examples, she said, is the Peace Corps malaria program. She went onto say, “We have a malaria boot camp that’s been funded through a partnership with the President’s Malaria Initiative and various other NGOs like Malaria No More. The bootcamp brings staff and volunteers from all over Africa to participate in an intensive training. We use Skype to beam in some of the world’s leading experts in malaria from the [Center for Disease Control], the World Health Organization and PMI. It prepares our volunteers to deliver interventions in malaria in their communities that are proven through evidence to achieve greatest development impact.”  Running this program is Chris Hedrick (Senegal 1988-90) who is now the country director for Peace Corps Senegal and the . . .

The Peace Corps is now ‘in bed’ with Mondelez International (aka Kraft Foods). This American multinational confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate, you know, junk food like Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Trident, Chiclets, (oh, dear, all my favorites) that has 100,000 employees around the world. In a short piece yesterday on this blog, Acting Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet said, “this type of partnership represents the future of the Peace Corps: working in partnership with other organizations.”  Her remarks caused something of a minor reaction from RPCVs readers of our site and Carrie has been kind enough to respond to a few of my questions which I will post in the coming weeks. Meanwhile….. Doing a tiny bit of research I found that the Mondelēz name came from a Kraft Foods employees at the time, Monde being French for world and delez an alternative to delicious. However, Kraft Foods forgot to ask any of those ‘old fashioned’ Russian RPCVs’ . . .

Carrie Changes the Business Model of the Peace Corps By Andrea Useem on 17 May 2013 inShare3 Carrie Hessler-Radelet, meeting here with a Peace Corps volunteer and community members in West Africa, said a partnership with food-and-beverage giant Mondelez International will help modernize the volunteer experience. Photo: Peace Corps. Earlier this spring, the Peace Corps announced its second corporate partnership, with Mondelez International, a food-and-beverage company previously part of Kraft Foods, to train young entrepreneurs in the Domincan Republic’s cocoa supply chain.   According to acting Peace Corps Director Carrier Hessler-Radelet, this type of partnership represents the future of Peace Corps: working in partnership with other organizations. Peace Corps already works with Coca-Cola, through the Water and Development Alliance, a partnership involving the U.S. Agency for International Development that aims to improve water and sanitation conditions for local communities in the developing world. Hessler-Radelet, along with Corey Griffin, associate director . . .

In 1961 and 1962, during the first years of  the Peace Corps, a young kid named Rowland Scherman took the first photos of PCVs. Many of you have seen these photos over the years, and seeing the images, you thought: hell, I can do this! So you joined the Peace Corps. Now Rowland Scherman is himself subject of a film entitled, EYE ON THE SIXTIES: The Iconic Photography of Rowland Scherman. The man who was behind the camera that focused on Scherman and his life is the film’s creative director, Chris Szwedo. Chris has now done a 12 minute film on how the Rowland Scherman film came to be. This short video is available now. Take an early look. Soon, the full version of the film will be on PBS and other stations nationwide. On August 25, it will be screened at the documentary theater of The NEWSEUM in Washington, D.C. (Check it out if you are in DC this summer.) Take . . .