Miscellany

My friend Jocelyn Zuckerman (Kenya 1991-93 ) who happens to be in Haiti right now writing about their situation (on a grant from the Carter Center) sent me this ‘heads up’ in the NYTIMES. You can read it at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/when-microcredit-wont-do/ Entitled, “When Microcredit Won’t Do” is written by Tina Rosenberg. Here are a few excerpts that show how the “peace corps connection’ pays off. Greg Van Kirk was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nebaj, Guatemala, a town of about 10,000 people in a mountainous Mayan region. He was an unusual Peace Corps volunteer, having already had one career as an investment banker.  He had worked in structured finance for UBS, helping companies do complex deals to buy, sell or lease airplanes and power plants…. Van Kirk worked with a local mason named Augustín Corrio to build a better stove.  Corrio took a standard stove design and rejiggered it in various ways.  The best . . .

Chuck Ludlam (Nepal 1968-70 & Senegal 2005-07) sent me this email from Patagonia. He is traveling there with his wife, Paula Hirshoff ( Senegal 2005-07), and he asked me to post his comment as his internet connections are chancy. He did write as the end of his blast at me, “Please post this as a response to your post.”  So here’s what Chucky had to say about me from sunny Patagonia! It’s too bad that John Coyne didn’t bother to read our 150 page report on Peace Corps reform — posted since July 2009 on PeaceCorps Wiki. It would help the readers to see it posted on Coyne’s website. John would find there that we oppose the 5-year rule, which has given political appointees entirely too much power at the agency and destroyed its capacity for institutional memory. He’s also find that the Peace Corps transferred the investigative authority away from the Office of . . .

Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff talk with Brian Ross about the Peace Corps.

Next month Stan Meisler’s book on the Peace Corps When The World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years will be published by Beacon Press, here, Stan emailed me his ‘take’ on the issue of assaults in the Peace Corps based on his research and long experience with the agency. We should all listen to what Stan has to say.] While writing my book on the history of the Peace Corps, I tried to deal with the sensational series of articles in the Dayton Daily News in 2003 that painted lurid pictures of mayhem in the Peace Corps. The ABC News 20/20 segment on rape raised many of the same issues and sent me back to the Peace Corps’ statistical studies of the problem. There is no doubt that ABC News and congressional investigators are exaggerating and distorting the issue. First of all, let’s . . .

“Peace Corps takes the issue of sexual assault very seriously. There are procedures in place at each post to respond quickly and compassionately to our volunteers. Teams of specialists from the medical, mental health, security and legal fields are available immediately to assist the volunteer in the recovery process. There is no tolerance for a culture that blames victims. The women interviewed by ABC’s 20/20 are courageous and strong, and their stories of sexual assault over the past decade are heartbreaking. “ABC’s 20/20 program does not accurately reflect the support we currently provide to Peace Corps volunteers. The health and safety of our volunteers is the single most important priority for our agency. We have made significant improvements over the past two years in providing support to sexual assault victims, and we look forward to working with Congress to further strengthen the Peace Corps and advance our mission of world . . .

[In case you might have missed last night’s ABC News, Congress is investigating charges that as many as 1,000 former Peace Corps volunteer women were raped during their service abroad.  Many of those volunteers are charging that Peace Corps officials asked them to remain quiet and cover up:  http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/peace-corps-congress-investigate-peace-corps-treatment-sex/story?id=12777476.]   In the wake of an ABC News “20/20” investigation, a Congressional committee announced plans for hearings on the Peace Corps’ handling of more than a thousand cases of female volunteers who were raped or sexually assaulted over the last decade. “This is very upsetting. If these numbers are accurate this is something that Congress definitely should investigate,” Rep. Rohrabacher, R-California, Chairman of the House subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, told ABC News. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, called for the hearing Wednesday, telling ABC News he was “furious and sad” after watching the “20/20” report. In the report, six former Peace Corps . . .

Congressman Garamendi Joins 13 Colleagues Introducing Resolution Honoring Life and Legacy of Sargent Shriver WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman John Garamendi (D-Walnut Creek, CA), who served as a Peace Corps volunteer with his wife Patti Garamendi in Ethiopia, introduced a resolution honoring the life and legacy of Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps. House Resolution 64 is supported by 13 original co-sponsors: Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Howard Berman (D-CA), Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA), Natural Resources Ranking Member Edward Markey (D-MA), Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI), Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA), Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU), Congressman James Langevin (D-RI), Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN), Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA), Congressman David Price (D-NC), Congressman Jose Serrano (D-NY), and Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA). “Sargent Shriver was a true American hero, a selfless humanitarian, and a . . .

This is the follow-up to my blog post “The Peace Corps & ABC 20/20” published on January 19th. It is my second — and last — blog on what happened in Africa to Kate Puzey. • What Appears to Have Happened in Benin in 2009 SHORTLY BEFORE BENIN PCV KATE PUZEY  was scheduled to complete her service and leave the country in 2009, she emailed staff members at the Peace Corps/Benin office to inform them that a teacher at her school — a person who was also a part-time local-hire employee of the Peace Corps doing in-country training — was molesting young female students at her school. This individual was identified recently by ABC’s 20/20 in a  segment “Scandal Inside the Peace Corps: Investigation into whether the Peace Corps puts women into dangerous situations” as Constant Bio, a citizen of Benin. Kate urged the PC staff to not rehire Constant Bio to train . . .

Dorothy Hamilton, founder and CEO of the International Culinary Center (which includes the French Culinary Institute and the Italian Culinary Academy), will this coming April introduce a new course: the Estate Management Studies program. Its purpose is to ‘train a new caliber of household staff.’ As Dorothy recently told the Wall Street Journal, “I have a couple of homes and a few people who worked for me. It always fell to the wife to run the home. I thought there are a lot of women in my position, who were looking for a chief of staff.” To ‘run’ this course, Dorothy has found perhaps the perfect person. Christopher Ely! Who you ask is Christopher Ely? Well, he has to be English, and indeed he is. Ely started his career when he was 18 as a footman at Buckingham Palace, working for Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the good (and . . .

[Dennis Grubb (Colombia 1961-63) send me these notes from the Wake and Mass] Friday: At Holy Trinity Church , Georgetown ( JFK’s neighborhood church) along with several hundred “Shriver friends, exPCV’s, Special Olympics staff , exOEO staff “” 5 children, 19 grandchildren, the ex Governor of California . Along with many RPCV’s ( Jerry Critchley, Georgina McGuire, Maureen Carroll) and I attended the wake and eulogies for Sarge. Barney Hopewell and Dan Wemoff of my Group were  cited in the early condolence line and before the official program began at 6:45 C-Span was there and if you are interested in the eulogies delivered by Bill Moyers, Chris Dodd, Maureen Orth ( Colombia XIII), Steny Hoyer ( D-MD) ,C.Payne Lucas (PC Director-Africa),and Washington Post columnist Coleman McCarthy check the C-Span achieves.  Saturday: At the unique mass for Sarge at Our Lady of Mercy in Potomac , Maryland about 10 miles from . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5SMfHhRROg&NR=1   http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/01/22/funeral.mark.shriver.pool   (The CNN videos are  great eulogies at the Funeral, especially Clinton’s)

Don Beil (Somalia 1964–66) shares thoughts on the wake held for Sargent Shriver in Washington, DC this past Friday. • Robert Sargent Shriver Wake Open to the public Friday, January 21 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Holy Trinity Catholic Church Washington, D.C. THE CHURCH DOORS DID NOT OPEN UNTIL 4:00 p.m., so having arrived 20 long minutes early I stood outside with a small group of mourners in the bitter cold. A handful of photographers and videographers waited across the street. For unknown reasons, other than to have something to keep them moving in the cold — even if it was only a finger — they took pictures of the short line. Perhaps it was my uneasiness at being this close to something religious that signaled something of interest to them. Accompanied by police sirens, a hearse arrived followed by a large white limousine-labeled bus. Shrivers, apparently — for most are . . .

A spokesperson for the Shriver Family suggested that the best place to send a note or card to the family would be: Shriver Family Special Olympics 1133 19th Street Washington, D.C. 20036 [If you could, please forward this address onto RPCV friends. Not everyone checks this website (well, it is an imperfect world).] Thank you.

Speaking at the wake this afternoon/evening will be Bill Moyers, first Deputy Director of the Peace Corps;  Maureen Orth (Colombia PCV); C. P.  Lucas (CD Niger, and African Regional Director 1962-67); Colman McCarthy, and others. WAKE OPEN TO PUBLIC Friday, January 21 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Holy Trinity Catholic Church

Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post columnist, directs the Center for Teaching Peace and teaches courses on nonviolence at four Washington area universities and two high schools. He is a long time friend of the Peace Corps, and, of course, Sargent Shriver. • Sargent Shriver: A life of grace by Colman McCarthy Wednesday, January 19, 2011 IT TOOK ONLY A WALK with Sargent Shriver to learn how deeply loved and loving he was. Former Peace Corps volunteers, from the early days of the program that he began in 1961, or ones just back from stints in Third World outposts, would stop Sarge to thank him, embrace him and tell him stories about their life-changing service. Countless others approached him on airport concourses, city sidewalks and elsewhere: people whose lives were changed because of the anti-poverty programs that Shriver started in the Johnson administration – Legal Services, Head Start, Job Corps, . . .