The delegation was received and welcomed by their Deputy Chief of Mission in the country, Ambassador Reimer disclosed that the volunteers will focus on improving education and health systems in the country as they will be working directly with the people of Sierra Leone to achieve the broader goal of a sustainable health and educational transformation.
Read MorePaul Newman (Nigeria 1961-63) is the world’s foremost authority on the Hausa language. He is also an attorney with special interest in the intersection of language and law. He was a member of the first Peace Corps group to go to Nigeria back in 1961. He has held academic positions at Yale, Bayero University Kano, University of Leiden, and Indiana University. He has published over 20 books and was the founding editor of the Journal of African Languages. Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Newman received his B.A. (Philosophy) and M.A. (Anthropology) from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. (Linguistics) from UCLA (1967). Newman also has a law degree (J.D., summa cum laude, 2003) from Indiana University. He is a member of the Indiana Bar. He has held academic and administrative positions at Yale University, Abdullahi Bayero College (now Bayero University Kano), Nigeria; University of Leiden, The Netherlands, and . . .
Read MoreGreat perspective on a country the US public press and government consistently provide confusing and distorted comments to the public…
June 5, 2023 Steve Gottlieb (Iran 1965-67) • My wife and I met years ago when we both served in the United States Peace Corps in Iran. There have been no American Peace Corps Volunteers in Iran since 1976. Peace Corps Volunteers got to know a wide segment of the Iranian population, as we do everywhere, realized trouble was brewing and Peace Corps officials pulled them out. Here in Albany we’ve been part of a group of former Peace Corps Volunteers who’ve served in all parts of the world. We meet monthly, share a pot luck dinner, provide a forum for newly returned Volunteers, and listen intently to news about goings on in the many countries where we used to serve and the many organizations who work with people there and with immigrants from those countries here. A few years ago my wife was asked to become president of . . .
Read MoreSo glad to read this. Hope all your efforts work out. I was a PCV Thai 1 and changed my…
By Adrienne Frank June 23, 2023 • Darlene Grant became a Peace Corps volunteer at 49; 11 years later, she joined the agency’s top ranks. In seventh grade, with a bully on her heels, Darlene Grant slipped through a door at her Cleveland junior high school and found herself in the music room, staring at a line of students. Wanting to avoid a beating, she got in line, “like I was supposed to be there,” she said, and the music teacher handed her the last instrument in the closet: a bassoon. “That moment when you realize you’re where the universe needs you to be? That was one of them,” said Darlene Grant, PhD (SAS ’84). Today, Grant is senior advisor to Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn, with a mission to cultivate diversity in the worldwide agency and help remove barriers for underrepresented volunteers and staff and create a more just and equitable . . .
Read MoreI thought it was kind of mind-blowing to see how varied the experiences were for the 19 volunteers--yet how similar…
Through Grateful Eyes: The Peace Corps Experiences of Dartmouth’s Class of 1967 by Charles A. (Chuck) Hobbie (Korea 1968-71) — Compiler/Editor iUniverse Publisher 273 pages July 2022 $2.99 (Kindle); $39.99 (Paperback); $31.95 (Hardback) Reviewed by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (Peru 1964-1966) • “Talk less and listen more.” “Accept the values of the population you’re working with.” “Adapt to being comfortable being uncomfortable.” These are a few of the sage learnings found in this 2 ½ pound, 8 1/2” x 11” tome that relates the Peace Corps experiences of 19 members of the Dartmouth class of 1967 and several of their spouses. All served in the Peace Corps in the late sixties and early seventies, and their exploits are a sampling of the 30 Dartmouth ’67 graduates who went on to join the Peace Corps. Their fascinating, and often humorous, stories are punctuated with 146 photos that show the youthful volunteers . . .
Read MoreAmbassador Johnnie Carson was appointed as the Special Presidential Representative for U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Implementation in December 2022. Formerly, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs from May 2009 to March 2013. Prior to this he was the national intelligence officer for Africa at the National Intelligence Council, after serving as the senior vice president of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. (2003-2006). Ambassador Carson’s 37-year foreign service career includes ambassadorships to Kenya (1999-2003), Zimbabwe (1995-1997), and Uganda (1991-1994); and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs (1997-1999). Earlier in his career he had assignments in Portugal (1982-1986), Botswana (1986-1990), Mozambique (1975-1978), and Nigeria (1969-1971). He has also served as desk officer in the Africa section at State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1971-1974); Staff Officer for the Secretary of State (1978-1979), and Staff Director for the Africa Subcommittee . . .
Read MoreI would like to knio more of your work. Don
Shereen D’Souza’s (Honduras 2001-04) path to becoming an environmental leader began when she joined the Peace Corps straight out of college and was assigned to help hillside subsistence farmers in Honduras. D’Souza ’12 MESc went on to tackle urban food justice in Oakland, California, and agricultural issues in her ancestral home in India. Her interest in international work led her to YSE, where she was impressed by Michael Dove, Margaret K. Musser Professor of Social Ecology, whose work focuses on environmental relations of local communities in South and Southeast Asia. After graduating from YSE, D’Souza served in the U.S. Department of State as an adaptation and loss and damage negotiator, where she was engaged in the process that ultimately resulted in the Paris Agreement and its adoption. D’Souza is now deputy secretary for climate policy and intergovernmental relations with the California EPA. She is working with the team at . . .
Read MoreThe Magic Hour unfolds in the era when State Street was filling up with specialty stores selling soap, shoes, bikes, clothes, gifts, pets, records, dishes, books, tobacco, hats, ice cream and toys, run by a new kind of trailblazing entrepreneur. It tells a story of personal success, failure, and retrenchment. A national shopping spree explodes on the scene, ignited by globalization and a furious growth of monopolies that would radically change the nature of retail, the economy and the class system. This book blends U.S. history with the city of Madison and State Street’s history and the author’s personal life. The reader gets a lively course in economics and business ownership through the main character’s experience. About the author: A native of Chippewa Falls, Janice Durand served in the Peace Corps for two years in the sixties, moving to Madison with her husband and two children in 1969. In 1974 . . .
Read MoreSoftball, Snakes, Sausage Flies and Rice: Peace Corps Experience in 1960s Sierra Leone by Philip Fretz (Sierra Leone 1962-64) Self Published January 2014 148 pages $0 (Kindle); $5.99 (Paperback) Just a few months out of student life on the rolling green lawns of Haverford College, Philip Fretz was living in a small, remote West African city amid insect invasions, deadly snakes and coups. It was the tumultuous 1960s, in both the United States and Africa, and he had become an early recruit to the Peace Corps, founded in 1961. He was the first volunteer to be sent to teach English at the Kenema Technical Institute in Sierra Leone, a former British colony that had been left in stark poverty and underdevelopment when colonialism ended. Half a century later, he began to pore through the diaries he had kept, sporadically, during those two years in Kenema. When his father died in . . .
Read MoreI didn’t know this either even though I live here, Thanks for the article,
IU Bloomington was the training site for Thailand V. Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Gurevich (Thailand 1963-65) Since 2003, Indiana University Bloomington has produced the 12th largest number of Peace Corps volunteers among the agency’s list of historically top volunteer-producing colleges and universities. IU ranks sixth in the Big Ten in terms of alumni who are volunteering around the world through the Peace Corps. • Twenty-five applicants from IU Bloomington are serving or will serve abroad in 2023. Since the agency’s founding in 1961, more than 1,762 IU alumni have served abroad as Peace Corps volunteers. “Demand for Peace Corps volunteers is high given setbacks in development progress following the COVID-19 pandemic,” Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn said. “Peace Corps service is the beginning of a lifetime of global connection and purpose for those bold enough to accept the invitation.” While IU Bloomington has had a tradition of . . .
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After Peace Corps service in Ethiopia, I eventually landed in Oregon. I've visited Portland frequently in the ensuing fifty years…
May 25, 2023 Written by Britany Robinson It often seems the longer a person has lived in Portland, the more cynical they become about the city’s evolving character and challenges. Kimberly Branam (Burkina Faso 2002-05) is a third-generation Portlander — she grew up in Northeast Portland’s Irvington neighborhood, left for 10 years and has been back for 16 — but she leans against that curve, with grounded optimism about her hometown. As the executive director of Prosper Portland, it’s part of Branam’s job to be optimistic. Prosper Portland, formerly the Portland Development Commission, is the city’s economic and urban development agency. With a “focus on building an equitable economy by carrying out a comprehensive range of economic development programs,” Prosper Portland’s success in large part depends on growth: Its stated priorities include growing family-wage jobs, creating vibrant neighborhoods and communities, and advancing opportunities for prosperity. With growth comes growing pains. Portland . . .
Read MoreBorn in 1942 to Ignatius Bernard Wand and Alice Ruth Suhr Wand, Patricia (Pat) was the third child of eight siblings. Raised on a farm in the hills of the Columbia River Gorge between Troutdale and Corbett, OR, she attended Corbett Grade School and was a member of the first graduating class and student body president of Marycrest High School in Portland, OR. In childhood, Pat was a ten year 4H club member in clothing, sewing, and style revue. Her first project was sewing a pair of pajamas at age nine. As a teenager she won a trip to the National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago. Upon high school graduation, she accepted an Honors Scholarship to Seattle University, and after obtaining her Bachelor’s degree, immediately joined the second cohort of Peace Corp volunteers sent to Colombia, South America. While there, among many other accomplishments, she and other volunteers were . . .
Read MoreAmbassador Randy Berry Remarks Peace Corps Response Swearing-In Ceremony Good morning! It is a great pleasure and honor to welcome you to this special ceremony commemorating the arrival of three dedicated Peace Corps Response Volunteers — the first of many as Peace Corps prepares to bring in additional groups of Volunteers to serve throughout Namibia. Peace Corps makes a significant contribution to building international understanding, peace, and friendship by its unique people-to-people connections. To our soon-to-be Response Volunteers, Alan Marks, Lauren Pinkerton, and Robert Kankelborg, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Namibia. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to Volunteering with the Peace Corps. In April, U.S. President Joseph Biden celebrated national Volunteer week, reflecting on the self-less spirit of Volunteers, he said, ”Volunteering brings people together, uniting us around our common belief in the dignity and equality of every person and giving us . . .
Read More"There is always room in this world for people pursuing their highest aims and aspirations." Vieve certainly has dedicated herself…
My Career Choice An Interview In Woman Around Town Vieve Radha Price is living proof that our past experiences inform our futures. Before she launched TÉA Artistry, she worked with Nitestar, a theatre company specializing in HIV prevention education and adolescent reproductive health, and then joined the Peace Corps (Tanna, Vanuatu 2000-02), using theatre performance programs that taught young people about sexual health. Returning home, she received the Sargent Shriver Peaceworker fellowship and completed two master’s degrees, one in Public Policy from the University of Maryland, and another in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University. She subsequently worked at Search for Common Ground in Washington DC before founding TÉA Artistry. With TÉA Artistry she is able to focus on contemporary issues, truly making this venue a “theatre for social change.” Talk about perfect timing! The company’s new production Being Chaka, will run from May 6 through . . .
Read MoreThe community of RPCVs is broad based. Peter Narrovo is also a Thailand RPCV: https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/rpcv-peter-navarro-contempt-of-congress-case-thailand/
Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Matt Losak(Lesotho 1985-87) Thomas Tighe has served as President and CEO of Direct Relief, a nonprofit humanitarian medical organization, since October 2000. Since Tighe’s arrival, the organization has provided cash grants of more than $170 million and furnished more than $9 billion in essential medicines, equipment, and supplies to support health services for low-income people in over 100 countries and all 50 U.S. states, where the organization conducts the country’s largest nonprofit charitable medicines program. During Tighe’s tenure, Direct Relief has been named among the world’s most innovative nonprofits by Fast Company, has been rated by Forbes as being 99 percent efficient or better in fundraising since 2001, won the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, the CECP Director’s Award, the Esri President’s Award for GIS innovation, the Office of the Surgeon General’s National Leadership and Partnership Award, and became the first U.S. nonprofit to . . .
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