The Peace Corps

  FRANK, Murray Walter Age 93, died peacefully at his home in Jamaica Plain on January 3. Murray was born February 17, 1927 in the Bronx. He and his brother Arnold were raised by their parents Jacob and Elizabeth (Neitlich) in an orthodox Jewish home. Murray lived a productive life, his endeavors unified by striving for a more just society. He served in the Pacific during World War II. Afterwards he went to New York University on the GI Bill. There he joined the Student Division of the World Federalists, embracing post-war idealism in the spirit of the United Nations. He took a gap year to organize for the group, launching a lifetime of social engagement. He earned a masters degree in social work at Columbia University in 1954. In 1956, he married Ginna (deConingh); they moved to Chicago, where he worked at a settlement house. In 1961, he joined . . .

F. Kingston Berlew Date of Death: February 21, 2021 Date of Birth: April 9, 1930 Biography: F. Kingston Berlew passed away peacefully on February 21st, 2021 in Topsham, Maine. King is survived by his brother David, son Derek and daughter Sarah. He was predeceased by his wife Jeanne of 64 years. King, son of Herman and Lillian Berlew was born in 1930 in Bangor, Maine. He grew up in Orono on the banks of the Penobscot River. He married Jeanne, the love of his life, in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1952. He proposed to Jeanne by sending her a box of stationery with Mr. and Mrs. F. Kingston Berlew printed on it for a Christmas present. King’s Mother was horrified by this and immediately dispatched him to Amherst to propose in person. Upon arrival, he threw snowballs at Jeanne’s window to get her attention and then proposed properly. He attended Wesleyan . . .

  In 2013, Kyle Henning, a recent PCV in Ethiopia, rode his bike from Lake Assal in Djibouti to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds and public awareness for The New Day Children’s Centre in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Called Low2High: Africa, the expedition topped off his Peace Corps tour as an HIV/AIDS PCV in Ethiopia. Kyle is publishing a book about his journey entitled, From Afar, and also has 11 UTube videos of his journey from Dijouti, through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I interviewed Kyle about his Peace Corps tour and his bike trip through East Africa. JC  Kyle, where did you go to college? I am originally from the Buffalo, NY area. Prior to my Peace Corps service, I studied music at SUNY Fredonia with a focus on string bass. After completing my Peace Corps service, I earned a degree in Homeland Security Studies from Tulane University in . . .

Visit the Museum’s website at: https://www.museumofthepeacecorpsexperience.org/cpages/home ALERT! Help us collect Peace Corps posters, particularly posters published by the Peace Corps agency, for a summer 2022 exhibit. If you have Peace Corps posters, please email  contactus@peacecorpsmuseum.org The Peace Corps poster exhibit will be installed at ArtReach Gallery in Portland OR summer 2022. March was a busy and fulfilling month at the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. We hope you were able to join with us in celebrating 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Executive Order creating Peace Corps, March 1, 1961. This newsletter brings you an overview of our March 3 exhibition opening Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Peace Corps Experience and the March 31 webinar Peace Corps 2.0: A Symposium. The exhibition and two events celebrate Peace Corps founding, preserve its history, consider its impact, and encourage discussions about its future. This newsletter offers a story . . .

  David Hibbard (Nigeria 1961-63) died peacefully at home on 7 April, surrounded byhis loving wife, Chris, and their beloved children and grandchildren. David lived gracefully for the last 14 years with Parkinson’s and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He lived a life of service, from being in the very first Peace Corps group in Nigeria, and as a Peace Corps doctor in India (1967-69), to practicing family and hospice medicine.  David was inspired as a young man by JFK and embodied the spirit of ‘’Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’’ He graduated from Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve Medical School and the University of North Carolina where he earned his Public Health degree, and then received a Ford Foundation grant to work at Chogoria Hospital in Kenya. David and his wife Chris were married in 1980 and together founded the . . .

  The Life of an African Peace Corps Child by Chia Tasah (Kom, Cameroon) Pageturner Press and Media 252 pages March 2021  $12.99 Paperback; $2.99  Kindle   My autobiography recounts my life from 1980 as an African Peace Corps child until I became a US citizen in 2012. I lived a full life as a needy child from a poverty-stricken nuclear family of nine and believe I have something fascinating to share with the world. Despite my pennilessness, I made great strides in my endeavors and thrived. I call myself a Peace Corps child of Africa because American Peace Corps Volunteers, with benevolent and philanthropic gestures, encouraged my growth into an authentic adult. Mr. Alan Lakomski (Cameroon 1985-86) whisked me away from my job as bartender and manager of a confidential decadent brothel at Club 185 Njinikom at the age of fourteen, and sent me to secondary school. He returned to . . .

In 1966 a UN advisor was named to Ethiopia to help establish game reserves and, in general, take on environmental issues for the Emperor. In early 1967, as I was planning my final days in Ethiopia, this UN gentleman asked me if I would like to go on a trip to Lake Rudolf and from Lake Rudolf up the Omo River to one of the new game reserves. It sounded like a great adventure and I signed on. The story was that there was a fishing boat in a western small port of the lake which had been owned by the Duke of Gloucester (I think) who was giving it to the emperor for use in one of his game reserves. We flew to Nairobi and then took a small chartered flight to the western shores of Lake Rudolf. When we arrived we joined the other gentleman slated for the . . .

Thanks for the heads up from Steven Saum (Ukraine 1994-96)  at the NPCA —  All eleven living former Peace Corps agency directors have signed on to a letter to President Biden with a ringing message: “Now is the right time for the Peace Corps to build back better than it ever was before.” Read the entire letter to POTUS from the former directors below. • April 26, 2021 President Joseph R. Biden The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Biden, We write to you today as a bipartisan, unified group of former directors of the Peace Corps to express our full support for a revitalized Peace Corps, one that advances our nation’s critical foreign policy goal of world peace through international cooperation and service. We believe that now is the right time for the Peace Corps to build back better than it ever was before. We therefore . . .

by Steve Kaffen (Russia 1994–96) The United States has, to-date, missed a unique opportunity to provide critically urgent medical assistance to the world’s most populous democracy, and solidify our relationship with an important regional ally · India. Imagine a “Berlin airlift” by the U.S. and E.U. of vaccines, oxygen, beds, makeshift shelters and treatment centers (such as DOD provided to Ebola-stricken West Africa). This mobilization should have been initiated a week ago, and it is still possible. The outreach ideally should be regional and include its neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are in similar dire circumstances. India was an important Peace Corps “pioneer” country from 1961 to 1975, and its present demographics of a young population (median age under 30) and largely rural subsistence make it ideal for Peace Corps’ future return with programs geared to health, agriculture, the environment, and specialized education. The agency might be able to obtain . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Joanne Roll (Colombia 1963-65)   This video is brief but comprehensive.   The “professional” speaker is Meagan Kallman, who wrote the book on the Death of Idealism: Development and Anti-Politics in the Peace Corps. She wants to change Peace Corps into a cultural exchange program. She “offered the services of her university” to “help” Peace Corps transition.  She is now  Rhode Island State Senator.