The Peace Corps

Agency history, current news and stories of the people who are/were both on staff and Volunteers.

1
Sargent Shriver, Sally & Lionel Epstein, The Peace Corps, and The Experiment in International Living
2
What is the Peace Corps/Office of External Affairs, anyway?
3
Ashley Bell named Peace Corps Associate Director for External Affairs
4
NPCA welcomes the Committee for the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience as a new Affiliate Group
5
Taylor Dibbert (Guatemala): “Now isn’t the time to cut Peace Corps funding”
6
Peace Corps authors: Writing from another country
7
NY TIMES Today: Questions on Trump? Peace Corps Volunteers Change the Topic
8
Laurette Bennhold-Samaan “Going HOME” From Samos
9
Laurette Bennhold-Samaan Final Week at Refugee Camp in Greece
10
Wofford and Shriver cited in new book: KENNEDY AND KING
11
NPCA Conference in Colorado This August
12
A Different View of the Ocean
13
“Astronomer Jillian Bellovary (The Gambia) on Black Holes, the Peace Corps and Roller Derby”
14
JFK commemoration taps into Peace Corps history
15
Jim McCaffery Makes A Case For Second Generation PCVs (Ethiopia)

Sargent Shriver, Sally & Lionel Epstein, The Peace Corps, and The Experiment in International Living

  “We (EXPERIMENTERS) learned by first-hand experience the reality of one world. We learned the language because we had to. We did not do what we wanted to do but what the people of our host country did. We sang their songs, played their games, danced their dances. We walked or rode bicycles as they did. We saw the world through their eyes.” Sargent Shriver  The Experiment in International Living dinner, 1965    • SARGENT SHRIVER, SALLY & LIONEL EPSTEIN, PEACE CORPS and THE EXPERIMENT IN INTERNATIONAL LIVING  by Geri Critchley (Senegal 1971–72)   I first met  Sally & Lionel Eptein in 1976 when I co-directed the DC Office of The Experiment in International Living/EIL (www.experiment.org/) founded in 1932, the oldest international education exchange organization in the USA. The Experiment in International Living is now under the umbrella of World Learning (https://www.worldlearning.org/)    In 1934, Sargent Shriver received an Experiment scholarship to participate in one of the first . . .

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What is the Peace Corps/Office of External Affairs, anyway?

http://files.peacecorps.gov/documents/MS-131-Policy.pdf Peace Corps Act, 22 U.S.C. 2501, et seq. 3.0 Organization “The Office of External Affairs is headed by the Associate Director for External Affairs. The Associate Director for External Affairs reports directly to the Chief of Staff. The Office of External Affairs includes four sub-units: the Office of Strategic Partnerships and Intergovernmental Affairs; the Office of Gifts and Grants Management; the Office of Communications; and the Office of Congressional Relations. Each office is headed by a Director or Officer who reports to the Associate Director for External Affairs. 4.0 Office Missions 4.1 Office of External Affairs The mission of the Office of External Affairs to provide coordination and support for the Peace Corps external engagement with other agencies and partners, the media and Congress. 4.2 Office of Gifts and Grants Management The mission of the Office of Gifts and Grants Management is to oversee and manage the solicitation and . . .

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Ashley Bell named Peace Corps Associate Director for External Affairs

  Washington, D.C., July 7, 2017 — The White House has appointed Ashley Bell as the new Associate Director for External Affairs at Peace Corps. As head of External Affairs, Bell will oversee Peace Corps’ Offices of Communications, Congressional Relations, Gifts and Grants Management and Strategic Partnerships and Intergovernmental Affairs.   “Peace Corps volunteers represent the best the United States has to offer and I am grateful for the opportunity to support an agency founded in the American ideal of serving others,” Bell said. “As head of External Affairs, my hope is to highlight to the public the vital role Peace Corps plays in irrevocably changing the lives of both volunteers and the communities they help.” Bell joins Peace Corps with a wealth of experience in external affairs and international relations. Prior to Peace Corps, Bell served as a special advisor in the Public Affairs Bureau of the Department of State, where . . .

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NPCA welcomes the Committee for the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience as a new Affiliate Group

https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/articles/peace-corps-museum-its-about-time “By the Committee for the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience If you are like most Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, you consider your national service in the name of peace as a critically informative and influential life experience. With this in mind, we have formed a nonprofit organization to establish a national Museum of the Peace Corps Experience to educate people about Peace Corps and preserve its legacy. Museum Mission Our mission is to inspire connection with the world by sharing the Peace Corps experience of living in different cultures.  Returned Peace Corps Volunteers’ rich understanding of world cultures and empathy for diverse lifestyles will be harnessed to produce engaging, educational exhibits, both physical and virtual. The museum is dedicated to sharing the Peace Corps story, expanding human understanding and promoting the values of civil society.  The museum will take on a major documentary role as well as collecting and exhibiting artifacts and producing . . .

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Taylor Dibbert (Guatemala): “Now isn’t the time to cut Peace Corps funding”

  Now isn’t the time to cut Peace Corps funding by Taylor Dibbert (Guatemala 2006-08) first published by The Hill 7/5/17 •   Donald Trump’s transactional tendencies, proclivity for autocrats and superficial grasp of world affairs means that there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about American foreign policy in the coming years. With the release of the Trump administration’s proposed budget, it’s obvious that the president doesn’t understand the importance of American soft power. Trump’s plans to gut funding for international development, foreign aid and diplomacy are woefully misguided. He needs to urgently reconsider his current approach because it’s harmful to American interests. More specifically, team Trump plans to reduce Peace Corps spending by close to $12 million immediately. While many had been worried about an even bigger Peace Corps funding cut, this is not good news and could portend even deeper cuts in the years ahead. It’s time for Trump . . .

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Peace Corps authors: Writing from another country

These writers are all RPCVs whom I wrote about recently for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs website. The eight writers tell how they have used their overseas experiences in their writing careers. JC Writing From Another Country Throughout the history of literature in the United States, American writers have looked towards, and gone to, foreign countries to seek inspiration, new experiences, and find work. Henry James in The American (1878) and Samuel Clemens in The Innocents Abroad (1869) were early writers who wrote about their new experience in Europe. Next, we had Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel of a half-dozen ex-pats in Paris The Sun Also Rises. Not only novelists, but poets, too, traveled abroad. T.S. Eliot and Robert Penn Warren are two. They went to England to find work and sources of inspiration. Robert Penn Warren, the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry, first went to London in . . .

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NY TIMES Today: Questions on Trump? Peace Corps Volunteers Change the Topic

Questions on Trump? Peace Corps Volunteers Change the Topic By EMILY COCHRANEJULY 5, 2017 WASHINGTON — As a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to a school in Gostivar, Macedonia, Sarah Blake would listen, waiting for the English words that began to puncture the conversations during the first months of 2017. Trump. Ban. Ms. Blake, in her third year as a Peace Corps volunteer, was often the only American in the city of about 80,000 in the Macedonian foothills, where the predominantly Muslim population speaks Albanian. She began to stress about having to explain the Trump administration’s new travel policy and the president’s own statements about Islam. Shoulders hunched, head down, she would conjure reasons to step away in case these questions came up, she said. Too much work. A meeting to attend. “There hasn’t been a really perfect president,” said Ms. Blake, a Maryland native who now lives in Istanbul after completing her Peace . . .

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Laurette Bennhold-Samaan “Going HOME” From Samos

Going “HOME” Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit it. — H. Jackson Browne “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” — Dalai Lama In Closing This was my first blog and I hope that I was able to capture my ideas, impressions, and stories to create imagery and intrigue. I hope you have learned a bit more about what one person’s experience has been with refugees and I hope it has brought questions to your head and moved your heart in some way. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I fly back. Over my career, I have worked with others on their re-entry and how difficult it is and oftentimes more difficult than the outbound adjustment. I have no doubt that this experience will stay with me forever. It has impacted and affected every . . .

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Laurette Bennhold-Samaan Final Week at Refugee Camp in Greece

July 1 Samos is Small: people impressions Give what you have to someone. It may be better than you dare to think. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words and action is all that is necessary. — Margaret Cousins I grew up in a small town- about 15, 000 townspeople and then 15,000 university students. The entire island of Samos has only 35,000 people and the capital Samos about 6,000 (not including the refugee camp which is about 1000 give or take). First, a bit about Samos, Greece. It’s in the eastern Aegean Sea, separated from Turkey (which I can see with the naked eye) by the mile-wide Mycale Strait. It was the birthplace of mathematician Pythagoras and philosopher Epicurus and is known for producing sweet Muscat wine which I don’t actually care for. On the southeast . . .

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Wofford and Shriver cited in new book: KENNEDY AND KING

The story of Harris Wofford and Sarge Shriver’s advice to Jack Kennedy in the 1960 election has been told many times. I first heard it from Wofford in Ethiopia when a group of PCVs were at the Woffords’ home for dinner back in 1962. For those who do not know the history, Wofford was the first Peace Corps Director in Ethiopia, having already helped to create the Peace Corps with Shriver, and after having been Kennedy’s civil rights advisor in the White House, and before that involved in the campaign to elect Kennedy president when this incident took place. In a new book: KENNEDY AND KING The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights by Steven Levingston, reviewed in the  New York Times in this week’s Sunday edition, that event in the presidential campaign is detailed again. Many believe it was the ‘key’ event that swayed the election in Kennedy’s favor. In his review, James . . .

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NPCA Conference in Colorado This August

Meet Acting Director Sheila Crowley at Peace Corps Connect   Acting Director Sheila Crowley  to Join Peace Corps Connect Conference. NPCA is pleased to announce that Acting Peace Corps Director Sheila Crowley will be a featured speaker at the Peace Corps Connect conference on Saturday, August 5, 2017 in Denver, Colorado. Acting Director Crowley will join NPCA President and CEO Glenn Blumhorst in a “fireside chat” to talk about Peace Corps’ priorities under her leadership and then present the Deborah Harding Women of Achievement Award. Register now to get your front row seat at these important events. Meet Acting Director Sheila Crowley Sheila Crowley has served as Acting Director of the Peace Corps since January 2017. She brings to that role more than 25 years of public and private-sector experience, including leadership roles in international development, business, and the financial services industry. Most recently, Sheila served from 2015 to 2017 as Acting Associate Director of Peace Corps’ Office of . . .

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A Different View of the Ocean

Laurette Bennhold-Samaan writes from refugee camp in Greece Courage is the ladder on which all other virtues mount― Clare Boothe Luce The gift we can offer other is so simple a thing as hope- Daniel Berrigan I love the ocean and always have. It gives me a peaceful sense and an appreciation of nature. My dream has always been to retire at the ocean someplace sometime. I now look at the ocean in a different way. Yesterday I learned much more about the EU/Turkey deal the end of March in which the EU paid Turkey to accommodate more refugees however many of the refugees would prefer to be reunited with various family members in other countries. In 2015 when there were hundreds of refugees arriving daily, to Samos, they were sleeping on the streets as there was no coordinated location to house them (no refugee camp). Last night at dinner, . . .

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“Astronomer Jillian Bellovary (The Gambia) on Black Holes, the Peace Corps and Roller Derby”

  Thanks for the ‘Heads up’ about the following article from Dan Campbell (El Salvador 1974-77)  • Astronomer Jillian Bellovary On Black Holes, The Peace Corps And RollerDerby Written by Swapna Krishna, Syfy Wire Women are doing amazing things in space science, and today I want you to meet Jillian Bellovary. Jillian studies black holes, and in this interview she was kind enough to talk to me about her research, her experiences as a woman in STEM, the Peace Corps, roller derby, and how knitting led her to a dream job.     Can you tell me about how you got to where you are professionally? What was your path to becoming an astronomer? Jillian Bellovary: I’m interested in everything. I wasn’t one of those kids who always wanted to be a scientist because I have always wanted to do everything. Everything! I almost majored in Anthropology but decided the job . . .

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JFK commemoration taps into Peace Corps history

  Thanks to a a ‘heads up’ about this article from Catherine Varchaver, (APCD Kyrgyzstan 1995-97). •   Mongolians, Zimbabweans and refugees come to sing for JFK Washington Post, June 23, 2017 By Anne Midgette • How do you commemorate John F. Kennedy in a performing arts festival? All this season, the Kennedy Center has been trying to answer that question with a series of performances honoring Kennedy’s centennial that often seem only tenuously linked to Kennedy. “I don’t care if [audiences] don’t get it,” Deborah Rutter, the Kennedy Center’s president, told The Washington Post earlier this year about the connection of some of the performances to Kennedy’s legacy. “I don’t need to them to. I know it’s going to soak in, and that’s why we’re doing it.” But starting Thursday, the Kennedy Center is co-presenting a festival that does proceed directly from a Kennedy initiative. The choral festival “Serenade” is coming to the Kennedy . . .

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Jim McCaffery Makes A Case For Second Generation PCVs (Ethiopia)

I got the attached PDF from Jim McCaffery (Ethiopia 1966-68) recently. It is an article by Jim published in the old Volunteer Magazine. It is a terrific article and I’m glad Jim sent it. Jim is from Wisconsin and went to Ethiopia in 1966. Later he worked at a Trainer in Addis Ababa and then went to Botswana as the Deputy Director. (I’m indebted to Jim for when I was traveling through Africa for a year in 1969 he put me up for several weeks and never charged me rent!) After the Peace Corps Jim got a PhD from the University of Wisconsin and in 1981 he and a couple others founded TRG, an organization development consulting firm that has been very successful and well respected. Now semi-retired Jim is the process (as we all are) of tossing away most of the Peace Corps files we have in the attic and . . .

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