The Peace Corps

Museum of the Peace Corps Experience Hires Director WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Museum of the Peace Corps Experience has selected Dr. Zack Klim as its director. He joins the Museum from his current role as Executive Director of Global Affairs and Experiential Learning at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University (NYU). His new appointment will begin on January 2, 2023. Klim has been in leadership at NYU’s Global Programs division since 2008. Throughout his tenure at NYU, he interfaced with colleagues around the world to develop learning and research opportunities, fundraise, and foster understanding across cultural and socioeconomic divides. In his role as Executive Director, he successfully procured funding to ensure international learning opportunities would be accessible to all. His collaboration with faculty in the Visual Arts Administration program were vital to the launch of an international leadership Program in Visual Arts Management . . .

The Story of a Year by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64)   The other weekend when visiting a small used bookstore appropriately named the “BookBarn” in rural Columbia County, New York, I spotted on a shelf of the cluttered shop a copy of Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli. It is a book I haven’t seen in some sixty plus years. In fact, I hadn’t seen a copy since I was a PCV in Ethiopia. This book was one of appropriately 75 paperback books Sarge Shriver and the first administration of the Peace Corps put together in the ‘booklocker’ for Volunteers to read and leave behind in their villages as seeds for new libraries. The copy I found was first published in  the early Sixties. A trade paperback edition with a new preface, while the book was the same and what a body of prose it is.   First some background . . .

Strengthening National Security through Global Water Security By Kelly Parsons (Guatemala 1993-96)  How would your day go without drinking water? How safe would you feel if you knew every day meant having to find water and coping with no toilet? A country’s ability to effectively provide and manage water and sanitation services profoundly shapes its communities, socio-economic and political stability and national security. However, as shared water resources between countries and communities become scarce, competition for water increases, raising tensions and the likelihood of conflict while contributing to poverty, infectious disease outbreaks and malnutrition. And there is growing evidence suggesting that climate change is playing an ever-increasing role in the global resurgence and spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases. In June, the White House announced the Action Plan on Global Water Security. For the first time, this plan directly links access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) around the world to . . .

  College Corps could be the model for higher education America desperately needs By Gavin Newsom,  Governor of California • Today, our country appears more divided than ever. College Corps is an antidote to this crisis of isolation, a down payment on the reconstruction of our society and the preservation of our democracy. Recently, I had the privilege to swear in the first ever College Corps fellows, a legion of more than 3,000 students spread across nearly 50 college and university campuses who have committed to supplement their studies with community service. In exchange for their service, California is offering $10,000 per school year to help each of them pursue a debt-free education. For those from families with modest incomes, it is enough to meet the personal financial obligation expected of Pell Grant recipients, a financial gap most often closed by student loans. College Corps is more than just another government program. With these new fellows, California’s service corps . . .

  Former Peace Corps Director Mark. Gearan will join the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Rochester’s (NY) Fall Forum series, delivering a guest presentation on the state of public service in the U.S. and possibilities for its future. Gearan is nationally known for his tenure in higher education and national service. His public talk, “National Service in the 21st Century,” will be held in-person and online beginning at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at the Rochester Academy of Medicine. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR PRESIDENT GEARAN’S TALK AT THE HARVARD-RADCLIFFE CLUB OF ROCHESTER.  Mark Gearan, president again of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, recently served as Vice Chair of the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service created by the U.S. Congress. Gearan is a past chair of the Board of Directors of both National Campus Compact and the Corporation for National and Community Service.The event is hosted by the Rochester-area . . .

  Film Screening & Discussion Mon Nov 07 2022 at 05:00 pm to 08:30 pm DePaul University – Richard M. and Maggie C. Daley Building | Chicago, IL     What role should the Peace Corps play in the 21st century? Come view the film and share your thoughts about the future of the Peace Corps. A Towering Task is an independent documentary produced and directed by Alana DeJoseph (Mali 1992-94), a returned Peace Corps volunteer and documentary filmmaker. She has been a member of the production teams that produced The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Film and Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for our Time. She works alongside Dave Steinke (film producer, cameraman and former Forest Service public affairs director) and Shana Kelly (screenwriter and book editor). All three strongly believe in the urgent need for an objective, in-depth look at the history and future of the Peace Corps. . . .

  By Jeff Walsh (South Africa 2016-18) Ukraine, a sovereign country in Eastern Europe, was attacked this past February. Other previously neutral European countries are bolstering their military arsenal and are scrambling to join NATO for protection. The 101st Airborne has arrived in Poland. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the doomsday clock to 100 seconds to midnight. Doctors Without Borders stated that due to persecution, war, hunger, gender orientation. and climate change there are now 100 million refugees worldwide. Polar ice caps are melting, as we lose Arctic sea ice at a rate of almost 13% per decade as the Arctic could be ice-free by the summer by 2040. We need a hero. We need someone who actively understand and promotes world peace and friendship. We need the Peace Corps. On March 15, 2020- all Peace Corps operations came to a grinding halt. All 7,000 volunteers in over 50 . . .

This article I wrote in 1999 and I repost it now so new Volunteers will know the early history of their agency. JC Let me start with a quote from Gerard T. Rice’s book, The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps: In 1961 John F. Kennedy took two risky and conflicting initiatives in the Third World. One was to send five hundred additional military advisers into South Vietnam; by 1963 there would be seventeen thousand such advisers. The other was to send five hundred young Americans to teach in the schools and work in the fields of eight developing countries. These were Peace Corps Volunteers. By 1963 there would be seven thousands of them in forty-four countries. Vietnam scarred the American psyche, leaving memories of pain and defeat. But Kennedy’s other initiative inspired, and continued to inspire, hope and understanding among Americans and the rest of the world. In that sense, . . .

  William Josephson writes…..   Five Peace Corps scandals could have benefited from some fact checking, editing and consultation. The overall impression is that they are characteristic.  They are not.  They occurred over a very long period of time. “Scandal” is a misnomer in many of these cases. The Kate Puzey 2011 murder is so well known that it engendered a congressional reaction, and the Peace Corps’ continuing efforts to develop effective policies that reduce Peace Corps volunteer sexual harassment or worse. The death of the PCV wife of a Tanganyikan PCV dates to my 1960s time as Peace Corps General Counsel.  Not so incidentally, the husband’s verdict was “not proven,” not not guilty.  The Scottish system of three verdicts, guilty, not guilty, not proven, was followed there at that time. The Tonga killing occurred in 1977.  Sex would seem to have been a, or the, motive.  Tragic it was, . . .

  Peace Corps Zambia swore into service 31 Volunteers following 11 weeks of training in technical skills, language, and inter-cultural understanding. The Volunteers will work with community members in rural areas of Zambia on education and health programs in the Central, Eastern, Luapula, Northern, Muchinga, Northwestern, and Southern provinces. Eighteen of the Volunteers will serve under the Ministry of Education to support teachers in primary and lower secondary schools (grade 5 to 9) in developing innovative and gender-equitable teaching methodologies, in addition to teaching English. The remaining 13 Volunteers will serve under the Ministry of Health to support community health workers in promoting strategies to improve maternal, neonatal, and child health, in addition to teaching about malaria control and prevention methods. The Minister of Education, Honorable Douglas Syakalima, was the guest of honor at the ceremony. His Royal Highness Chief Chamuka VI of the Lenje people, and Director of Public . . .