The Peace Corps

RPCVs in the news   After a 40-month COVID hiatus, the Mariposa Yosemite Symphony Orchestra  (MYSO) is back in action with concerts on Saturday, April 29th and Sunday, April 30th in Mariposa (CA) and at Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp, led by its Founding Music Director and Conductor Les Marsden.     Meet Sally Martinez (Ethiopia), Oberlin-trained longtime MYSO Concertmaster and Yosemite National Park’s  Volunteer Program Manager . Sally Martinez was introduced to the violin at age 3 and began taking lessons in her home state of Massachusetts. She grew up performing with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras before attending Oberlin College in Ohio. At Oberlin, Sally pursued a degree in Environmental Studies, but continued to participate in music lessons and performances with students and faculty at the Conservatory of Music. In her adult life, she has had the opportunity to perform with many community and professional orchestras, in concert halls across . . .

From Facebook   April 13 — We had the pleasure of hosting Ms. Deborah Conner, Country Director of the Peace Corps North Macedonia, at ZIP Institute It was an inspiring and informative meeting where we discussed the impact of the Peace Corps’ volunteer program and our role as a receiver of volunteers. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with the Peace Corps and to have dedicated volunteers contribute to our organization’s mission. Thank you, Deborah, Mirlinda, and the entire Peace Corps team, for your partnership and commitment to making a difference in our community. • Established in 2011, ZIP Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, public policy organization geared towards producing and disseminating high-quality, objective and comprehensive ideas and analyses central to the democratization and EU Integration of Macedonia.

  April 19, 2023 WASHINGTON, D.C. –– U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) reintroduced the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act, bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Peace Corps for the first time in over two decades. Passed unanimously out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year, the bipartisan legislation raises Peace Corps Volunteers’ readjustment allowance, expedites return-to-service opportunities for those impacted by COVID-19 and future comparable emergencies, and increases transparency as it relates to the agency’s Sexual Assault Advisory Council, among other provisions. “Our Peace Corps volunteers represent American values and serve communities throughout the world in exemplary fashion,” said Senator Young. “Reauthorizing the Peace Corps will provide better support for our volunteers as they continue to work in the field.” “The Peace Corps is long-overdue for reforms to improve the safety and security of Peace Corps volunteers in the field. Last year, the committee . . .

On Thursday, April 20th, Rocky Mountain PBS will be airing A Towering Task across the state of Colorado. We are finally getting this Peace Corps story out to a broader television audience. For those of you in the area, tune in at 9pm Mountain Time (11pm Eastern Time). And if you live in Colorado (or want to travel to meet us there!), we are working on hosting a follow-up watch party in a couple of months at the Rocky Mountain PBS studios in Denver. Let us know if you want to be on our official invite list by emailing us at info@peacecorpsdocumentary.com. We hope you can join us in watching the broadcast, at the follow-up gathering, or both! And, of course, we are continuing to work with public television distributors across the country to bring A Towering Task to your local stations. Stay tuned for more information and how you can make sure your station airs the documentary. Director . . .

  RAY NAYLER (Turkmenistan 2003-05) was born on June 5, 1976 in Alma, Quebec. When he was three years old, his family moved to California. He attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he studied modern literature and developed an interest in semiotics, graduating in 1999. He lived in the Bay Area and Toronto and worked on various odd jobs before joining the Peace Corps and moving to Turkmenistan in 2003. He learned Russian there and later worked in Russia for an international NGO specializing in educational exchange. He lived in Moscow, then Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, from where he joined the US Foreign Service in 2010. He subsequently served in Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kosovo, living abroad for 20 years before returning to the US in 2022. He still works for the State Department, now on detail to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as their . . .

  Elizabeth Gore (Bolivia 2003-05) serves as President and Chairwoman of the Board for Hello Alice, the first-ever artificial intelligence platform for business owners. Hello Alice helps all business owners find the right path to launch and grow. As a social enterprise, Alice is open to all entrepreneurs and prioritizes services for women, underrepresented founders and veterans. Elizabeth previously served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Dell Technologies, where she drove initiatives to support Dell’s goals around helping small and medium businesses scale and prosper, fueling the expansion of global entrepreneurship. Elizabeth personally advises the growth of purpose-driven companies, such as ride share commuting company Scoop, and is an investing Limited Partner with the Portfolia fund. In addition, Elizabeth is part owner in Gore Family Vineyards in Sonoma County. She is the Emeritus Chair of the United Nations Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurs Council and previously served as the first-ever Entrepreneur in Residence for the . . .

CELEBRATE SIX DECADES IN THAILAND By Khaosod English April 7, 2023 8:54 am On April 3, 2023, U.S. Ambassador Robert F. Godec and Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn swear-in 49 Peace Corps Trainees at Songphanburi Hotel, Suphanburi Province. In Thailand, Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) serve with their Thai counterparts in two sectors: Education, and Youth in Development. Volunteers live in local communities across the country, learn the Thai language, and share American culture with their communities during their two-year assignments. More than 5,500 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in Thailand since 1962. The swearing-in ceremony is conducted in conjunction with the 60th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps Thailand (the 60th anniversary celebration was supposed to happen last year but is delayed due to the pandemic). With U.S. Ambassador Robert F. Godec, Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn, Director-General Ureerat Charoentoh of the Thailand International Cooperation Agency, Royal Thai Government Officials, local . . .

UH Hilo political scientist Su-Mi Lee compiles biographies from Peace Corp volunteers with ties to Hawai‘i Island Posted on April 5, 2023 by Staff The project is significant to UH Hilo because Hawai‘i Island was chosen as a primary training location for thousands of Peace Corps volunteers in the 1960s and the university’s precursor—UH-Hilo Branch—contributed greatly to the training program. A local group involved in promoting acknowledgement of returned Peace Corps volunteers to Hawai‘i Island stand for a group photo at a plaque erected on the UH Hilo campus to commemorate John F. Kennedy who began the Peace Corps program. In the group are Hawai‘i County Mayor Mitch Roth (center) with Assistant Professor of Political Science Su-Mi Lee (fifth from left), returned Peace Corps volunteers, Rotary club members, a librarian from UH Hilo’s Mookini Library, and students including Lee’s student assistant Nikki Jicha (fourth from left). (Courtesy photo) By Susan Enright A political . . .

Women’s Economic Empowerment and the Peace Corps – A Conversation with Jody Olsen, Former Peace Corps Director Interviewed Held on March 8, 2019 Edited for this blog Dr. Olsen served as a volunteer in Tunisia in the late 1960s, and she held various leadership positions throughout the agency in the ’80s, the ’90s, and 2000s. And between that time she spent time as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Social Work, as well as the director of the university’s Global Education Initiatives. The  moderator is CSIS Senior Associate Nina Easton chair of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International Summit and the co-chair of the Fortune Global Forum. Nina Easton: OK, hands up: How many former Peace Corps volunteers do we have here? Ooh. (Cheers, applause.) OK. (Applause.) And, Jody, thank you for your service. Jody Olsen: Well, thank you. Nina Easton: I warned you that we . . .

African artist’s work benefits Sierra Leone The story of Africa Yes is really the story of the remarkable village of Gbeworbu (BEH-wuh-boo), which hosted Peace Corps Volunteer Steve Cameron from 1989 to 1991. The partnership that resulted has withstood the intervention of a brutal civil war and thirteen years of separation. The villagers continue to demonstrate their resilience, determination, and work ethic as they rebuild and move forward. The first project that grew out of the partnership between Steve and his hosts was a Village Health Worker program to provide low-cost basic medicines and medical advice from the book Where There is No Doctor. This was begun at the request of the villagers themselves — Steve’s primary project was outside the village, supervising a water project in a nearby town. Other villages heard about the program and asked to participate. Eventually, there were 14 villages in the area with Village Health . . .