The Peace Corps

First published on our site Dec 21, 2020 by Jeanne D’Haem (Somalia 1968-70)   On Christmas Eve my family gathered at my grandmother’s house on Jane Street in Detroit, Michigan. Her Christmas tree glittered with multicolored bubble lights. The uncles sat in the small living room, my aunts and grandmother tasted and talked in the kitchen. Cousins played with the wooden blocks and the Indian doll in the wooden toy box in the den. Sometimes there were new babies to hold. I was 22 the first time I could not attend, as I was a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Somalia, and  I wanted to at least send a Christmas gift to Grandma Carter. Newspaper cones of tea, alcohol for the tilly lamps, or the blue and green patterned cloth for sale in my village did not seem worth sending across two oceans. However, when my neighbor showed me what she . . .

First Volunteers to Ethiopia in 1962 sing Christmas carols for the Emperor   MERRY CHRISTMAS  

Hitch hiking Across America, a novel by Daniel Robinson (Venezuela 1966-68) Atmosphere Press 274 pages October 2021 $7.99 (Kindle); $18.99 (Paperback)         Nick is a nineteen-year-old college student at UC Berkeley who quits his Lake Tahoe summer job to see America and meet Americans, face-to-face, hitching rides from Tahoe to Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, New York City, and points in-between. He witnesses Jim Crow segregation in the South. He meets Yvonne, the daughter of a Palm Beach socialite. He learns something unexpected about his mother from his Aunt Rose’s family photo album. World War II vets pick him up and tell him about their war experience and how it affects their current lives. He meets Oliver, a civil rights activist in Mississippi, and Gina, an aspiring Olympic swimmer, and Lorena, an aging silent film star in Palm Springs. He consoles Rosa, a young Mexican woman who . . .

– By Michael Tashji, Santa Fe New Mexican Dec 12, 2021 – Clockwise from top left: Mary Jo Lundy was a Peace Corps volunteer from 1962-64 in Borneo. Angelina Catling was a volunteer from 2012-14 in Samoa, where she taught English literacy and worked in community development. Jennifer Day met her husband, Melvin Perez Martinez, while she was a Peace Corps volunteer from 1999-2001 in Honduras, where she taught environmental education. Jamie Torres taught English and HIV awareness in 2015-17 in Namibia. Photos: Jim Weber/The New Mexican – Children in Borneo in the 1960s were admitted into school when they were old enough to reach their arm over their head and touch the top of their ear. “If you were older than [5 or 6], it reaches farther, and if you were younger, it didn’t quite come that far,” said Mary Jo Lundy, 81. “There was no birth certificate.” The . . .

  Please note: This article was posted on the Peace Corps website on December 2nd.  They are accepting comments until Thursday, December 16th.  Please accept my apology for the late posting. Here is the link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/peace-corps-seeks-public-input-as-agency-develops-roadmap-to-strengthen-its-sexual-assault-risk-reduction-and-response-program/ Here is the notice: Peace Corps Seeks Public Input as Agency Develops Roadmap to Strengthen its Sexual Assault Risk Reduction and Response Program December 2, 2021 Today, the Peace Corps announced the next phase of its work to strengthen the agency’s Sexual Assault Risk Reduction and Response (SARRR) program. From December 2 to December 16, the public is invited to submit input and feedback about the Peace Corps’ efforts to enhance systems that support sexual assault risk mitigation and provide care to survivors. Following the release of the 2021 Sexual Assault Advisory Council (SAAC) report in November, Peace Corps leadership is conducting a comprehensive review of the recommendations outlined in the report and preparing . . .

  Nicole Jacobson, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia, said she was repeatedly groped by the father in her host family, but Peace Corps staff waited more than a year before pulling her from the site. Nicole Jacobson was far from home and feeling alone, placed by the Peace Corps in a remote village in Zambia with a host father who had five wives and a disturbing interest in the young American volunteer. The man routinely leered at her while touching himself, Jacobson said. He grabbed and groped her, once bursting into her hut and pushing her up against the wall. Yet when she called Peace Corps staff to report him, Jacobson said, staff repeatedly dismissed her concerns. “According to them, I just didn’t understand the situation,” she said, adding that one Peace Corps staff member told her, “It just means he likes you.” Jacobson said staff . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Andy Martin (Ethiopia 1965-68) English Access Microscholarship Program BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS EXCHANGE PROGRAMS At-a-Glance The English Access Microscholarship Program (Access) provides a foundation of English language skills to bright, economically disadvantaged students, primarily between the ages of 13 to 20, in their home countries. Access programs give participants English skills that may lead to better jobs and educational prospects. Participants also gain the ability to compete for and participate in future exchanges and study in the United States.Since its inception in 2004, approximately 150,000 students in more than 80 countries have participated in the Access Program. INFOGRAPHICS: Celebrating 10 Years of Access VIDEO: English Access Microscholarship Program Program length: Two years For Eligibility and Application Overview Contact your U.S. Embassy to find out if there are Access classes in your area.

Chief Executive Officer’s Message     Welcome back to Inside Peace Corps, where we share updates on our work, both at headquarters and in the countries where our Volunteers are invited to serve. Yesterday, we celebrated World AIDS Day to honor those we have lost due to the disease and to recognize the substantial progress that has been made toward ending the epidemic over the last 40 years. I am so grateful for the contributions community members, counterparts, partners, staff, and returned Volunteers of the Peace Corps network have made toward supporting those living with HIV and raising awareness to prevent new infections.   The World AIDS Day theme this year was “Global solidarity, shared responsibility,” a theme I know resonates deeply with the Peace Corps network, especially during this time of unrelenting change. Our shifting reality – whether due to global health crises, new COVID-19 variants, climate change, or a need for . . .

Peace Corps Seeks Public Input as Agency Develops Roadmap to Strengthen its Sexual Assault Risk Reduction and Response Program December 2, 2021 Today, the Peace Corps announced the next phase of its work to strengthen the agency’s Sexual Assault Risk Reduction and Response (SARRR) program. From December 2 to December 16, the public is invited to submit input and feedback about the Peace Corps’ efforts to enhance systems that support sexual assault risk mitigation and provide care to survivors. Following the release of the 2021 Sexual Assault Advisory Council (SAAC) report in November, Peace Corps leadership is conducting a comprehensive review of the recommendations outlined in the report and preparing a roadmap that outlines the future of the SARRR program to be released publicly in early 2022. “Last month, we received expert recommendations that incorporate emerging best practices from SAAC members that will inform the next phase of our work. . . .

by Rich Wandschneider (Turkey 1965-67)   Jack Hood Vaughn’s autobiography, Kill the Gringo, came to me from Leif Christoffersen, who had served with Jack on the board of trustees of Earth University in Costa Rica. Leif knew I had been in the Peace Corps a long time ago, and wondered whether I knew Jack. Leif, like Jack, is my elder, and like Jack, had worked in international development around the world, and their paths happened to cross in Costa Rica, and they liked each other. Leif’s mostly retired now, and comes to visit a son who lives here, and then he’s off to natal Norway, his home in Virginia, or a board meeting or consultation somewhere else. He always calls me for coffee or lunch. I think he’s fascinated that I was in the Peace Corps and on staff a long time ago, and seemed to have wrapped up my . . .

  by Andre Silva Borgen Magazine, November 22, 2021   WESTBURY, New York — The High Atlas Foundation is helping Morocco’s local communities determine how they choose to develop their land and grow out of poverty sustainably. Like those in the northern Atlas Mountains, Morocco’s most vulnerable communities have long suffered from water scarcity, shaky access to land and unregulated grazing rights. These hardships make it difficult for many individual planters to harvest profitable yields on their produce and further strain their labors. Also, their reliance on traditional and overplanted crops like barley, corn and dates deliver low profits. Additionally, they exasperate a low diversity of fruits and vegetables in the poorest of the nation’s regions. While Morocco’s red fruit production saw an increase of 84% last year, many of the nation’s poorest farmers were not included in the agricultural boom. Yet, one organization is working to reverse this in a new sustainable development model, improving . . .

  Speech on peace delivered by President John F. Kennedy at American University on 10 June 1963     President Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees, distinguished guests, my old colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years of attending night law school, while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes, ladies and gentlemen: It is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. This is a young and growing university, but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst’s enlightened hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history and to the conduct of the public’s business. By sponsoring this institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, . . .