The Peace Corps

  by Jamie Kirkpatrick (Tunisia 1970-72) “How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”  — John F. Kennedy   A few days ago, a good friend of mine quietly celebrated its 58th birthday. I know the possessive pronoun in that sentence sounds a bit strange, but I . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Saum (Ukraine 1994-96)   Now 60 years old, the Peace Corps can be more than a Cold War artifact, By investing in engagement and exchange with other people, a better world is possible. By Lacy Feigh (Ethiopia 2012-14) Washington Post March 5, 2021 • In his inaugural address, President Biden called on Americans to not draw inward to their own political camps at home, and internationally to “repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.” It was both a call for healing and a recognition of our brokenness in this moment. It also echoes a call made 60 years ago when political and social pushback threatened to block the civil rights movement domestically, and the Cold War divided the world. Then President John F. Kennedy offered Americans his own inaugural challenge: “Ask not what your country can do for you — . . .

  by Marc Van Hala (India 1965-68)   When my decision to join the Peace Corps started to become reality, I had the feeling of swimming in a river, then suddenly being swept out to sea. Everything happened so quickly, even three months of training stateside, followed by a two-month delay brought about by a threat of war with a neighboring country, and I found myself struggling to keep my head above water. The Peace Corps recruited me to join a project called “Poultry / Rural Community Action.” They said I would be teaching farmers in India how to raise chickens and learn to build an income based on the sale of eggs. My project would not be the first, but the 16th to work in the country, and all 15 previous projects had shown great success. Purely by chance, the site I was assigned to had been developed as . . .

    By Jeff Walsh (South Africa 2016–18) “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela • March 1st, 1961 marks the 60 year anniversary of the United States Peace Corps. Over two generations ago, U.S. President John F. Kennedy asked idealistic young Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” On that historic day in March, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, sending 750 volunteers on a historic journey to 13 countries. Ghana and the African Continent were the very first to receive U.S. volunteers. Northwestern has certainly done its part as one of the top volunteer-producing universities in the U.S.. Since the Peace Corps’ inception, Northwestern has sent nearly 1,000 volunteers to serve overseas in the Peace Corps. I was sworn into the Peace Corps with my cohort of 37 in . . .

  Elaine Chao was briefly the Peace Corps Director, from October 1991 to November 1992. She was appointed by George H. W. Bush and held the position for about 13 months. She is famous for saying, when visiting a PCV in West Africa in the woman’s village, and seeing her mud hut, “Does your mother know how you’re living?” Chao was also well known for scheduling daily hair appointments when overseas, and for breaking down in tears when describing the conditions that PCVs lived in as Volunteers. It got so embarrassing for RPCVs listening to her laments, that they began laughing at her when she started crying. As Trump supporters would say, “Lock her up!” • Justice Department Declined to Pursue Ethics Inquiry Against Elaine Chao Final report by inspector general shows that investigators found no wrongdoing in some of the former transportation secretary’s actions. Elaine Chao ran the Transportation . . .

  My Life Since Asmara, Eritrea Leo Cecchini (Ethiopia 1962-64) • I was born and raised in Washington DC so was always surrounded by people from other lands. There are literally hundreds of embassies, consulates, cultural centers, international organizations, and foreign communities in DC from which one gathers an idea of the world. I recognized that man’s knowledge of the universe is rather limited but I could at least learn about our planet, its lands, and its people.  I set out to learn as much as possible about our world. By age ten I could not only name every state and its capital, but also every country in Europe and its capital. I wanted to see it all. My college work was heavy on geography with generous doses of world affairs and economics. I took the first opportunity out of college to learn about the world. The Peace Corps took me . . .

  WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), returned Peace Corps volunteer (Ethiopia 1966-1968) and co-chair of the Congressional Peace Corps Caucus, reintroduced the “Peace Corps Reauthorization Act.” The reintroduction coincides with the  60th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ founding by President John F. Kennedy, and the start of National Peace Corps Week. The bill’s original cosponsors include Representative Garret Graves (R-LA)—co-chair of the Congressional Peace Corps Caucus with Congressman Garamendi—and Representatives Grace Meng (D-NY), Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS), Dean Phillips (D-MN), Ed Case (D-HI), and Albio Sires (D-NJ). The bill is endorsed by the National Peace Corps Association and the National Whistleblower Center. Representative Garamendi (Ethiopia 1966-1968) is a returned Peace Corps volunteer and Representative Aumua Amata was a former Peace Corps staffer (Northern Mariana Islands 1967-1968). The “Peace Corps Reauthorization Act of 2021” would provide additional federal funding and resources to advance the Peace Corps’ mission around the . . .

  The Challenges Ahead As The Peace Corps Turns 60 an interview by Ryan Warner for ”Colorado Matters” of CPR News March 1, 2021 On March 1, 2021, Colorado Public Radio interviewed  RPCVs about their Peace Corps experiences. RPCV Hunter Herold, RPCV Dylon Evans and Calvin Brophy were evacuated last March and discussed the work they did, the friends they made, and the difficulty of  being evacuated  abruptly due to COVID-19. Then, RPCV Alana deJoseph, producer director of  the Peace Corps documentary “A Towering Task”, was interviewed about her service and how she sees the future of the Peace Corps. CLICK  to go to “The Challenges Ahead As The Peace Corps Turns 60,” then click on the “LISTEN NOW” orange rectangle in the upper right of the page to hear the program.    

  by Frank H. Tainter (Chile 1964-66) • My Peace Corps experience was the most profound event of my life and I still spend much time musing over that experience. As I approach 80 years of age, those two years have become even more sharply into focus. I was raised in the Midwest, primarily in a German/Polish cultural environment with a large splash of Scandinavian thrown in. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, and based on their life experiences, both constantly insisted that I go to college and get an education. I wanted to study forestry but was told that it was one of the most difficult majors as one had to take not just courses relating to forestry but in many other disciplines such as sociology, economics, and psychology. Eventually I left home and worked for a forestry degree at the University of Montana, earning a forestry . . .

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    By LARA WEBER (Zambia 2000-02) CHICAGO TRIBUNE | FEB 28, 2021   “Why should you, a white woman, go work in Africa?” The question was from an African American newsroom colleague, and it knocked me back. It was the late 1990s, and I had just announced that I was joining the Peace Corps, assigned to a remote public health post in Zambia, in southern Africa. I’d applied to the Peace Corps primarily to set aside my journalist’s notebook and experience life beyond my own bubble, to better understand the world by immersing myself in hands-on work. I liked the Peace Corps’ grassroots approach to development work — that we would be working as partners with local community members, not as “experts” or advisers. My colleague caught whiffs of neocolonialism. Neither of us used the terms “white savior” or “white privilege,” but that’s what we were talking about. Now, the . . .

  By Rick Dandes The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa. Feb. 28—At a time when the Peace Corps has suspended all operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic and recalled 7,300 volunteers from 60 countries — a first for the six-decade-old program — six former volunteers with Valley connections recall the value of their “life-changing” experiences and praised the virtues of the far-off locations where they served. Whether assigned to primitive villages in Africa in the 1980s, emerging democracies in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, or more recently to South America, they all joined the Peace Corps out of a desire to serve their country and to help people in need, using skills they already had or acquired in college. The Peace Corps will celebrate its 60th anniversary on Monday. Signed into existence by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961, the Peace Corps is a service organization with volunteers usually . . .

  By  Ghana News Agency  Feb 28, 2021   To say that the activities of US Peace Corps have made a tremendous impact in many communities across Ghana is an understatement. Ever since the first group of volunteers touched the soil of Ghana some six decades ago, many lives have been positively impacted and destinies changed for the good of society. The little things that make life better when done wholeheartedly in the midst of lack of resources and difficulties, leave indelible sweet memories on the minds of beneficiaries as their lives are touched in a very different but special way. So is the story of a large number of people who have had the opportunity to be served as United States Peace Corps Volunteers in Ghana. HISTORY The Peace Corps is an independent agency and volunteer programme run by the United States Government to provide International social and economic development . . .

    A Peace Corps Memory by Bonnie Black (Gabon 1996-98)   Sixty years ago, on March 1, 1961, President Kennedy — heartthrob to me and all of my fellow teenage girlfriends at the time — established the United States Peace Corps. I was not among the thousands of idealistic young people who flocked to answer JFK’s call to “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” and sign up for Peace Corps service. No. In characteristic glacial fashion, I took a lot longer. I was fifty years old when I joined. Looking back now, I can see it was a risky decision, for which I was rightly criticized by some friends and family. For one thing, if I hadn’t dropped out of the workforce for two years to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Gabon, Central Africa, from 1996-98 — and . . .

  by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64), editor • In mid-August 1961, Ghana I was ready for Ghana. Nobody was more pleasantly surprised than the Africanists, who at the outset had believed that it would take nearly two years to prepare the Volunteers adequately, given the fact of their youth, inexperience, Kennedy connection, and accompanying media hype. Too much, it was felt, hung on their performance. The Ghana I group, numbering fifty, had become “one”; there was an unspoken sense of being special due to their having been so closely associated with America’s top four people in African studies and the ever-attentive point man from Washington headquarters, Pat Kennedy, first Director of the Office of Peace Corps Volunteers. They hadn’t paused to absorb the daunting fact that they would be absolutely the first Volunteers (Tanganyika I had started and finished its training program earlier but would trail Ghana I to Africa . . .