The Peace Corps

  Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers had no time to prepare their communities for their emergency departure. That loss has been described  many times by  the Evacuated RPCVs.  Now, Peace Corps has developed a pilot program to help 45 ERPCVs to reconnect with their communities. There are plans to expand the program. Here is the link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/evacuated-volunteers-participate-virtual-service-pilot-program/ Read the announcement Evacuated Volunteers Participate in Virtual Service Pilot Program December 18, 2020 WASHINGTON – Peace Corps Director Jody K. Olsen announced the completion of the first phase of the agency’s new Virtual Service Pilot program, which connected host country communities with returned volunteers who were evacuated due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nine posts participated in the first phase of an 11-week pilot. A total of 45 returned volunteers donated their time voluntarily serving as private citizens to conduct virtual engagements with our host country partners and, were selected based on a match between . . .

  CNN and Washington Post among others are reporting that Trump won’t be welcomed back in Palm Beach. Larry Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) author of many books, including Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace was interviewed for today’s CNN report. Here is an edited version of what Trump and his current wife are facing when they pack their bags and grab a cab for the National Airport to fly ‘home’. • West Palm Beach-based attorney Reginald Stambaugh wrote to Palm Beach officials on Tuesday saying that Trump has already violated the agreement for visitor stays at Mar-a-Lago, noting the President’s plans to move to the club in January. The letter was first reported by The Washington Post. “It is the Town Council’s responsibility to right these wrongs and restore safety and security to the neighborhood by upholding its Use Agreement,” Stambaugh wrote. “In order to avoid . . .

More…   Heather Arney (Mauritania  2000-02), Kansas City, graduated from Wagner College, NYC with a degree in business management. After a job search that left her quite dissatisfied, she joined the Peace Corp to do something more meaningful. Heather worked with micro-finance, girl’s education, and played in a band that sang about AIDS awareness. From her early years in the Peace Corps, Heather has had an interest in microfinance. This paired with her constant pursuit of knowledge strengthens Heather’s role as the Senior Manager of Water.org’s Insights and Innovation team. Heather leads the team to create a robust evidence base that compels action to catalyze affordable financing for safe water and sanitation solutions. President and Co-founder of Girls to School, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting girls’ education and facilitating microfinance in West Africa. Enabled more than 800 girls to attend high-quality schools and linked their mothers to self-help groups that . . .

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Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Dale Gilles (Liberia 1964-67)   White House trade adviser RPCV Peter Navarro’s criticism of Biden and Harris found to be a violation of Hatch Act White House trade adviser Peter Navarro (Thailand 1972-75) has become the latest Trump administration official found to have violated the Hatch Act, a federal law prohibiting federal employees from engaging in certain political activities. In a report made public Monday, a government watchdog, the Office of Special Counsel, said Navarro violated the law when he made political comments, “disparaging” then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris in television interviews while appearing in his official capacity. The report found Navarro had also disparaged Mr. Biden on Twitter. Moreover, Navarro continued to violate the Hatch Act after he learned OSC was investigating him for just that, the report said. “Dr. Navarro’s violations of the Hatch Act were knowing and . . .

In 1994, a Peace Corps Volunteer named Christopher Davenport settled into the Eastern Highlands to live with a group of subsistence farmers.  He began to learn the language and develop a strong sense of connection with his inherited family.  One day, following the death of a venerated elder, the people of the village kidnap, torture, and ultimately kill a local woman accused of practicing sorcery. Devastated, Christopher tries to reconcile this unspeakable act with the welcoming and nurturing community he has come to love. But in trying to comprehend what he has witnessed through the lens of Western sensibilities, Christopher is unable to find the answers he seeks. Instead, he is left with one universal question: How do we continue to love someone who has done the unthinkable? In this true story, Davenport gives a considerate but courageously honest depiction of his transformative experience. He asks difficult questions about the role . . .

  Once in a Blood Moon by Dorothea Hubble Bonneau (Tanzania 1966-68)is the winner of the  2020 American Fiction Award. The novel tells the story of an African American heiress of a prosperous plantation flees for her life when her mother dies and her father is murdered by racists eager to seize her estate. It is a novel that is set in 1807 on the Heaven Hill Plantation, upriver from Georgetown, South Carolina, and sixteen-year-old Alexandra Degambia walks a tightrope stretched between her parents’ ambitions. Her father, a prosperous planter, wants to preserve the heritage of his African ancestors. But her mother, who can pass for white, seeks to distance herself from her African roots and position herself in the elite society of wealthy free-women-of-color. Alexandra, however, has dreams of establishing her own place in the world as an accomplished violinist. She assumes her talent and her family’s wealth will pave . . .

  In the current issue of The New Yorker (December 7, 2020) is a short story by Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) entitled “Dietrologia”. (DYET-troh-loh-GEE-ah). Dietrologic is a fairly recent entry in Italian vocabulary, only a few decades old. It means “behindology.” The word, which is often used with skepticism and even derision, describes the mental habits of the practicioner of this non-science, the dietrologo who regularly sees something behind events as they are presented. We call this “paranoia.” (p 58)   Paul also has a novel coming out in April entitled Under the Wave at Waimea The plot: Now in his sixties, big-wave surfer Joe Sharkey has passed his prime and is losing his “stoke.” The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still call him the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere. When Joe accidentally hits and kills a man near Waimea while driving home . . .

The story behind one group’s grassroots effort to do just that   by Shanna Loga (Morocco 2006-08) An Injustice!  Sep 2020 • For many Americans, the Peace Corps is a treasured institution. It represents the idealism, generosity, and curiosity of our nation and symbolizes our spirit of humanitarianism. We imagine bright-eyed volunteers selflessly digging wells in Cameroon or teaching English in Ecuador. With its founding by JFK and its current mission of “promoting world peace and friendship,” the Peace Corps holds a special reverence in the national consciousness. Objectively, the Peace Corps is an independent US government agency and volunteer program. Peace Corps volunteers receive three months of in-country, international training before serving two-year terms abroad in sectors including agriculture, community economic development, education, environment, health, and youth development. The population of volunteers skews young, white, and female: the average age is 26, 65% are female, and 66% are white. Volunteers work alongside . . .

  A Critical Review of Wendy Melillo’s, Democracy’s Adventure Hero on a New Frontier: Bridging Language in the Ad Council’s Peace Corps Campaign, 1961-1970 published by Taylor & Francis Online by William Josephson Retired Partner, Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP Founding Counsel, Peace Corps, 1961-66 Ms. Wendy Melillo’s, Democracy’s Adventure Hero to a New Frontier: Bridging Language in the Ad Council’s Peace Corps Campaign, 1961-1970, begins with the assertion that the Peace Corps “would be the only new proposal to emerge from a tight race in which the Massachusetts Senator [John F. Kennedy] won the popular vote by a slim margin.”  Yet, subsequently, she acknowledges his commitment to rethink Mutual Security military and foreign aid programs of the 1950s.  She never mentions Kennedy’s commitment to close the “missile gap.”  Although she mentions Sputnik, she does not mention his commitment to catch up to the Soviet Union in the . . .

  “A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps” Alana DeJoseph Raising the Bar From Quaint to Crucial BY JOAN MEAD-MATSUI NOVEMBER 4, 2020 • Being a returned Peace Corps volunteer herself, Alana DeJoseph, producer, director, videographer, and editor, couldn’t help but think that an in-depth, comprehensive Peace Corps documentary was needed. “Peace Corps Film Director Reflects” ignites future discussions about the significant role the Peace Corps has played in the world with an eye on the future. Alana’s “A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps,” a film she directed, follows the agency’s beginnings, first volunteers, and evolution in a style that will capture your heart and remind you how we can make a positive difference in our world. Alana’s heart has always been in documentaries. She has worked in video and film production for more than 30 years and while reflecting on her experiences in the . . .

  Published in Writers on the Range   When “All in the Family” hit the TV screens in 1971, the war in Vietnam was raging, cities from Washington, D.C., to Detroit, were charred from riots in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, and many young people like me were leaving those cities, moving West to rural America. Archie Bunker stayed in Queens, where a “bar was a man’s castle,” while daughter Gloria and son-in-law “Meathead” tried to help Archie grasp hippies and anti-war protests. We called ours the “back to the land” movement, and we chuckled with Meathead as Archie Bunker got chuckles from our dads. But we were done watching “Leave it to Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet.” Our flexible families were radically changing. Well, the family has changed again, and, I’d argue that my own, occasionally dysfunctional family is closer to what’s happening in America now than . . .