Peace Corps Worldwide

    Loret Miller Ruppe’s Speech March 1-3, 1996   WHAT A GREAT HONOR to be here with all my fellow Directors — John Dellenback, who always warned me never to threaten to resign; Kevin O’Donnell, who has always given to Peace Corps; and Jack Hogan, who never lets anyone land a glove on Peace Corps. I am grateful to every Director. All of them helped me. First in line was Sargent Shriver, the Director of Directors — a man always with a vision. The Peace Corps is needed now more than ever. It is our nation’s greatest peace-building machine, which serves overseas and then brings it all back home. Charlie McCormick is here from Save the Children, as well as other great private volunteer organizations. And Senator Nancy Kassebaum, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer mother and a strong supporter, who just flew back from Africa, visiting eight countries in . . .

This is an excellent summary of Peace Corps today.  The RPCV community is discussing the  current status of the Peace Corps and its future. This  is a good review of  Peace Corps today by the reputable Congressional Research Service.  Here is the Introduction and the link to the complete report: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21168.pdf “The Peace Corps: Overview and Issues Updated February 25, 2021 Founded in 1961, the Peace Corps pursues a legislative mandate of promoting world peace and friendship by sending American volunteers to serve at the grassroots level in all corners of the world. In September 2019, there were 7,334 volunteers serving in 61 nations. In March 2020, all volunteers were evacuated and programs suspended as a result of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Data in this report reflect status of the Peace Corps volunteer force prior to its March 2020 evacuation. The agency has announced plans to restart programs . . .

    The Mending Fields by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975–76)   I WAS ASSIGNED to the Island of Saint Kit in the West Indies. Once on an inter-island plane, I sat across the aisle from one of my new colleagues, an unfriendly, overserious young woman. She was twenty-four, twenty-five . . . we were all twenty-four, twenty-five. I didn’t know her much or like her. As the plane banked over the island, she pressed against the window, staring down at the landscape. I couldn’t see much of her face, just enough really to recognize an expression of pain. Below us spread an endless manicured lawn, bright green and lush of sugarcane, the island’s main source of income. Each field planted carefully to control erosion. Until that year, Saint Kit’s precious volcanic soil had been bleeding into the sea; somehow they had resolved the problem. The crop was now being . . .

FUTURE PEACE CORPS? By Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Lately there has been a slew of articles about the Peace Corps and change. Some authors describe rising assaults on volunteers. Others discuss the lack of adequate medical compensation for returning volunteers. For decades, many have criticized the program itself: recruitment, job placement, purpose and bureaucracy. None of them analyze a simple fact: America and Americans are not perceived as they were in 1961. Sixteen years after the end of the Second World War, we were perceived as the Great Liberators. That seems to have changed. Now, we are often seen as the Evil Empire and volunteers as stormtroopers. Today there are no volunteers in the field. This might be an opportune moment to revise the Peace Corps mission. Maybe it should be a simple post-graduate exchange between nations. For example, we send them an architect and they send us an . . .

The Peace Corps site has a new item:  It is a newsletter with current information about Peace Corps.  I had posted more information about the site, which is not secure.  However, because of an abundance of caution. I have deleted the identifying information. There is a developing story that the State Department has been “hacked” by foreign powers.  Peace Corps is an independent agency within the State Department, but I think it just  prudent to wait and see. We will repost when the site is secure.  

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Marty Burns (Somalia 1963-65)   Charles R. Larson was a pioneering scholar of African literature in the United States. By Emily Langer Washington Post May 26, 2021   By his own account, Charles R. Larson knew almost nothing of Africa — not even where Nigeria was located — when he arrived in the West African nation in 1962 with one of the first cohorts of Peace Corps volunteers. What little knowledge he had came from two books by Nigerian writers that he read in preparation for his experience, Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and “The Palm-Wine Drinkard” by Amos Tutuola. A budding literary scholar, Dr. Larson planned, upon completion of his Peace Corps service, to pursue a doctorate in American literature. But “Nigeria totally altered my worldview, mostly by showing me the failure of my earlier education,” he later recalled. “Not only did I begin reading . . .

  During one of his memorable speeches, President JFK declared, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” This speech marked the beginning of the Peace Corps program in the United States, which in turn led a young American to my small farming village of Agadji in Togo, West Africa. This young American sponsored me into the United States in June of 1989, a fulfillment in itself of my father’s secretly held dream to see one of his children educated in an English-speaking country, better yet in the United States of America. Education has always been very important to my father because he was denied that opportunity due to being an orphan at a very young age. He wished to attend school and become a lawyer or doctor, but instead, he was forced to become a farmer and eventually one of . . .

  Rwanda is one of Africa’s smallest and most densely populated countries, and one of its most diverse. Nicknamed “Land of A Thousand Hills,” Rwanda is blanketed with rolling farmland that produces some of Africa’s best coffee and tea. Volcanoes National Park is home to mountain gorillas in the higher elevations and golden monkeys down below, while the Nyungwe National Park rainforest contains playful black-and-white colobus monkeys and sources of both the Nile and Congo Rivers. Close encounters with the gorillas and monkeys on treks led by park rangers are among Africa’s exhilarating wildlife experiences. Throughout the country are memorials to the victims of the genocide in spring 1994, during which up to a million residents, largely of the Tutsi ethnic group, were massacred by ethnic Hutu extremists. Offsetting the trauma that still exists is the resilience of Rwanda’s warm and outgoing population. Their desire for stability and solidarity is . . .

  Peace Corps is excited to inform you of an opportunity to engage in virtual service. For the past six months, Peace Corps has been testing the feasibility of virtual service with great success.  To date, 100 Virtual Service Pilot Participants (VSPPs) have engaged in virtual service in 20 countries.  Participants and their Host Country Partners report high levels of accomplishment and satisfaction which has prompted Peace Corps to create more opportunities. The Virtual Service Pilot (VSP) is a distinct opportunity.  Participants in the VSP are not PCVs or PCRVs; rather participants are private citizens who donate their time by engaging virtually to contribute to the mission of the Peace Corps as private citizens while maintaining other commitments such as work or school. As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) or Returned Peace Corps Response Volunteer (RPCRV) from Ethiopia you are eligible to be considered for the opportunity to engage remotely . . .

The Virtual Service application is specific for each different country.  Peace Corps is sending out the information  only  to RPCVs with current contact information with Peace Corps, who served in the specific country.   Not all countries have Virtual Service programs. RPCVs should check their contact information with Peace Corps or add their contact  information using this link: https://rpcvportal.peacecorps.gov“

He went — in the way the Peace Corps rolls the dice of our lives — to Africa as a teacher. “My schoolroom is on the Great Rift, and in this schoolroom there is a line of children, heads shaved liked prisoners, muscles showing through their rags,” he wrote home in 1964. “These children appear in the morning out of the slowly drifting hoops of fog-wisp. It is chilly, almost cold. There is no visibility at six in the morning; only a fierce white-out where earth is the patch of dirt under their bare feet, a platform, and the sky is everything else.” How many of us stood in front of similar classrooms and saw those young faces arriving with the dawn? How many of us could have written the same sentiments — though not the same sentences — home? And how many of us wanted to be the writer . . .

From Peace Corps “May 20, 2021 • 158 Peace Corps Response volunteers to begin service in five states, marking the second time in the agency’s history that volunteers will serve domestically DALLAS, TX – On Wednesday, 158 Peace Corps Response volunteers took the oath of office to assist the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in their vaccine distribution efforts. Following a week of training in Dallas, the volunteers have departed to begin their mission assignments with FEMA in Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey and Oregon. “COVID-19 has exposed gaping divides in privilege, access and opportunity – not only in the countries where the Peace Corps serves, but also in the U.S.” said Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn. “Our Volunteers will use the skills, grit and passion for service they honed overseas to help reach underserved populations here at home. We are proud to partner with FEMA on this critical . . .

  Shanelle France (H-WS ’11) Reflects on Peace Corps Service By Mary Warner ’21 on May 19th, 2021   In conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the Peace Corps, Shanelle France ’11 reflects on her service in Lesotho and her journey to becoming a teacher.     Even as a high school student, Shanelle France ’11 was interested in joining the Peace Corps. At Hobart and William Smith, she found a community dedicated to civic engagement, opportunities to become a civic leader, and support as she pursued her goal of global citizenship and service. France says her HWS mentors were instrumental in helping her prepare for the Peace Corps.  Surrounded by “a wealth of knowledge, experience and support” as a student at the Colleges, France says, she is grateful for the advice of President Emeritus and Former Director of the Peace Corps Mark D. Gearan L.H.D. ’17, P’21, Professor of Africana Studies Thelma . . .