Peace Corps Worldwide

    When Joseph Blatchford was appointed director of the Peace Corps in May of 1969 he brought with him a set of “New Directions” to improve the agency. Whether these directors were new or not is endlessly argued, but what was clear was this: Blatchford wanted skilled Volunteers, i.e. “blue-collar workers, experienced teachers, businessman and farmers.” While the Peace Corps has always found it difficult to recruit large numbers of such “skilled” Volunteers, Blatchford and his staff came up with the novel idea of recruiting married couples with children. One of the couple would be a Volunteer and the other (usually the wife) would be — in Peace Corps jargon — the “non-matrixed” spouse. The kids would just be kids. It would be in this way, Blatchford thought, that the Peace Corps could recruit older, more mature, experienced, and skilled PCVs. And the Peace Corps would stop being just . . .

   David G. Schickele first presented his retrospective view of Volunteer service in a speech given at Swarthmore College in 1963 that was printed in the Swarthmore College Bulletin. At the time, there was great interest on college campuses about the Peace Corps and early RPCVs were frequently asked to write or speak on their college campuses about their experiences. A 1958 graduate of Swarthmore, Schickele worked as a freelance professional violinist before joining the Peace Corps in 1961. After his tour, he would, with Roger Landrum make a documentary film on the Peace Corps in Nigeria called “Give Me A Riddle” that was intended for Peace Corps recruitment, but was never really used by the agency. The film was perhaps too honest a representation of Peace Corps Volunteers life overseas and the agency couldn’t handle it. However, the Peace Corps did pick up Schickele’s essay from the Swarthmore College Bulletin and reprinted . . .

Peace Corps is expanding the Virtual Service Pilot Project to include 25 countries.  The Virtual Service Pilot team reports it sent emails, with information specific to the host country, to RPCVS who served in each of these countries.   From the Virtual Service Pilot Project team: “As this is a pilot initiative, information is limited. We do have FAQs that provide some information. RPCVs from participating countries, of which there are 25, who have current/updated information in the Peace Corps database were sent the opportunities directly to their email addresses.  If you would like to encourage RPCVs to engage in virtual service please ask them to check their emails for virtual service opportunities.    If RPCVs are unsure if their information is current in the Peace Corps databased, please encourage them to update their contact information here.” The team also reported: “There are only a limited number of positions for virtual service available, and not all who . . .

For a short period of time in the very first years of the Peace Corps all Volunteers were given booklockers by the agency. The lockers were meant to provide leisure reading for the PCVs and then to be left behind in schools, villages, and towns where they served. There is some mystery as to who first thought of the lockers and one rumor has it that the idea came from Sarge Shriver’s wife, Eunice. It is believed that the books were selected for the first locker by a young Foreign Service officer. A second selection was done in 1964, and that same year Jack Prebis (Ethiopia 1962-64) was made responsible for the 3rd edition of the locker that was assembled in the fall and winter of 1965. Here is the late Jack Prebis’ account of creating the locker for all PCVs at that time.   DEVELOPING THE Peace Corps booklocker . . .

These three announcemnts describe Peace Corps’ Virtual Service Pilot Program. It is hoped that a more comprehensive description will be published soon. “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 their skills and host country partner needs. “Feedback from everyone involved has been overwhelmingly positive, and we have learned a great deal about how we can continue to be of service to our host countries from thousands of miles away,” said Director Olsen. “I . . .

    In the early days of the Peace Corps there was a Placement Test given to all applicants. Actually it was two tests. A 30-minute General Aptitude Test and a 30-minute Modern Language Aptitude Test. The areas of testing were in Verbal Aptitude, Agriculture, English, Health Sciences, Mechanical Skills, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, World History, Literature, United States History and Institutions, and Modern Language Aptitude. One-hour achievement tests in French and Spanish were also offered during the second hour. The instruction pamphlet that accompanied the tests said that the results would be used “to help find the most appropriate assignment for each applicant.” For those who missed the opportunity to take the tests, which were given — as best I can remember — from 1961 until around 1967, I am including a few of the questions. Lets see if you could still get into the Peace Corps.1. Verbal Aptitude . . .

    THOSE OF US WHO follow the history of the Peace Corps agency know the term “peace corps” came to public attention during the 1960 presidential election. In one of JFK’s last major speeches before the November election, he called for the creation of a “Peace Corps” to send volunteers to work at the grassroots level in the developing world. However, the question remains: who said (or wrote) “peace corps” for the very first time? Was it Kennedy? Was it his famous speechwriter Ted Sorensen? Or Sarge himself? But — as in most situations — the famous term came about because of some young kid, usually a writer, working quietly away in a back office that dreams up the language. In this case the kid was a graduate student between degrees who was working for the late senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Today, sixty years after the establishment of the . . .

  I Let me start with a quote from Gerard T. Rice’s book, The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps: In 1961 John F. Kennedy took two risky and conflicting initiatives in the Third World. One was to send five hundred additional military advisers into South Vietnam; by 1963 there would be seventeen thousand such advisers. The other was to send five hundred young Americans to teach in the schools and work in the fields of eight developing countries. These were Peace Corps Volunteers. By 1963 there would be seven thousand of them in forty-four countries. Vietnam scarred the American psyche, leaving memories of pain and defeat. But Kennedy’s other initiative inspired and continued to inspire, hope and understanding among Americans and the rest of the world. In that sense, the Peace Corps was his most affirmative and enduring legacy. Historical Framework Gerry Rice, in The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps, . . .

  FRANK, Murray Walter Age 93, died peacefully at his home in Jamaica Plain on January 3. Murray was born February 17, 1927 in the Bronx. He and his brother Arnold were raised by their parents Jacob and Elizabeth (Neitlich) in an orthodox Jewish home. Murray lived a productive life, his endeavors unified by striving for a more just society. He served in the Pacific during World War II. Afterwards he went to New York University on the GI Bill. There he joined the Student Division of the World Federalists, embracing post-war idealism in the spirit of the United Nations. He took a gap year to organize for the group, launching a lifetime of social engagement. He earned a masters degree in social work at Columbia University in 1954. In 1956, he married Ginna (deConingh); they moved to Chicago, where he worked at a settlement house. In 1961, he joined . . .

F. Kingston Berlew Date of Death: February 21, 2021 Date of Birth: April 9, 1930 Biography: F. Kingston Berlew passed away peacefully on February 21st, 2021 in Topsham, Maine. King is survived by his brother David, son Derek and daughter Sarah. He was predeceased by his wife Jeanne of 64 years. King, son of Herman and Lillian Berlew was born in 1930 in Bangor, Maine. He grew up in Orono on the banks of the Penobscot River. He married Jeanne, the love of his life, in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1952. He proposed to Jeanne by sending her a box of stationery with Mr. and Mrs. F. Kingston Berlew printed on it for a Christmas present. King’s Mother was horrified by this and immediately dispatched him to Amherst to propose in person. Upon arrival, he threw snowballs at Jeanne’s window to get her attention and then proposed properly. He attended Wesleyan . . .

  In 2013, Kyle Henning, a recent PCV in Ethiopia, rode his bike from Lake Assal in Djibouti to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds and public awareness for The New Day Children’s Centre in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Called Low2High: Africa, the expedition topped off his Peace Corps tour as an HIV/AIDS PCV in Ethiopia. Kyle is publishing a book about his journey entitled, From Afar, and also has 11 UTube videos of his journey from Dijouti, through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I interviewed Kyle about his Peace Corps tour and his bike trip through East Africa. JC  Kyle, where did you go to college? I am originally from the Buffalo, NY area. Prior to my Peace Corps service, I studied music at SUNY Fredonia with a focus on string bass. After completing my Peace Corps service, I earned a degree in Homeland Security Studies from Tulane University in . . .

Visit the Museum’s website at: https://www.museumofthepeacecorpsexperience.org/cpages/home ALERT! Help us collect Peace Corps posters, particularly posters published by the Peace Corps agency, for a summer 2022 exhibit. If you have Peace Corps posters, please email  contactus@peacecorpsmuseum.org The Peace Corps poster exhibit will be installed at ArtReach Gallery in Portland OR summer 2022. March was a busy and fulfilling month at the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. We hope you were able to join with us in celebrating 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Executive Order creating Peace Corps, March 1, 1961. This newsletter brings you an overview of our March 3 exhibition opening Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Peace Corps Experience and the March 31 webinar Peace Corps 2.0: A Symposium. The exhibition and two events celebrate Peace Corps founding, preserve its history, consider its impact, and encourage discussions about its future. This newsletter offers a story . . .

  David Hibbard (Nigeria 1961-63) died peacefully at home on 7 April, surrounded byhis loving wife, Chris, and their beloved children and grandchildren. David lived gracefully for the last 14 years with Parkinson’s and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He lived a life of service, from being in the very first Peace Corps group in Nigeria, and as a Peace Corps doctor in India (1967-69), to practicing family and hospice medicine.  David was inspired as a young man by JFK and embodied the spirit of ‘’Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’’ He graduated from Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve Medical School and the University of North Carolina where he earned his Public Health degree, and then received a Ford Foundation grant to work at Chogoria Hospital in Kenya. David and his wife Chris were married in 1980 and together founded the . . .