Peace Corps Worldwide

April 22, 2021 “USA Today recently published an article on sexual assault experienced by volunteers during their service. To those volunteers who have told their stories about sexual assault in the Peace Corps: I am so very sorry for the trauma you have experienced. You have each shown tremendous courage, and I am grateful that you have come forward. “These are devastating stories, and the agency is working to get to the root of the very serious issues that were raised. “As we approach the return to service of volunteers, we are intensifying and cementing our commitment to mitigating risk, wherever possible, and providing victim-centered and trauma-informed support to sexual assault survivors. We must always be an agency that empowers survivors and tears down barriers to reporting, services and care. “As the new Acting Director of the agency and a returned volunteer myself, I am personally committed to ensuring the following . . .

    On its 60th anniversary, a moment of reckoning arrives for the nation’s globe-trotting volunteers By Miranda Moore (Uganda 2009–11) SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE MAY 2021   In March 2020, at the start of Covid-19 lockdowns, as flights were grounded and people around the world sheltered in place, 7,000-odd Peace Corps volunteers serving in 61 nations came home to an uncertain future. Many worried that the Peace Corps might even have to shut down permanently. That hasn’t happened, but the nation’s foremost global volunteer organization has no volunteers in the field for the first time since its founding 60 years ago. Practicing a uniquely American blend of idealism and realpolitik, the agency was conceived in October 1960, when Senator John F. Kennedy made a 2 a.m. campaign speech at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Kennedy, then running for president, challenged 10,000 students assembled outside the Student Union to use their . . .

  by Neil Boyer (Ethiopia 1962-64) April 18, 2021 • After I returned from Ethiopia, where I had served in the Peace Corps from 1962 to 1964, I went to work at Peace Corps headquarters on Lafayette Square in Washington. Harris Wofford had recruited some former volunteers in Ethiopia and other places to work with him on his seemingly limitless ideas. I helped him and others flesh out the idea of creating a “reverse peace corps” that would bring teachers and social workers from other countries to work in the United States. It was exactly a reverse of the Peace Corps concept, with volunteers selected by sending countries and supervised and administered by receiving agencies in the United States. Argentina would choose and send volunteers, for example, and US officials in OEO, the Department of Education and private agencies would supervise them. The program was called Volunteers TO America (VTA). . . .

  To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. Over 170 awards have been given since that time. The awards are: The Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award The Maria Thomas Fiction Award The Award for Best Peace Corps Memoir The Award for Best Book of Poetry The Award for Best Short Story Collection The Award for Best Travel Book The Rowland Scherman Award for Best Photography Book The Marian Haley Beil Award for the Best Book Review The Award for Best Children’s Book about a Peace Corps Country Other Awards Send your nomination(s) to John Coyne at jcoyneone@gmail.com (You may nominate your own book. Make sure you are nominating a book that was published in . . .

The Work We Have to Do One year ago the Peace Corps community was rallying to help thousands of evacuated Volunteers — and many were diving in to help their communities in crisis. Now in 2021, we’re working to bolster support for the most comprehensive Peace Corps legislation in decades — which will shape a better and stronger Peace Corps for the future. We’re calling on the Peace Corps community to raise their voices and make sure that we enlist the support of more members of Congress than ever before in this effort. This week we’re also celebrating the fact that a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer has stepped into a role to lead long-needed reforms in the State Department: Career diplomat Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, who began her service to this country as a Volunteer in Oman, has been named the first-ever chief diversity and inclusion officer. If we want our diplomatic corps to . . .

announcement from Arizona State University “Volunteers from the Phoenix Peace Corps Association and the Arizona State University community came together April 3 to build dozens of portable, digital SolarSPELL libraries. The small devices are powered by a solar panel connected to a rechargeable battery and a tiny computer built by Raspberry Pi. The small containers cast a Wi-Fi signal that allows any user to connect a smartphone, tablet or computer in areas with no telecommunciation infrastructure, and the libraries are loaded with relevant, localized educational information. The batch of devices assembled and tested at the Polytechnic campus — the first build day since the pandemic began — are destined for an Ethiopian refugee community; future build days will focus on building the libraries for Peace Corps partnerships so serving Peace Corps volunteers can carry them to communities worldwide and further their work. SolarSPELL, which is short for Solar Powered Educational Learning Library, is a student-centered . . .

  The RPCV Oral History Project was begun by Robert Klein (Ghana I) more than twenty years ago.  After his death in 2012, RPCVs continued his work, collaborating with the JFK Library and now the University of Kentucky.  The Oral History Project is a NPCA Affiliate group.  All RPCVs are eligible to participate. The Oral History team includes RPCVs Evelyn Ganzglass, Pat Wand, and Cedar Wolf. To learn more about the archive CLICK HERE Here is more information from the Oral History Project newsletter: “Over the past few months, we’ve been focusing primarily on two topics: COVID-19 Evacuees, and Many Faces Peace Corps. We have interviewed 60 PCVs who were evacuated from their sites due to Peace Corps suspension of programs in March 2020.  The Many Faces of Peace Corps collection focuses on the diverse Peace Corps community, particularly those from under-represented populations.  Excerpts of some of those interviews have been compiled into . . .

  The University of Kentucky is the home of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History.  It has now partnered with the RPCV Oral History Project. Here is the story from University of Kentucky’s Campus News. • LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 2, 2021) — On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order that established the Peace Corps as a volunteer agency in the U.S Department of State. Sixty years later, as the agency celebrates its diamond anniversary, University of Kentucky Libraries’ Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History is continuing its work with local and national partners to preserve many of the stories and experiences of the more than 241,000 Americans who have served in the Peace Corps. From stories of volunteers evacuated from their host countries at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to accounts from some of the first groups to volunteer with the . . .