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National Peace Corps Association > News > Polyglot > Peace Corps Pakistan Group Ready to Help Again
Peace Corps Pakistan Group Ready to Help Again
By Erica Burman on Monday, August 23rd, 2010
The news from Pakistan seems to get worse each day. Comparisons are being made to the devastation wrought by the Asian tsunami of 2004.
For one group the photos and stories strike particularly close to home: Friends of Pakistan USA, a National Peace Corps Association member group.
Most Americans would be surprised to know that Peace Corps Volunteers once served in Pakistan—but they did. A total of 517 Volunteers served in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from 1961 to 1965 and in West Pakistan (now Pakistan) from 1961-1967. (Volunteers also served in Pakistan from 1988-1991.)
It’s a small but tight knit group that was founded in the aftermath of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. In 2008 they decided to focus on an area that would provide maximum longterm benefit to the country, namely education for girls. Working through The Citizen’s Foundation, the group has committed itself to raising $2,000 per year for five years to fund scholarships for ten Pakistani girls at the TCF Girls Secondary School in Phengali, Pakistan. Last summer three FOPUSA members traveled to Pakistan to implement science camps for 1,000 students at the school.
Now they are springing to action once more. As stated in their most recent newsletter, “Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who have served in Pakistan understand well what this [disaster] means—mudwalled homes melted away, livestock drowned, crops destroyed, water supplies polluted, even orchards uprooted—in the more productive fruit-growing area of Pakistan.”
Members of Friends of Pakistan have responded immediately by investigating relief agencies, urging donations online to those that have effective operations in Pakistan, and voting to send $1,000 in current FOPUSA funds to Pakistan. In addition, the group is drafting a letter to the USAID administrator with their ideas for developing more effective monitoring and accountability of future USAID projects in Pakistan.
The group is very interested in locating more Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Pakistan. You can learn more about FOPUSA and the work they are doing by visiting the FOPUSA website.
All,
Barack And Hillary need to be much tougher. Use the best diplomacy with conviction. Pakistan military and our aid agencies must be expected to provide real transparency (accountability and monitoring) of any of our $$$$$ aid. This must be an up front arrangement and details established.. We can’t continue to politically compromise between sincerity\ effective grass roots livelihood development and paying off the obvious living-in-their-own-world Pakistan generals and parliament members who have not guts or no real interest to help their own people help themselves.
Next week I will be In Islamabad and again I wiil likely see many more row after row of multi million dollar/ RS gated residences funded by our international aid!!
Let there be no mistake, fear for self/ family safety as well as no accountability for the $$$ is the cause for such corruption and misuses. The bandits are internal. Fundamental or fanatic Islam plays little role. The Pakistanii people on the streets and in the villages understand and many think we are fools for letting our leaders allow such.
Ken Choquette begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting , Friends of Pakistan member.
Regarding the paper (i.e., letter being drafted) mentioned in the next to the last paragraph in Erica’s article: We have submitted a position paper to USAID through various Congresspersons; in that paper, we advocate that there could be greater accountability of USAID monies if a few basic principles were met, starting with generating project ownership at the grassroots levels through the practice of community development that so many of us learned as Peace Corps volunteers. We know of at least two of the papers making their ways, we hope, through the innards of USAID. We would welcome your interest. If you’d like to read the paper, let us know.
Sandra Houts [email protected]