(Photo courtest of Peace Corps)

Noncompetitive eligibility (NCE) is a fantastic hiring status given to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) upon their completion of service (COS). It allows (but does not require) federal agencies to hire RPCVs with NCE who meet the minimum qualifications of a job quickly and easily (i.e., without posting announcements and screening/interviewing candidate via the traditional, competitive process). While NCE is granted to RPCVs for one year after COS, it can be extended for up to three years for academic study, military service, or (and this is the part many RPCVs and employers underestimate), if RPCVs are engaged in any activities which, “in the view of the appointing authority, warrant an extension of such period.”

“Most of the calls we field daily are from RPCVs who mistakenly think the Peace Corps can extend NCE (it’s up to the hiring agency to do this) or from federal employers who ask – ‘Can it really be this easy?’ said Eileen Conoboy, Director of the Office of Third Goal and Returned Volunteer Services at the Peace Corps.  “That’s why we created a one-stop-shop last year to demystify NCE and help both RPCVs and employers better understand how they can leverage this hiring mechanism for their mutual benefit.” The www.peacecorps.gov/nce site has FAQs and other resources for RPCVs as well as an “Everything You Need to Know about Noncompetitive Eligibility” guide for federal agencies to reassure employers that, yes, it really is that easy!

RPCV Maggie Rudick (The Gambia, 2008-2010) is just one of many RPCVs who have leveraged NCE to land a federal job. She secured her position as an Environmental Protection Specialist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through her attendance at the February 2011 National RPCV Career Fair in Washington, D.C. Her current boss was at the fair, specifically collecting résumés from RPCVs with NCE status because they were looking to hire quickly. “Having NCE status made it easier for me to set up informational interviews and network among other RPCVs throughout different agencies,” said Maggie.

The Peace Corps’ Office of Third Goal and Returned Volunteer Services and NPCA are working together to help promote a better understanding of NCE among RPCVs and employers, and to increase career opportunities for RPCVs. Recently NPCA, along with the Peace Corps employees union, sent a letter to Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams asking the agency to explore ways to strengthen the benefit for Returned Volunteers. You can read the reply here.

Note: Returned Volunteer Services (RVS) is offering a free NCE webinar for PCVs and RPCVs on Thursday, May 24^th at 1 p.m. EST. To register visit, www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/events.

The talent and experience possessed by each NCE hire is exceptional.More importantly, each RPCV … brings a uniquely global perspective and commitment to the agency’s mission of eradicating employment discrimination. Our relationship with the Peace Corps has been remarkable, and our successful recruiting efforts have set a benchmark for EEOC offices nationwide. Without exception, partnering with the Peace Corps … continues to be a win-win situation.”

- Debra Wilson-Sumbry, District Resources Manager, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Many of us joined the Peace Corps because of the incredible Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) that we met along the way.  And often much of the success we’ve had as Volunteers has been thanks to those people too.

Last month Travis Hellstrom launched a worldwide online course called Peace Corps 101 to bring those incredible people together, give them a forum to talk in real-time no matter where they might be on the planet, and collect their wisdom and enthusiasm together in one (recordable) place. It’s founded on a simple idea: alone we may go quickly but together we can go far.

After six weeks, the class finished up on May 10th and had included current applicants, recruiters, serving Volunteers, former Peace Corps staff, National Peace Corps Association staff and RPCVs from every background imaginable. Peace Corps 101 covered the entire Peace Corps experience from applying to coming home and being part of the worldwide Peace Corps family. After attending class Kevin Quigley, President of the National Peace Corps Association, wrote,

“In an exemplary Peace Corps fashion, in Peace Corps 101 Travis Hellstrom has wedded together an innovative on-line platform and the traditional Volunteer passion to make a difference into an invaluable resource for serving and returned Peace Corps volunteers. The entire Peace Corps community owes Travis an enormous debt for this outstanding example of “continuing to serve.”

As we wrote last month when we featured it here in our Polyglot blog, Peace Corps 101 was the first en*theos Academy course focused entirely on service with proceeds going to the Peace Corps Partnership Program and NPCA’s Global Community Fund. The class is also available for free to anyone who wanted to attend (or wants to download the entire class now that it is completed).

“The idea behind Peace Corps 101 all along has been to bring the Peace Corps community into a group call and help each other through our service, whether we’re just starting or we’ve been at it for 50+ years,” writes Travis. “I joined the Peace Corps because the Volunteers and RPCVs that I met were literally some of the best people I have ever met in my entire life and bringing all those people on to a conference call has been amazing. I feel very lucky to be part of such a great group. Even though the class has finished, it will always be available for download anytime at PeaceCorps101.com.” 

And that’s just the beginning…

Moving Forward

As the class ended Travis decided to launch Peace Corps 101 Interviews hosted by en*theos Radio, where he could sit down with PCVs and RPCVs from around the world, including many of the outstanding Professors who taught in the Peace Corps 101. Our very own Molly Mattessich will be one of the first interviews to be posted.

Also, in June Travis will be launching a new course called Everyday Service where he will be talking with everyday humanitarians from around the planet about awesome ways they are changing the world. The course will feature national and international organizations like AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, the Fulbright Program and more, but also look at unconventional service, making a difference while making a profit, and the changing landscape of the new economy, social businesses, nonprofits, corporate philanthropy and much more. Like Peace Corps 101, proceeds from this class will go to service organizations around the world – only this time class participants can choose from the dozens of organizations they have represented in class.

“Just as Peace Corps is an adventure filled with amazing people,” says Travis, “these courses have been a blast to organize and take part in. I’d love for you to come along for the ride.”

In a decision that keeps in play the possibility that Peace Corps will return to its high-water funding level of more than two years ago, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for State/Foreign Operations Tuesday recommended $400 million for the Peace Corps for Fiscal Year 2013.

This recommendation is $25 million above the $375 million requested by President Obama, and supported last week by the House Appropriations Committee.

While there are still a number of deliberations and votes to come in the process, the opportunity now presents itself to return funding to a level that – up until now – has sustained more than 9,000 Peace Corps Volunteers and trainees in the field, the highest number of volunteers in more than four decades.  Further action will be needed in the Senate to continue supporting the $400 million.  Should that figure hold, the Senate and House would likely need to come together and agree on a final Peace Corps funding figure in the coming months.

For now, if you are a constituent of members of the Senate Subcomittee, please contact them to thank them for their leadership in supporting $400 million for the Peace Corps for Fiscal Year 2013.    Special thanks should go to Subcommittee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Additionally, if you are constituents of Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), you should also thank them for their earlier efforts to co-author a letter signed by 32 Senators urging strong support for Peace Corps funding.

You can contact the office of your Senators by calling the Capitol Hill switchboard (202-224-3121) and asking to be connected to their office.

Follow this link for an overview on funding for Peace Corps and other programs included in the State/Foreign Operations bill.  You can also hear and audio webcast of Tuesday’s proceedings.

Gail Hughes taught English at Masentle and Bereng secondary schools in Mafeteng, Lesotho, 1970-1972. “My Peace Corps experience was (like for probably every Peace Corps Volunteer) a defining event in my life!”, she says. Gail has been living in Minneapolis since her return from serving in the Peace Corps.

“Although I taught high school English for a year in Portland, Oregon before joining the Peace Corps, the market for teachers had plummeted and I couldn’t get my old job back. I decided to go to graduate school upon my return, and have basically been here ever since.”

Gail served as a Program Evaluator with the Minnesota Community Colleges, then taught Sociology, Interdisciplinary Social Science, and Global Studies at St. Cloud State University. “At present, I’m advising doctoral students and teaching “International and Multicultural Perspectives in Adult Ed” through Capella University (an online University).”

Why Gail’s Coming to Minneapolis

“It’s important to me to keep in touch with RPCVs to keep abreast of what’s happening in the countries of service, and also because I know that I will find like-minded people with whom to share ideas. I look forward to the conference!”

Climate change hurts farmers. Harry Bennett (Belize 02-04) at a teach-in in Madison, WI.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers continue to make a difference long after their service overseas — Peace Corps service is just the first step in changing the world. Harry Bennett (Belize 2002-04) is one such Volunteer.  Here, he writes about his climate change advocacy.

As a member of Madison 350.org and part of the committee that planned the participation in the worldwide action/education event promoted by 350.org, I had a hand in helping to shape the event.  We decided to use the Dane County Farmers Market at the Capital Square in Madison as the location for our event, a “teach in” to educate the public on the relationship between climate change and food production.  I volunteered to be a speaker at the event and decided my part would be a bit of information about my work and then a contrasting story involving my Peace Corps service.

After Peace Corps, Helping Farmers at Home

Since returning from Peace Corps service in 2004 I have been employed as Market Coordinator for the Kansas Organic Producers Association, a producer cooperative with 100 member/producers in Kansas and surrounding states.  We market certified organically produced grains, oil seeds and hay to domestic and international buyers and have average sales of around $5 million annually.  I related several stories about the radical weather that I have been hearing about daily from my farmer members:  100+ degree temperatures in April, winter wheat heading out 30 days early and at risk from frost and very violent torrential rains.  Many of our farmers are older and have farmed for 40 years or more and report that they have never seen such unpredictable and hot weather.

Peace Corps Service in Belize

I then switched my story to a different group of farmers that I know.  In 2002 my wife and I started our Peace Corps service in San Jose Village, Toledo, Belize, CA.  San Jose is a Mopan Mayan village in the south of Belize in the foothills of the Maya Mountains about 40 miles from the coastal district town of Punta Gorda.  The village has a population of 800 persons with about 130 households, everyone farms in the village except the primary school teachers.

My Peace Corps Volunteer program was Sustainable Agriculture/Rural Community Development and had me working closely with the farmers in cooperative marketing development and expansion of cash crops.  All of the farmers grew corn, beans, rice and vegetables using primarily organic techniques, these crops were first and foremost for their own consumption with any excess for livestock and outside sale.  San Jose does not have electric service and the pressure water system is by gravity from a tank on a mountain top that is filled by a pump on a well powered by a small solar photovoltaic array.  There are no personnel vehicles in San Jose- transportation around the village is by foot, bicycle or horseback, there are two old used school buses that serve at transportation to Punta Gorda four days a week.  Village youth whose families can afford high school tuition have to travel by school bus to one of two high schools in the district town.

On a visit back to San Jose in January 2012 we found that things in the village were mostly unchanged from when we left in 2004 except that there was some limited cell phone service and the village was almost finished with a new solar array that would supply electricity to the school and homes within a 700 feet radius.  The plan is to construct new arrays in the future to bring solar electricity to other households in the village, several young people in the village are being trained to install and maintain the solar panels and equipment.

Farmers in Belize Experience Climate Change Effects

When we arrived in San Jose Village in 2002 I was amazed at the conversations and amount of knowledge that the villagers had of climate change and effects on their lives.  The farmers had already begun to notice that the very predictable change from dry season to wet season was becoming erratic and that rain patterns were shifting.  Temperatures during the dry season have risen markedly, causing increased fire risk.  The changes have made corn planting, that must be timed at the end of the dry season before the onset of the rains, very difficult and threatening to the primary food crop.

Belize is also experiencing an increase in Dengue Fever outbreaks that are attributed to an overall increase in temperatures and rainfall that favor mosquito breeding.  The coastal areas of Belize are feeling the effects of sea level rise with the destruction of the mangrove trees that are vital to holding the sea shore intact and providing a habitat for fishery health.  Higher seawater temperatures are resulting in death to the coral in the barrier reef off the coast of Belize that is the second largest in the world.

Small Carbon Footprint, Doing the Right Thing

My point here is that in the village of San Jose there is a population of people with a “carbon footprint” that is hardly measurable when compared with a similar population in the United States.  When you examine their lifestyle they are the model of what is being touted as the solutions to controlling climate change: highly developed local organic food system, exclusive use of public and non motorized transportation, low impact bio-degradable housing and developing renewable nonpolluting electrical generation.

Despite the efforts of San Jose, they are not going to reduce the effects of climate change because it is now known that the tropical areas of the world near the equator will be experiencing the most dramatic effects of climate change.  The true injustice here is that the Mayan people in San Jose did not contribute to the fossil fuel driven rise in Parts Per Million of carbon in the atmosphere, yet they will suffer the consequences sooner and harsher than we in North America.  I have no doubts that present and future Peace Corps Volunteers are going to find themselves having to observe and deal with the effects of climate change in their host countries.

Thanks to Harry Bennett (Belize, 2002-04) for contributing this blog post.

This year's Annual Gathering of Peace Corps volunteers will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“Because my Peace Corps service was such a positive life-changing experience for me, I feel that it is important to help to pass on that knowledge to the new Peace Corps Volunteer recruits.”

These sentiments come from Frank Yates, who has stayed connected to the Peace Corps Community since his service in Ghana ended in 1976. He is the President of Friends of Ghana and is making his way from Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri to Minnesota at the end of June to meet up with other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, “and to find someone to take my spot as President!” he says.

Originally from Fulton, Missouri, Frank joined the Peace Corps in 1973 and worked as a Roads Engineer for a pulpwood plantation being developed in the Subri Forest Reserve in the western region of the country. He designed and build roads, offices, and housing for the plantation.

The experience brought him to the Kansas City area where he worked as a civil engineer and traffic engineer for about nine years. Then, Frank moved to San Diego, where he worked as a traffic engineer for another 21 years. He retired from the City of San Diego in 2007 and relocated back to Missouri to be closer to his family.

Frank Yates during the 50th Anniversary Walk of Flags in Washington, DC. (Photo: M. Clyne)

During Frank’s time in Kansas City, he was a member of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer  (RPCV) group there and attended the events in Omaha, Nebraska from 1978-1980, which is where the National Peace Corps Association was founded. By then Frank was a leader in the Peace Corps Community and served on the Board of Directors of NPCA from 1983 to 1989, including two years as its Treasurer. He helped found the San Diego Peace Corps Association in 1988 following the 1987 Beyond War award to Peace Corps. He also helped to found the Friends of Ghana, along with Ken Autrey and Susan Caster, in 1994. In addition to being President of Friends of Ghana, Frank is also on the Board of Central Missouri RPCVS, based in Columbia.

Why Frank’s Coming to Minneapolis

When we asked Frank why he wants is attending Peace Corps Connect: Minneapolis, he said that he is hoping to meet with the Ghana RPCVs to have discussions on how to best serve their members and increase their group’s membership. He also is eager to hear others’ ideas on how to better support the PCVs in Ghana, and promote all of the good things that are happening in Ghana now.

“It’s important to follow up with recently returned PCVs by mentoring them as they re-adjust to living in the United States,” Frank said. Certainly, Peace Corps Connect: Minneapolis is one great way to do this.

“I have also enjoyed the big conferences held in Washington, DC. I attended the 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th + 1, and 50th.”

Read the original letter from NPCA and the Employees Union here.

Read the Director’s response, which includes a list of recent steps taken to further promote non-competitive eligibility.

Offer your thoughts on how Noncompetitive Eligibility is working for you!

* * *

On Thursday, May 24, from 1-2 p.m. EST, the Peace Corps Office of Third Goal and Returned Volunteer Services will host an Online Career Webinar on Noncompetitive Eligibility. Peace Corps staff member Kat Edwards will answer questions about NCE such as: what it is, how it works, and how to use it to land a federal job. To register for this event, please visit http://tinyurl.com/NCEWebinar.

On June 6, Peace Corps will host a a special NCE Roundtable for Federal employers at Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, DC (Remote access is also available). HR representatives and hiring managers are especially encouraged to attend. Feel free to forward this invitation to other Federal employers who might be interested in attending. Advanced registration for this free event is required.  Please click here to register for this event.

Community farmer's markets are a great location to educate and engage others on World Food Day (photo courtesy of Oxfam America)

Hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem.  That was the consensus among members of some of the nation’s leading international humanitarian organizations who came together recently for an initial meeting to start planning for World Food Day.

While hunger is sometimes pushed to the back burner to deal with more immediate, pressing concerns, World Food Day is designed to move global attention from those problems and observe the challenge.

While October 16th may seem far away, it’s never too early to start planning and figuring out what organizations in your community are doing to observe World Food Day.  Interested in adding your thoughts?  A good place to start would be by looking at the many organizations which are signed on in the effort to address the issue of ending world hunger.

Be sure to visit the World Food Day USA website regularly for updates as October 16th approaches.

Every year brings a different theme for World Food Day.  This year’s theme is “Cooperatives:  Key to Ending Hunger.”  Using this theme as a springboard, people can form their own projects and events or work with an established organizations to highlight the day.

(Thanks to NPCA Advocacy Intern Fiona Galvin this submission)

“No matter where you served, Peace Corps Volunteers have certain experiences in common,” said Kevin Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association. “This get-together will allow all of us to share those experiences and discuss what we can do next to bring the world back home. It’s also an excellent opportunity for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who are looking for the next step in their career to network with people who appreciate their talents and value their experience.”

Attendees at the event will meet in small groups for break-out sessions on such topics as starting a nonprofit, getting ahead in business and recent changes in international development. In addition, smaller member groups will hold meetings at the event, and board members who were elected by the association’s members will be available to meet with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. The exhibit hall at the convention center will highlight Peace Corps entrepreneurs
and their businesses, and include job recruiting agencies, member group tables and more.

“The Peace Corps can be a solitary experience,” added Quigley. “But we’ve found over the years that when former Volunteers get together, they almost always“click.” This gathering will help those who served to build relationships and get even more out of their Peace Corps experience.”

Sign up to attend Peace Corps Connect: Minneapolis 2012

Learn more about how you or your organization can sponsor the event

Members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for State/Foreign Operations are recommending that federal funding for Peace Corps in the fiscal year that begins this October, remain at $375 million.

The bad news is that this level of funding for Fiscal Year 2013 would likely result in a reduction in the number of volunteers and trainees in the field.  Peace Corps currently reports more than 9,000 volunteers and trainees.  However, this volume was supported in part by the $400 million appropriation Peace Corps received Fiscal Year 2010.

On the more positive side, funding for Peace Corps fared rather well, given that the House subcommittee was instructed to prepare a $48 billion funding package that was nearly $5 billion (nine percent) less than current funding.  A number of international funding progreams face sharp reductions under the House Subcommittee proposal.

The next key step in the appropriations project will come when the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for State/Foreign Operations outlines its funding recommendations for Peace Corps and other international affairs programs.  Action from the Senate subcommittee is expected in the next few weeks.

For further reading:

• House State/Foreign Operations Subcommittee Press Release
• House State/Foreign Operations Subcommittee Appropriations Bill (as currently proposed)
• InterAction Press Release on House Recommendations and International Affairs Funding
• NPCA Advocacy Webpage on Peace Corps Funding – Including contact information for Senate and House Appropriators

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