About RPCV Oral History Archives Project
Vision: Preserve the legacy of Peace Corps as experienced and articulated by individual Peace Corps Volunteers
Mission: To find and interview all returned Peace Corps Volunteers about their intercultural service experiences and deposit the recordings in the University of Kentucky Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History and the National Archives at the John F. Kennedy Library.
Goals:
- Develop electronic publicity and initiate marketing to affiliate groups to promote the availability of oral history interviews for RPCVs
- Train 50 more interviewers in all parts of the country
- Raise $30,000 to digitize 520 interviews currently in analog cassette tapes, making them available for listening online
The RPCV Oral History Project began in 1999 and RPCVs have been interviewed since then. The Project was founded by Robert Klein, Ghana I, following the 35th anniversary of Peace Corps. Together with volunteers whom he trained to interview other RPCVs, Bob interviewed and oversaw the recordings of over 450 RPCVs’ experiences between 1999 and April 2012 when he died. His friend Phyllis Noble picked up the coordinator’s role in 2012 and continued Bob’s work, adding another 180 interviews to the collection until her death in May 2017.
The Project is now assembling a team of dedicated RPCVs to produce more recordings, expand the number of interviewers, design a website and social media presence and take the Project to a new phase, all the time adhering to the quality of interviews and technology standards needed to preserve the recorded Peace Corps experiences in perpetuity.
All oral history interviews are with RPCVs or Peace Corps staff who talk about their lives before, during and to some extent after Peace Corps service. We are preserving the history and legacy of PCVs and the work they do in international development. Our recordings document data for all three Peace Corps goals, but most importantly they support the Third Goal. Since the inception of the Project in 1999, over 700 interviews have been captured.
To get involved please visit our website at https://www.peacecorpsoralhistory.org/cpages/get-involved