News
Peacebuilding with Persistence
Friends of Afghanistan continues to help youth, especially girls, thrive—even under Taliban rule As the world has shifted its collective attention to conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, it might be hard to remember that it was only two years ago that American forces withdrew from Afghanistan after more than 20 years of waging war there. For the NPCA group Friends of Afghanistan, however, the fight for women’s rights, children’s education, health equity, and fair refugee policies hasn’t stopped. In November 2023, Friends of Afghanistan proudly celebrated 61 years since the establishment of Peace Corps in Afghanistan in...
A Matter of Perspective
Switching things up in the South Pacific One criticism often leveled at the standard maps of the 20th century is that they represent a Eurocentric view of the world. The maps we see hanging in countless classrooms and depicted on globes aren’t necessarily to scale. Commercial maps often depict an outsize Europe and a shrunken Africa, and place Asia and the Pacific Ocean on the periphery. Intentionally or not, such depictions carry with them ingrained ideas and ideologies about the geography of the world and where countries and people belong in it. The small multi-island nation of Vanuatu in the...
The Map Makers
The creation of maps has long been a favored secondary project or PCVs. Do they help communities see the world in a different way? by David Arnold Forestry Volunteer Barbara Jo White (Dominican Republic 1987–89) wanted to plant fruit trees near the school in Hondo Valle, the small town she lived in on the Dominican Republic’s mountain border with Haiti. “What happened was some fruit trees came my way, and I made compost and all of that stuff and planted my fruit trees on the border of the school grounds,” White says. But after the fruit trees were planted, the...
Through Service, Comes Peace
RPCV Nirav Shah traveled to India to work on English-language programs for monks. He didn’t expect to meet the Dalai Lama. Dharamsala is a bustling market town in the western Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Nestled deep in the Himalayan foothills along the northern section of the India-China border, it became the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959. These days, the Tsuglagkhang Complex, in Dharamsala’s McLeod Ganj neighborhood, is like a tiny piece of Tibet—with an active monastery, a museum, and, of course, the Dalai Lama’s residence. Nirav Shah (Zambia 2013–15) has long...
The Art of Reconciliation
A Rwandan village stitches together healing through embroidery by Ky Huynh Kathleen Malu served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda in 1980. Thirty years later, in 2010, she returned as a Fulbright Scholar to a very different country. In the intervening years, the horrors of the Rwandan genocide had shocked the world. In 1994, over the course of 100 days, it is estimated that close to one million Tutsi were massacred by Hutus. During her second stay in Rwanda, Malu met Christiane Rwagatare and a group of women using art to preserve tableaus of ordinary Rwandan life, as well...
Follow the Energy
Celebrating 30 Years of Aid Through Trade (Use discount code PEACECORPS30 on Aid Through Trade products for RPCVs) by Robert Nolan It was a frigid winter in 1993, and Damian Jones (Nepal 1987–91) was shivering in a sleeping bag inside his car some- where near the Eastern Market in Washington, D.C.. His big idea, to bring aid to Nepal through artisan trade, was just beginning to take off. Large entities like UNICEF and Save the Children had begun exploring small-scale handicraft initiatives in developing countries, but not in a way that Jones saw as sustainable. “Nepal receives a ton of aid,...
American Moon, Tongan Sun
The historic Journals of Peace event in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda saw little security—and lots of stories by Tina Martin January 6th is a date most Americans will not soon forget. Looking back now, after the insurrection, I marvel that, in 1988, 400 of us Returned Peace Corps Volunteers were invited to spend 24 hours in the Capitol Rotunda with little more than the directive that we provide our names and Social Security numbers—and this was after closing hours! The event, dubbed “Journals of Peace: A Very Special Commemoration by the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers,” was first...
Where is the Peace?
Building Peace in a World at War by Robert Nolan Those concerned with the state of global peace might be forgiven for succumbing to a melancholic, even defeatist point of view given the events of the past few years. The world is experiencing the highest level of violence since World War II, with armed conflicts simmering, enduring, or raging in Ukraine, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine, to name just a few. In 2022, more than 2 billion people lived in conflict-afflicted areas, and 110 million were displaced by violence, according to the United Nations. And the 2023 Global Peace Index,...
Peace Corps Achievements – January 2024
News and updates from the Peace Corps community — across the country, around the world, and spanning generations of returned Volunteers and staff. (more…)
Interview with a Peace Corps Invitee
A Peace Corps Invitee shares her experience as an NPCA intern, why she wanted to join Peace Corps, and advice she would give to future NPCA interns. (more…)