Posters for Peace
As Peace Corps launches a retro recruiting campaign to mark its 65th anniversary, the art of the poster has always been key. A past exhibition by ArtReach Gallery and the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience did more than trace marketing materials for the agency. In images and words — including works by renowned artists Peter Max and Shepard Fairey — it explores how we think about and talk about the idea of peace itself. And how we make it. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps in 2011, Shepard Fairey created a poster that was widely distributed across...
WorldView Guide to Book Publishing
Returned Volunteers have been shaping America’s view of the world for decades, and their stories are more essential now than ever. It doesn't matter who you are or how much you have written; facing a blank page to tell the story of your life can be intimidating. We're here to reassure you that, as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, you have a great story to tell. The key question is where to start. The WorldView Guide to Writing (and Writers), produced by the National Peace Corps Association, is an in-depth multimedia experience to help RPCVs and others explore the pursuit of writing,...
Kinder-Resilient
VAVA'U, TONGA — The village of Tu'anuku ushered in a new era for early childhood education in early February, celebrating the soft opening of a brand-new, resilient kindergarten facility. The milestone marks the culmination of an international collaborative effort spearheaded by Friends of Tonga (FoT), a National Peace Corps Association-affiliated non-profit operating out of Laurel, Maryland. Founded and operated by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), FoT remains dedicated to sustaining the spirit of service long after their initial tenure in the Kingdom. FoT built their first climate-resilient kindergarten in Ta’anga, ‘Eua back in 2021, directly responding to the damage from...
Podcast: The Sound of Soft Power
The clearest through line to understanding soft power in geopolitics may not run through policy at all, but through ecology. For decades, scientists believed trees competed for resources in silence. What they later discovered was something closer to a conversation of roots sharing nutrients, warning signals, and information through vast underground networks—an exchange so constant and essential that dependence, not isolation, proved essential for survival. Those unseen systems beneath the surface that allow life to endure are on the forefront of my mind as I log on to chat with Christopher Wurst, a former foreign service officer and the host...
Champions of the Golden Valley
Snow sprays as young men and women race down the slopes of the mountains surrounding Bamyan, Afghanistan. Without a ski lift in sight, and with many of them on handmade wooden skis, skiing takes on an elevated purpose in this community. Champions of the Golden Valley is a heart-warming new documentary produced by RPCV Baktash Ahadi that follows Alishah Farhang, a skier who, after failing to qualify for the Olympics as Afghanistan's first winter Olympian, returns home to start a ski club in his mountain village. In the days and weeks leading up to the club’s annual Ski Challenge, the documentary...
Frostbound and Down
The wind howls desolate, and the numbing of my fingers inch further and further up the wrist alarmingly. These unrelenting high velocity winds continue to crank at unfathomable knots and send flurries of hard-wrought regrets ringing between the ears. The ears that are also like icicles at the moment as I toe the start line of the almighty Antarctica Marathon. The desire to run a full 26.2-mile marathon in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments in existence isn’t without its fair share of cocked eyebrows and earnest inquiries into one’s mental health. The journey to the continent alone is...
What Does Peace Corps Do for America?
Every Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)’s experience is unique and challenging. Facing the unknown, learning a language (or two), developing sensitivity to very different cultures, growing new relationships, identifying and completing projects, and overcoming physical difficulties are but a few of the tasks that PCVs face. When they return home, their stories tend to revolve around the experiences they had during their service and the impact they had in the countries they served. But service in the Peace Corps also affects the United States in ways that are equally important to document. The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Archival Project...
The Great Peace Corps Book Exchange
Books have always played an outsized role in the lives of Peace Corps Volunteers. PCVs spend hours thumbing through paperbacks while waiting (and waiting) for public transportation in their host countries; they learn about these countries by reading local writers; and they enter fictional worlds to alleviate their homesickness. While today’s Volunteers continue the grand tradition of reading, the way they do it has evolved with technology, changing how they access books, exchange them, and consume them. Yet they still tend to read the same types of books—whether about their host countries, their jobs, or just for fun—and they continue...
Born to Serve
At the end of 2024, just days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the world lost one of the most eminent moral voices ever to sit in the Oval Office. President Jimmy Carter, whose life spanned a century, was also the biggest presidential champion of Peace Corps since John F. Kennedy. Both his mother, Lily, and his grandson, Jason, served, and numerous RPCVs have found meaningful work at the Carter Center, joining the fight to eradicate global diseases and to promote democracy worldwide. WorldView’s Robert Nolan spoke with Jason Carter, now the chair of the Carter Center board, who...
Literary Legacy
For as long as Peace Corps Volunteers have been sent to the remote corners of the world, they have brought back journals that capture day-to-day life in their communities, with all its ups and downs. Years and even decades later, these records give Returned Peace Corps Volunteers a way for them, and maybe a few loved ones, to relive the stories and contemplate the lessons learned from their service. But some of these journals go on to have a much larger reach as they are transformed into compelling memoirs, fiction, and other stories published professionally and even climbing to the...