GALLERY: The Face of Iran Before …
A selection from Dennis Briskin’s photos from Iran in the late 1960s. His book was recognized with the Rowland Scherman Award for Best Photography Book by Peace Corps Writers. By NPCA Staff Dennis Briskin has published a collection of 60 photographs from the city of Arak and central Iran, where he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer 1967–69. Briskin writes that he calls the collection The Face of Iran Before… because these photographs were taken before “the Islamic Revolution took the country back to oppressive intolerance and brutality. Before oil wealth brought engines and electric motors to replace mule, camel and horsepower, sometimes even human power,...
The Future Is Unwritten
Peace, friendship, and a people whose anthem is “Ukraine Has Not Perished Yet” From the editor of WorldView By Steven Boyd Saum In the summer of 2019, during early parliamentary elections in Ukraine, I served as an observer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. With a fellow observer from Canada and a driver and interpreter from Kyiv, we visited polling places just northwest of the capital, around a pair of suburban communities — Irpin and Bucha. Irpin in particular had earned a reputation in recent years as a bucolic bedroom community, a place of fresh air and spacious green parks....
Meet the Team Behind the Winter 2022 Edition of WorldView
The editorial and creative teams who put together the special 2022 Books Edition of WorldView magazine for digital and print PUBLISHER | Glenn Blumhorst EDITOR | Steven Boyd Saum EDITOR EMERITUS | David Arnold ART DIRECTOR | Pamela Fogg ASSOCIATE EDITOR, GLOBAL STORIES | Tiffany James DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER | Orrin Luc WORLDVIEW INTERN | Nathalie Vadnais CONTRIBUTORS COVER AND BOOKS FEATURE PACKAGE Design by Pamela Fogg. Photography by Brett Simison ILLUSTRATION Montse Bernal, George Mkumbula, Mark Smith PHOTOGRAPHY Thomas F. Aleto, Dennis Briskin, Art Buck, Lisa Ferdinando, Drew Havea, Ambika Mohan Joshee, Robin Moyer, Kai Pfaffenbach, Erin Scott, Lev Shevchenko, Brett Simison, Jonathan Slaght, Terrell Starr WRITING Jake Arce, Glenn Blumhorst, Leo Cecchini, Chiara Collette, John Coyne, Chic Dambach, Michael Hassett, Tiffany James, D.W....
Experience and Empathy
The most recent Peace Corps Writers awards: love in Peru, the world’s biggest owl, a murder trial in Tanzania, and the lifetime contributions of a novelist whose characters meet racism with courage and love Photo: Persian man smoking. From The Face of Iran Before by photographer Dennis Briskin BAKED INTO THE MISSION of the whole Peace Corps experience is the work of telling stories: of listening, catching, giving voice and shape and form with a sense of fidelity to people and place, and having an awareness of audience. Nurturing stories from the Peace Corps community in words and images can be a...
Stories of Racism — Confronted by a Family with Courage and Love
A tribute to decades of work by children’s author Mildred D. Taylor. This year, Peace Corps Writers recognized her with the Writer of the Year Award. By John Coyne Illustration by Montse Bernal Mildred Delois Taylor is a critically acclaimed author of children’s novels. In 1977, she won the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature, for her historical novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. It was the second book in a series of ten novels focusing on the Logan family, and portraying the effects of racism counterbalanced with courage and love. Her latest book, All the Days...
Letters: Readers Respond to the Special 60th Anniversary Edition of WorldView
Letters, emails, LinkedIn and Instagram comments, Facebook posts, tweets, and other missives. We’re happy to continue the conversation here and on all those nifty social media platforms. One way to write us: worldview@peacecorpsconnect.org Thanks to NPCA as We Return to Service As we prepare to return to Zambia in May 2022, we want to say thank you to each of you (and all of the NPCA staff/interns) for your continued support of us — first, as many of you are RPCVs yourself, and then advocates for Peace Corps even before our service, and throughout our first service, and then as evacuees, and...
Relief for Tonga
In the aftermath of disaster, raising awareness and funds to support community-driven response By Michael Hassett and Chiara Collette Relief supplies for communities devastated by the eruption and tsunami. Photo by Drew Havea On January 15, an underwater volcano erupted in the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific, sending a wide plume of soot and gas miles into the air. The eruption was so enormous that it was heard as far away as Alaska and was seen from space. The island group of Ha‘apai, where the eruption occurred, was battered. Forty miles south, tsunami waves crashed into Tongatapu, the...
An Affectionate Portrait of a Town in Senegal from Half a Century Ago — and an Invitation from the President to Return
Peace Corps Senegal 1968–70 By Carolee Buck. Photography by Carolee and Art Buck Independently Published Photo: M'Bayang, one of the women who was part of the social center in Fatick Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Carolee Buck professes to be a reluctant author and makes no claim to be a storyteller. It took the coaxing of fellow returned Volunteers in Oregon for her to chronicle her Peace Corps service in Senegal 1968–70, together with husband Art. In a project rich with Art’s photography, she offers an affectionate portrait of the people and community of Fatick, then a town of about 4,000...
Listen and Watch: Conversations and Podcasts on Ukraine from the Peace Corps Community
TERRELL J. STARR | Host of the “Black Diplomats” podcast Just before Russia invaded Ukraine, Starr wrote for Foreign Policy: “This is what Ukrainians understand and progressives don’t about Putin: Diplomacy doesn’t mean anything if your adversary can kill you and steal your land without consequence.” Starr was a Volunteer in Georgia 2003–05, had a Fulbright in Ukraine, and is a fellow with the Atlantic Council. His highly personal coverage from Ukraine has earned hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. Recent conversations on his podcast: Oleg Volsky, mayor of a town north of L’viv; former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul; and...
What’s Your Story? The Museum of the Peace Corps Experience and the Peace Corps Oral History Project Want to Help You Tell It.
Bring your Peace Corps experience to a wider world. The Museum of the Peace Corps Experience seeks to preserve Peace Corps stories and objects donated by Volunteers: museumofthepeacecorpsexperience.org The Peace Corps Oral History project has trained interviewers ready to capture your story. They have extended a special invitation to those who served in Ukraine to tell stories of people and places they know, and of efforts to help those in harm’s way: peacecorpsoralhistory.org