Have a Seat
A place to pause for peace: David Garcia, president of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of South Florida, donates a sculpture and bench to Florida International University By NPCA Staff Photography by Vince Rives / Florida International University There’s a new spot on the campus of Florida International University dedicated to all who have served — or will serve — in the Peace Corps. The place to pause: a bench beneath the wings of a dove of peace, designed and donated by David Garcia to mark the 60th anniversary of the Peace Corps. Garcia is president of the Returned Volunteers of...
Priscilla Goldfarb: Within 48 hours she was on a plane, headed to serve in Katrina relief efforts.
Priscilla Goldfarb Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda (1965–67) | Crisis Corps Volunteer in Alabama, United States (2005) By Joshua Berman From the Winter 2010 edition of WorldView Photo: Priscilla Goldfarb serving as a Crisis Corps Volunteer with FEMA after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Courtesy Priscilla Goldfarb Priscilla Goldfarb, a longtime nonprofit executive and former National Peace Corps Association board member, had a 40-year gap between her Peace Corps service in Uganda in the mid-1960s and her first Response assignment. Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc across the Gulf Coast — and not long after she retired — Goldfarb received...
Lily Asrat: One of those moments I thought, “We’re doing something right.”
Lily Asrat Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia (1996–98) | Crisis Corps Volunteer in Guinea (2000) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Eastern Caribbean–St. Lucia (2006) As told to Ellery Pollard Photo: Reviewing HIV records in St. Lucia: Lily Asrat working at the National AIDS Program Secretariat. Courtesy Lily Asrat I’m Ethiopian American, and my parents exposed me to a lot of travel early on; they essentially raised me to be a global citizen. I understood that there’s so much out there in the world, and that there isn’t just one way of being. I saw Peace Corps as a...
Carlos Jean-Baptiste: When the earthquake hit Haiti, I started trying to find ways to help.
Carlos Jean-Baptiste Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya (2006–08) and Zambia (2008–09) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Haiti (2010) As told to Ellery Pollard Photo: Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake: Carlos Jean-Baptiste, in blue shirt, assisting with relief. Courtesy Carlos Jean-Baptiste I identify as a first-generation Haitian American, born of an immigrant mother. I grew up in a community where my grade school was 50 percent first-generation American, so I experienced the world through these relationships. I was always aware of how big the world is. Peace Corps was a path to experience it firsthand, and it helped...
Yemi Oshodi: “I understood quickly that I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Yemi Oshodi Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland (2003–05) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in St. Lucia (2011–12) | Peace Corps Staff (2011 to present) As told to Sarah Steindl Photo: Yemi Oshodi in April 2021, speaking to communities in the Eastern Caribbean after the eruption of La Soufrière, on the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Go back a decade: I had about eight years of experience in public health — advocacy, international policy, HIV/AIDS work. I wanted to give back in a similar way that I had as a Volunteer in Swaziland 2003–05. I looked into...
Miguelina Cuevas-Post: “It would be wonderful if the world didn’t need a Peace Corps.”
Miguelina Cuevas-Post Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica (1976–78) and Belize (2011–13) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Jamaica (2016–17) and Belize (2017) As told to Ellery Pollard Photo: Students in a Jamaican school where Volunteer Miguelina Cuevas-Post served. Courtesy Miguelina Cuevas-Post I come from a family that is multiethnic and multicultural, so an appreciation of different cultures was ingrained in me. My husband, Kenneth Post, and I both served two-year terms in Jamaica in the ’70s — that’s how we met. We got married there, and our oldest daughter, Tina, was born while we were serving. Ken and...
Annie Eng: One month into work in Georgia, I was evacuated.
Annie Eng Peace Corps Volunteer in Georgia (2020) | Peace Corps Virtual Service Pilot Program (2020–21) As told to Sarah Steindl Illustration courtesy Work by For Better Future, a Georgian NGO, whose projects include supporting women entrepreneurs. I had a friend in Ukraine who was a two-year Volunteer, and seeing all he was doing there inspired me. One day, I was browsing and saw Peace Corps Response Service. I took a one-year leave of absence from my job in New York, and I arrived in Georgia in February 2020. I went through orientation, then headed to work with...
Hilliard Hicks: Reviving Sustainable Aquaculture in the Philippines
Hilliard Hicks Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa (2014–16) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in the Philippines (2019–20) By Hilliard Hicks Photo: Marine biology students conduct quadrat seagrass surveys in the Philippines. Courtesy Hillard Hicks In 2020 the world was thrust into a pandemic, which caused more than 7,000 Peace Corps Volunteers to suddenly return home from their adopted communities around the world. I was one of them. During my first Peace Corps assignment, I served as an education Volunteer in South Africa. After service, I went to graduate school at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in...
Towela Nyika: “We are trying to achieve health for all.”
Towela Nyika Peace Corps Staff in Malawi (2013–present) As told to Emi Krishnamurthy I began with the Peace Corps in 2013 with the Global Health Service Partnership, a public-private partnership to place healthcare professionals as adjunct faculty in medical and nursing schools. When that program ended in 2018, I helped start Advancing Health Professionals, which combines volunteer work with strengthening health systems. In Malawi, we bring in highly skilled health professionals from the U.S. who work with institutions of higher learning, training the next generation of health workers. We focus on bridging health theory into practice, and promoting...
Dallas Smith: From experts, I learned knowledge passed along generations.
Dallas Smith Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia (2017–19) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Malawi (2019–20) As told to Emi Krishnamurthy Photo: Baobab tree — used for food and medicine. Photo by Dallas Smith While earning my Doctor of Pharmacy in the States, I spent a month in India learning about what’s known as traditional and complementary medicine. Then, in Cambodia, I saw it utilized to heal people, using local culture and expertise. I brought that perspective into Malawi, but I took it one step further: I know it works, but why? How do we make it better?...