#StartSmall and Think Global
Inspired by Peace Corps experience, the Women’s Global Education Project gets a boost from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey By NPCA Staff Photo: Women’s Global Education Project scholars. Photo courtesy WGEP Following her Peace Corps service (Senegal 1996–99), Amy Maglio founded the Women’s Global Education Project, a nonprofit organization with a goal of helping young girls across the world. The project launched in 2004. In March 2021, it received a $750,000 grant from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey through his #StartSmall initiative. “This all really came from my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal,” Maglio told the Chicago Tribune. “I helped my...
Humility, Grace, and Dance
Meet Carole Anne “Aziza” Reid, the winner of the 2021 Lillian Carter Award. By NPCA Staff Photo: Dance lessons in Eswatini. Photo courtesy Carole Anne Reid Carole Anne “Aziza” Reid was serving as a youth education Volunteer in Eswatini when COVID-19 forced the evacuation of all Volunteers. It was her second tour with Peace Corps; she served in Moldova 2016–18, working in community organizational development. There, she created community programs to empower women and youth through African dance classes and social justice activities. Home is originally Harlem. When Reid joined the Peace Corps at age 53, she brought years of experience in the...
Unleashing Climate Innovation
Audrey Zibelman takes on responsibilities as vice president at X, the Moonshot Factory, leading work to decarbonize the electrical grid. By NPCA Staff This year Audrey Zibelman (Chad 1977–79) took up a new post as vice president at X, the Moonshot Factory, where she works to develop tools and capabilities to decarbonize the electrical system. In April, as the Biden administration convened the Leaders Summit on Climate, Zibelman was invited to present steps that can be taken to counter the detrimental impacts of the climate crisis. During the summit, Zibelman announced that the U.S. and the U.K. would be joining the...
China Farewell, Again
Renowned writer Peter Hessler had planned on spending five years back in China with his wife and daughters. But the university he was teaching at did not renew his contract. By NPCA Staff Writer Peter Hessler made an unexpectedly early return to the U.S. this summer. In 2019, the New Yorker correspondent, who served with Peace Corps China 1996–98, moved to the city of Chengdu to teach — more than 20 years after he taught at Fuling Teachers College as a Volunteer. He was planning on a five-year sojourn with his wife and daughters. In May he learned that his contract for...
First Volunteers, 8/28/61
The legislation that permanently created the Peace Corps had yet to pass the Senate. But the Peace Corps had been launched by an executive order issued in March. And the first Volunteers were about to embark on service in Ghana and Tanganyika. A moment in time: August 28, 1961. Founding Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver leads 80 Volunteers who are headed for Ghana and Tanganyika, now Tanzania, to the White House, where President John F. Kennedy will give them a personal send-off. JFK thanks them for embarking on their service, “on behalf of our country and, in the...
Remembering Some We’ve Lost: Ambassador Larry L. Palmer
He began his career as a teacher with the Peace Corps | 1949–2021 He was a diplomat who devoted decades to advancing peace, prosperity, equality, and democracy in the Caribbean. Peace Corps service set him on that path. Equipped with a bachelor’s from Emory University, he headed to Liberia as a Volunteer (1971–73) and taught general science, biology, math, and chemistry. He admired the commitment of U.S. Embassy staff he met. He completed graduate degrees in African studies and education, then embarked on a career that took him to the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Ecuador before he was...
Letters: Readers respond to the Spring 2021 edition of WorldView
Letters, emails, LinkedIn and Instagram comments, Facebook posts, tweets, and other missives: Readers respond to the stories in words and images in the Spring 2021 edition of WorldView. We’re happy to continue the conversation here and on all those nifty social media platforms. One way to write us: worldview@peacecorpsconnect.org Sixty Years of Peace Corps Thanks for another great issue! Glad you included “If I had three minutes to talk to President Biden about the Peace Corps…,” which we heard in March, and then lots of other good stories such as “Once More, with Feeling” in Moldova and “Triage, Respite, and Isolation” at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. Glad, too, to...
Quote: One of their daughters asked, “Why did you send me to school if I must cover myself and can never go to work?”
John W. Bing served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan. From a girl in Afghanistan, he shares a painful question she and her family now face. Photo: One of the women who form Bamiyan Weavers in Afghanistan. Courtesy Bamiyan Weavers One of their daughters asked, “Why did you send me to school if I must cover myself and can never go to work?” It’s a question Bing poses in an essay for the Santa Fe New Mexican. After the recent fall of Kabul, he writes about a project with women weavers in Afghanistan that is supported by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Bing served...
Rebuilding After the Rwanda Genocide: The Beginnings of Crisis Corps
A catastrophic humanitarian crisis in 1994 led to the death of millions of Rwandans. A few Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who tried to stem the tide of suffering proved a powerful catalyst for Crisis Corps, a global endeavor launched by the Peace Corps agency two years later. DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE: An excerpt from a story in the Winter 2013 edition of WorldView magazine. By David Arnold Carol Pott and John Berry were married shortly before John started a U.S. Agency for International Development small enterprise development project in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, a small, poor, heavily populated but relatively peaceful Central...
Serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria Changed Charles Larson’s Worldview. So He Embarked on a Life-long Journey to Bring Works by African Writers to U.S. Readers.
A remembrance: As a scholar, he profoundly shaped the study of African literature. And his work illuminated the pages of WorldView magazine for years. By David Arnold Charles Larson. Photo courtesy the Larson family. When his papers were archived at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, African literature scholar Charles R. Larson told an interviewer that in two years teaching as a Peace Corps Volunteer, “Nigeria totally altered my worldview. When I returned home I was determined to see that works by African writers were reprinted in American editions.” He was true to that determination. Larson, who served...