Peace in the Time of COVID
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that approaching this endeavor with a sense of solidarity and humility and commitment is a matter of life and death. By Steven Boyd Saum Cover illustration by Ellen Weinstein This is not the magazine we wanted to publish. How could it be? Instead of marking six decades of Peace Corps in pageantry and scrappy DIY inventiveness, we find ourselves in an existential moment. Begin a familiar litany: devastating pandemic, cratering economy — and within the Peace Corps community, the evacuation of Volunteers from around the world last year, with their hoped-for...
Quote: Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Dreams, Opportunity, and Peace Corps
Linda Thomas-Greenfield wants to see more girls from places like she grew up as Volunteers — and ambassadors. As a young girl growing up in Baker, one of my biggest dreams was joining the Peace Corps. —Linda Thomas-Greenfield Nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Why She’s A Fan Writing last fall for The Advocate in her home state of Louisiana, Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted: “As the oldest of eight children, I always had a strong sense of responsibility and curiosity. I became enamored with the idea of the Peace Corps...
Pandemic Lessons
On the nature of a virus. On community. And on systems — how they function and how they break. By Steven Boyd Saum Illustration by Maria Carluccio The toll of the COVID-19 pandemic hit a sobering milestone in the United States last spring when we marked the death of 100,000 Americans. By September, that number had doubled. The year 2020 concluded with some 350,000 dead in the United States alone, and 1.82 million lives lost worldwide. The pandemic has driven home some crucial lessons — if we pay attention. Not lessons we wanted to learn. But many of them...
You Are Going to Do Something to Defeat It
Civil rights attorney Elaine Jones talks with Jalina Porter Photo: Elaine Jones. Courtesy Elaine Jones Elaine Jones has led a landmark career that has included being the first woman to direct the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the first African American woman to attend law school at the University of Virginia. Where she learned the lessons in diplomacy that prepared her for that: Peace Corps in Turkey. The daughter of a Pullman porter and a schoolteacher, Elaine Ruth Jones was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and was raised in the Jim Crow South. She has spoken of the importance of understanding...
A Matter of Life and Death
Pandemic Lessons: Epidemiologist Anne Rimoin on the importance of listening to community. And how a public health problem anywhere can be a public health problem everywhere. From a conversation with WorldView editor Steven Boyd Saum Photo by Peter Israel In epidemiology, you have to look at things holistically. And in the midst of this pandemic, as an epidemiologist whose whole career trajectory was shaped by my experience with the Peace Corps, I find myself asking: What does Peace Corps have to do with how we respond to COVID — and how we need to do more? Peace Corps is all about working in a community;...
A Contribution to Community
Pandemic Lessons: A vaccine trial participant By Tia Huggins Illustration by Maria Carluccio For the past six years I’ve served as director of care coordination at Imperial Beach Community Clinic, south of San Diego. Last year one provider at the clinic put out an email about the trial for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. I thought, I want to do that. It’s a contribution to your community, and participants were paid. A lot of people think it must be scary to do this. I wasn’t worried. To put it in stark terms, I’ve worked in hospice, and I think suffering is a...
On the COVID Floor
Pandemic Lessons: A nurse in the nation’s capital By Rose Conklin Illustration by Maria Carluccio The end of March, April, we were getting hit hard with COVID in Washington, D.C. It was really still an unknown illness, but it was everywhere. I had started a float position as a registered nurse at George Washington University Hospital, working on the medical surgical units and in the ER, sometimes helping out ICU nurses, wherever they needed me most. I was on the COVID medical surgical floor a lot of shifts in those months. A lot of nurses were scared in the beginning...
Let’s Climb This Hill Together
Unprecedented times, yes. But history still offers a few pointers. By Jonathan Pearson Over many years with National Peace Corps Association, I have navigated the corridors and rooms of Capitol Hill to attend meetings, drop off documents, or prepare event logistics. This includes countless visits to the venerable Russell Senate and Cannon House Office Buildings, constructed in the early 1900s. Walking the hallways in quiet moments at the close of a day, I’ll often reflect on the history of these buildings. On the granite staircases, one can literally feel the sunken impressions worn into the stone by millions of...
An Even More Towering Task
An Unprecedented Year. And Insurrection at the Capitol. By Glenn Blumhorst Photo: Makeshift Fence Memorials to Capitol Police Officers Brian D. Sicknick and Howard Liebengood. By Elvert Barnes For so many of us, the year 2020 seemed the challenge of a lifetime. But if anyone was built to persevere through the crises these months presented, it’s Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Having endured a tumultuous year marked by a global health pandemic, racial disarray and instability, and the first-ever global evacuation of Volunteers, we could use skills we learned and experiences that have shaped us to take on many roles, including working professional,...
Annotation: “Ask not what your country can do for you …”
How do the words President John F. Kennedy spoke on January 20, 1961 resonate across the decades? On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address. The conclusion of that speech inspired a generation — and profoundly shaped the launch of the Peace Corps in 1961. Here are the last three paragraphs. For the 60th anniversary of this speech, we asked returned Volunteers and members of the Peace Corps community from around the world to share how these words resonate across the years. Read the entire address below. And tell us what these words mean to you. ...