Letters Winter 2021: WorldView Readers Write
Letters, emails, Facebook posts, tweets, Instagram comments: Readers respond to the stories in words and images in our fall 2020 edition. We’re happy to continue the conversation.Write us: worldview@peacecorpsconnect.org Renew, retool, return? I suspect the Peace Corps will see a renewal following the Biden administration. Service to our country and promoting peace, prosperity, and democracy will take on new importance. It should be a promising future for the Peace Corps. Ben Kasper Somalia 1964–66 I struggle to see how it is ethical to send PCVs into different countries considering that America has no control over the virus right now, a huge number of...
Hostage to History
Iran past, present, and future – with diplomat John Limbert, one of 52 Americans held hostage in Iran from 1979 to 1981. They were released 40 years ago this month. From a conversation at the National Peace Corps Association 2020 Shriver Leadership Summit Photo: The U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seal defaced Storming the Compound My connections to Iran go back to 1962, when my dad was assigned there with USAID and I was a college student studying history. The first Peace Corps Volunteers went to Iran that year; Rep. Donna Shalala was part of that group. I served there as...
TCP Global Hits $1 Million
A Volunteer-led project now serves communities in the Americas, Asia, and Africa — and just hit a big milestone. Olla Milagrosa (Fundacion, Magdalena, Colombia), which has benefited from earnings through TCP Global, has distributed food and facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo courtesy TCP Global Two decades ago, when 25,000 families were displaced annually by violence in Colombia, a group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers started The Colombia Project, a loan program to help families reestablish financial independence. The program quickly grew to include communities in Niger, Guatemala, and Peru. It now serves 14 countries in Asia, Africa, and the...
A Lasting Tribute
A concluding moment to the service of Joe Kennedy III in the House: legislation to enable work on the Peace Corps Commemorative to carry forward By Jonathan Pearson and Steven Boyd Saum Illustration by Edward Rooks Joseph Kennedy III served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic. After he was elected to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, one of the first pieces of legislation he introduced and passed focused on Peace Corps: It provided congressional authorization for the creation of a Peace Corps Commemorative in Washington, D.C. In September 2020 the design was...
Return to Service Postponed
Last fall, Peace Corps announced that, barring unforeseen changes, Volunteers would begin returning to the field as early as January 2021: to Saint Lucia in the Eastern Caribbean, to Cambodia, and to Rwanda. Volunteers would also be given priority regarding the vaccine. Then came new waves of the pandemic in regions across the United States and in a number of other countries, with whole nations going into lockdown. And rollout of the vaccine has been frustratingly slow. By December, it was clear: No Volunteers would be heading out in January. As we go to press, a number of programs scheduled...
Budget Victory
Full funding of $410.5 million for fiscal year 2021. And Peace Corps must put together a plan to provide access to menstrual hygiene products wherever Volunteers are serving. By Jonathan Pearson Peace Corps received good news on the budget front in December: Congress approved level funding for the agency at $410.5 million. The House had supported full funding all along, but the Senate Appropriations Committee had called for cutting $51 million. “We are extremely grateful to our Capitol Hill Peace Corps champions for their efforts to make sure Peace Corps remains strong with level funding to help it begin the process...
Carrying the Torch: Rafer Johnson
First Black captain of the U.S. Olympic team. Greatest athlete in the world. And a humanitarian who was at the side of those in need in the most dire moments. Rafer Johnson carried the American flag at the 1960 Olympic Games and won the decathlon. He was esteemed the greatest athlete in the world. In spring 1961, on the heels of Olympic victory, he lent his prestige and renown to help launch the Peace Corps. “I really believed that it wasn’t what my country could do for me,” he said years later. “It was what could I do for my...
Pioneer in Justice: Drew S. Days III
First African American to lead the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice — and the first Black man to lead any division at Justice, period. Photo Courtesy Yale Law School Drew S. Days III was appointed to the Department of Justince in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter. He later served as solicitor general of the United States under President Bill Clinton. Gentle, courageous, and kind, he devoted much of his career to striving for racial equality. Born in Atlanta in 1941, he grew up in Tampa, Florida, and at the age of 30 won a lawsuit that desegregated...
We are the messengers of what Peace Corps is and can be
In a keynote address for the Franklin H. Williams Award ceremony, Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley recounts the opportunities she helped create — and the resistances she faced — as an African American woman serving in the Peace Corps and in the U.S. Foreign Service. By Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley On December 15, 2020, the Peace Corps recognized six leaders in the Peace Corps community — and a civic leader with a shared commitment to Peace Corps values — with the Franklin H. Williams Award. The keynote address was delivered by Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, whose pathbreaking career in the Foreign Service has created new opportunities and possibilities for women and minorities....
Meet the 2020 Winners of the Franklin H. Williams Award
Honoring six Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who have served around the world — and a leader who has worked to close the racial and wealth gaps in the Chicago area. By NPCA Staff On December 15 the Peace Corps recognized leaders in the Peace Corps community — and a civic leader with a shared commitment to Peace Corps values — with the Franklin H. Williams Award. The award honors ethnically diverse Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who have demonstrated a commitment to civic engagement, service, diversity, inclusion, world peace, and to the Peace Corps’ Third Goal — to strengthen Americans’ understanding of the world and...