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WorldView Magazine Summer 2020

From the Editor: Unfinished Business

The evacuation of Peace Corps Volunteers serving around the globe is unprecedented. So is the way our nation is coming to terms with the truth that Black Lives Matter.
By Steven Boyd Saum
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Pandemic has changed our community forever. Another disease we must fight: racism itself.

By Glenn Blumhorst
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What Guides Us

Equality and justice. Empathy and compassion. Join National Peace Corps Association and support work guided by Peace Corps values.
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Coming Home
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world.

 

ASIA


China

Maura Joul
Reed Piercey
Andrew Avitt
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Mongolia

Lucy Baker
Daniel Lang
Antonio Mercatante
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Myanmar

Quinton Eklund Overholser
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The Philippines

Diane Glover
Rok Locksley
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Nepal

Jim Damico
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Thailand

Sierra Drummond
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Timor Lesté

Andre De Mello
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CENTRAL ASIA & EASTERN EUROPE


Kyrgyz Republic

Jae Cho
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Moldova

Jeremy Male
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Ukraine

Kevin Lawson
Jamal Marcelin
Griffin Bouwens
A Conversation with Nancy Bouwens, Parent
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North Macedonia

Mia Richardson
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AFRICA


Ghana

Meg Holladay
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Madagascar

Danielle Montecalvo 
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Malawi

Danny Herres
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Mozambique

Stacie Scott
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Namibia

Charles Castillo
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Rwanda

Ana Santos
Diana Bender-Bier
Levi Rokey
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Cameroon

Sasha Kogan
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Togo

Ryan Blackwell
Sarah Bair
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Zambia

Amber Cohen
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Guinea

Colt Bradley
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NORTH AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST


Morocco

Joshua Warzecha
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SOUTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA & CARIBBEAN ISLANDS


Ecuador

Becky Wandell
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Guatemala

Anna Zauner
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Panama

 Danielle Shulkin
• Eli Wittum
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Peru

 Aidan Fife
• Madeline and Clint Kellner
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Dominican Republic

Benjamin Rietmann
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Jamaica

Kate Rapp
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PACIFIC ISLANDS


Fiji

Cynthia Arata
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Tonga

• Natalie Somerville
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The Unprecedented Evacuation

As told by counterparts, country directors, and Director of the Peace Corps Jody Olsen

 

Shoulder to Shoulder | Counterparts

Every Volunteer has a counterpart. That’s Peace Corps lingo for one person in the community tasked with helping make this endeavor possible.
Interviews edited by Steven Boyd Saum and Cynthia Arata
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This is Not a Drill | Country Directors

When times are good, being a country director for Peace Corps may be the best job in foreign affairs. This has not been such a time.
As told to Steven Boyd Saum
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Our Peace Corps Evacuation Journey

The Director of the Peace Corps chronicles the events that led to an unprecedented global evacuation of Volunteers. And the hardest decision she’s had to make in her life.
By Jody Olsen
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Crisis and Reentry

How the community stepped up — and a new program National Peace Corps Association created to help returning Volunteers

 

Evac Support via Facebook

A group to link evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers with the help they need. Sometimes that’s just someone to listen — and hear.
By Steven Boyd Saum
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Global Reentry: A Bridge between Peace Corps Service and a Lifetime of Peace Corps Ideals

By Dan Baker
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For the Community

Volunteers had projects and grants to fund them. They had to leave and the money was frozen. But that’s not the end of the story.
By Bethany Leech
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Work on the Hill

Here’s how we’ve been advocating for evacuated Volunteers — and a Peace Corps in a changed world.
By Jonathan Pearson and Steven Boyd Saum

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Lawmakers ask: How can we help?

In addition to legislation to support evacuated Volunteers, members of Congress have also taken time to share encouragement.
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We were evacuated from North Macedonia. So we set out to do work that reflects Peace Corps values at home.

The founder of RPCVs Serving at Home chronicles her work as a Volunteer — and launching a network to support communities across the United States.
Mia Richardson as told to Cynthia Arata
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Our Changed World 

Grappling with racial injustice — and re-imagining Peace Corps after COVID 

 

I’m Tired

Reasons why. And some serious advice. It’s a matter of life and death.
By Missi Smith
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Black Lives Matter

Voices and scenes from protests with the Peace Corps community.
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The Peace Corps in the Post-Pandemic World

COVID-19 upended systems. Now we’re focused on structural racism like never before. So how can Peace Corps help this nation live up to its ideals?
By Lex Rieffel
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In Memoriam

 

One Idea a Minute: A Remembrance of Bill Haddad

Journalist, counselor to JFK, candidate for Congress, and the man who created the inspector general office for the Peace Corps.
By William Josephsoon
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Richard Paul Thornell

At age 24, he was tasked with setting up Peace Corps’ regional office in Ghana. He would go on to teach generations of students and advise Nelson Mandela.
By Jonathan Pearson and Steven Boyd Saum
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Michael McCaskey

Longtime leader of the Chicago Bears — including during Super Bowl greatness. Service as a Volunteer in Ethiopia changed the way he saw the world — and began a decades-long connection with the country.
By Jonathan Pearson and Steven Boyd Saum
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Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean

Mother, wife, human rights attorney, and advocate for social justice, she went on to lead Georgetown University’s Global Health Initiative. She and son Gideon were tragically killed in a boating accident.
By Steven Boyd Saum
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You can make a difference.

 

Where We’re Going

Our work is just starting. Support Volunteers back in the States and their ongoing work around the globe.
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About WorldView


WorldView magazine serves the greater Peace Corps community with news, comment, the arts, politics, and commerce of the cultures of the larger world. Each issue gives voice to Peace Corps Volunteers as they serve, to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who are still dedicated to global service, and to everyone who wants to make the world a better place.
 

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Current edition: Summer 2020
Previous edition: Spring 2020. Read it here.

 

 

Submission Guidelines


We welcome pitches and, on rare occasions, completed pieces. What are we looking for? Stories that speak to the Peace Corps community. That might be focused on work connected to Peace Corps, returned Volunteers, communities and countries where Volunteers have served, connections to experiences and work in the U.S. and globally. We’re interested in ideas and impact and stories that connect with readers on a human level.


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About the Editor


Steven Boyd Saum came on board as editor of WorldView in January 2020. For more than two decades he has edited award-winning magazines in the San Francisco Bay Area, earning national recognition for writing, design, photography, illustration, and overall excellence. His journalism, essays, and fiction have appeared in OrionThe BelieverCreative NonfictionThe Kenyon ReviewChristian Science Monitor, on KQED FM, and other magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and internationally.

Steven is a native of the Chicago area and has lived on both U.S. coasts and in the South, with a good part of the 1990s spent in Central and Eastern Europe—starting with his Peace Corps service in Ukraine (1994-1996) as an assistant professor at Lesya Ukrainka East European National University. He also hosted a radio show and directed the Fulbright program and other academic exchanges for the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. He has lived and worked in the Czech Republic, and he serves as a consular officer for the Czech Honorary Consulate General in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. He has served on the board of the Northern California Peace Corps Association, appeared on panels representing returned Volunteers, and regularly serves as an election observer with the OSCE.

Steven studied English and philosophy at Emory University and writing at Johns Hopkins. He speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, German, and some Slovak. He was a three-time champion on Jeopardy! and has it on good authority that hieroglyphics is not a language. You can reach him at steven@peacecorpsconnect.org.

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The quarterly print edition of  WorldView reaches 25,000 readers in over 60 countries. The magazine is available free of charge to more than 7,000 recently evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers — and thousands more Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and staff. They’re part of a committed and dynamic community of nearly a quarter million. 

 

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What Our Readers Are Saying

“I would like to thank you for all of the amazing work you put into WorldView  magazine. Reading it gives me a great feeling of solidarity with other Volunteers and RPCVs around the world and always serves to remind me that I’m part of something very special, and something that is much bigger than I am.”

Anna Waterfield (Tanzania 2012-2014)

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“I have read WorldView for years now and it was FABULOUS to get at post. It’s important to know someone, somewhere out there is doing what you are doing, with a twist, and that’s what keeps volunteers serving and communities asking for more….this publication really does make a difference.”

Rachael Miller (Benin 2006-2008)


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