News
NPCA Statement on Final Congressional Action on FY 2026 Peace Corps Funding
February 4, 2026 - Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Senate Amendment to H.R. 7148, the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY 2026). The funding package includes appropriations for the Peace Corps and other international programs. While the Trump administration had proposed level funding of $430.5 million for the Peace Corps, both the House and Senate settled on a five percent, $20 million reduction in funding for the current fiscal year, which runs through September 30th. This funding level for the agency’s operations is nearly equal to the $410 million allotted in 2016, which represents less than 0.1% of...
Leadership Announcement at Peace Corps
Richard Swarttz has been appointed Acting Peace Corps Director by the administration until a permanent Director is nominated by the President, confirmed by the United States Senate, and sworn in for duty. Mr. Swarttz was previously appointed by the White House to serve as the Chief Financial Officer of the Peace Corps in 2018-2021. Mr. Swarttz brings over 35 years of experience in senior leadership across the nonprofit, information technology, and manufacturing industries. At Peace Corps, he spent almost three years as part of the senior management team, where his role was strategic planning and policy-making decisions. NPCA would like...
Martin Luther King Jr. and the Peace Corps
By Mike Roman, Kiribati 00-02 In the early 1960s, as the world trembled between hope and fear, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke not only to America, but to humanity. He spoke of a beloved community—a world bound together not by power, but by justice, dignity, and mutual care. While his voice echoed through churches, city streets, and the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, another idea was taking shape alongside his dream: the belief that peace could be built through service. When the Peace Corps was founded in 1961, it carried a quiet kinship with King’s vision. Young Americans were asked...
Arrest Is Not Rescue — And This Narrative Harms Survivors
By Stephanie Richard, Ukraine (98-00) During human trafficking awareness month, I wanted to write to ask PCVs and RPCVs to think critically about what human trafficking looks like and the contrasting public perspective of it. My name is Stephanie Richard, and I am an RCPV Ukraine (1998-2000) and the recent recipient of the Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service. I am the Director of the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, and I currently teach law students and conduct research and writing on the complex intersectional solutions that can prevent human trafficking and increase access to...
New Grad School Programs for RPCVs
Call to Attention By Ty Dávila, Research Contributor at the New Lines Institute Over the last few months, the University of Maine and Michigan State University have launched initiatives benefiting former Peace Corps volunteers who served in any part of the world. These programs recognize the valuable skills and perspectives that returned volunteers bring from their international service. Below are details about each program. These new fellowships include embedded professional development opportunities and networking events tailored to the unique experiences of RPCVs. By participating, former volunteers can leverage their service to advance their careers or further their education while staying connected to...
Where Prevention Becomes Personal: An Intern’s Reflection on Peace Corps, HIV Prevention, and the Stories that Endure
By Julia Ngo Peace Corps matters because it operates where public health is most fragile: in communities where trust must be earned, resources are limited, and prevention depends on relationships, not just interventions. Through its partnership with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Peace Corps has helped extend HIV prevention, education, and care into communities across more than 50 countries. PEPFAR’s success is often measured in lives saved and infections prevented. Peace Corps’ contribution is measured in something harder to quantify but no less vital: sustained presence, cultural understanding, and local empowerment. As we observe AIDS Awareness...
The Right to Care: Health and Humanity Amid War in Ukraine
By Yana Panfilova & Helen Petrozzola December is Universal Human Rights Month and reminds us that health is not a privilege or a service extended out of goodwill—it is a universal right. Yet in war-torn Ukraine, that right is being tested daily. Frequent power outages, attacks on critical infrastructure, and the ongoing displacement of millions have made even basic healthcare a struggle to sustain. As war continues to uproot millions, the destruction of healthcare facilities, the disruption of treatment supplies, and the growing psychological toll all reveal a more profound truth: vulnerability does not arise from illness or circumstance alone,...
How Peace Corps and HIV Wove Our Lives Together
By Helen Petrozzola I didn’t know where the Peace Corps would send me — only that it would be somewhere I needed to be. That was the unspoken pact: trust the process, step into the unknown, and give everything you can to the people and place you meet. Ukraine became my home, and the people I met there became my family in every sense of the word. In late summer 1998, Peace Corps Group 13 boarded a bus from Kyiv to Cherkasy for three months of training. We stumbled through new words and customs, all of us wondering where we’d...
From the Peace Corps to the boardroom: Humana CEO Jim Rechtin on listening and leading
By Ty Dávila, Research Contributor at the New Lines Institute The Peace Corps instills values that extend far beyond volunteers' years of service, providing them with a mental framework to tackle life's biggest challenges. This transformative experience continues to shape volunteers long after they return home, as demonstrated by Jim Rechtin, a former volunteer who now serves as CEO of Humana. Rechtin's Peace Corps service in the Republic of Congo nearly ended after six months when he was ready to pack his bags and return home. Instead, he persevered through the challenging adjustment period, building latrines and fostering connections with local residents....
Spirit of Service
Insights from RPCVs Briana Nezbah, Dennis Felipe Jr., and Jonathan Clark via Peace Corps Blogs Service is one of the few things that asks something of every American and, in return, gives all of us a deeper “we.” That “we” must include the First Peoples of this land whose traditions of mutual care, knowledge-keeping, and stewardship predate the nation itself. Peace Corps has long benefited from Indigenous volunteers who carry those traditions into classrooms, clinics, and councils around the world—teaching, learning, and building relationships that honor both their Tribes and their host communities. People like Briana Nezbah Edmo (Navajo Nation;...