Peace Corps Closes Post in Myanmar
Instability, unrest, and armed conflict led the agency to make the announcement in April. By NPCA Staff The history of the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar is one that has been marked by moments of optimism and despair in recent years. In 2014, a hopeful time, President Barack Obama signed an agreement to launch a Peace Corps program in Myanmar. The first Volunteers arrived in 2016 to support English education. In 2019, as the third group of Volunteers were sworn in, U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel articulated the aspirations for their work: “The people of the United States want to...
From the Editor: Honoring Your Stories
Sixty years of Peace Corps. Volunteers returning to service. And a first for this magazine. Illustration by Tim O’Brien By Steven Boyd Saum A year ago the cover of WorldView bore the image of a dove encaged by a COVID-like molecule and asked: “What’s the role of Peace Corps now?” It’s a question we’re still seeking to answer. There were then, as now, no Volunteers in the field — though staff in posts across the globe were sustaining connections with communities. And tens of thousands of returned Volunteers, whether they had been abruptly evacuated because of the pandemic or had...
The Peace Corps at Sixty: A Timeline of Six Decades of Service — and Snapshots from the Wider World
Some moments that have defined the Peace Corps from 1960 to today. Plus a year-by-year look at countries where Peace Corps programs began. Researched by Ellery Pollard, Emi Krishnamurthy, Sarah Steindl, Nathalie Vadnais, and Orrin Luc At right: the 10th-anniversary Peace Corps stamp, issued in 1972. Image courtesy Peace Corps As part of the 60th anniversary of the Peace Corps in 2021, WorldView magazine has published a series of timelines tracking Peace Corps’ beginnings — and we’ve traced the 25-year history of Peace Corps Response. Explore more here: Annotation: Changing World | The Globe in 1961, the year the Peace Corps was founded...
Unprecedented Anniversary: A Conversation with Acting Director of the Peace Corps Carol Spahn
No Volunteers in the field. Battling COVID-19 — and the global rollout of virtual volunteering. Remarks and Q&A with Acting Director of the Peace Corps Carol Spahn as part of Peace Corps Connect 2021. Pictured: In Morocco, partners and volunteer participants team up as part of the Virtual Service Pilot — which has fostered collaboration on projects around the world since October 2020. Photo courtesy Peace Corps Morocco. Carol Spahn has served as acting director of the Peace Corps since January 2021. She previously served as a Volunteer in Romania 1994–96 and later as country director for Malawi and...
Evacuation: Service cut short by medical crisis, the draft, and COVID-19
Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers: Then and Now, We Continue to Serve — a conversation convened as part of Peace Corps Connect 2021. Pictured: “Gül” in Turkish, “rose” in English. Margo Jones served as a Volunteer in the village of Asagisayak, then in the city of Bolu. Photo by Ken St. Louis On September 25, 2021, Jodi Hammer hosted a panel of Volunteers who have been evacuated from the countries where they were serving — in the 1960s and in 2020. Hammer was a Volunteer in Ecuador 1994–97 and serves as Career Support Specialist at National Peace Corps Association. Here are edited excerpts...
New Documentary: Peace Corps Response to COVID
On December 2 the agency premiered a film chronicling the work by Peace Corps Response Volunteers in 2021 to help fight COVID-19 in the United States. By NPCA Staff In 2021, for the second time in the agency’s 60-year history, Peace Corps Response Volunteers deployed in the U.S., at the request of FEMA, to support vaccination efforts. We shared stories from some of those Volunteers in the Summer 2021 edition of WorldView. On December 2, the Peace Corps premiered a documentary, “Peace Corps Response to COVID,” following Volunteers through their three-month journey as they used skills honed during their Peace Corps...
Peace Corps Begins Sending Invitations: Return to Service in 2022
Eight posts have met criteria for Volunteers to return. Invitations are out for five: Belize, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Zambia. And the agency is recruiting returned Volunteers for the Virtual Service Pilot. Colombia mural: one of the countries to for which Peace Corps has sent out invitations for Volunteers to return in 2022. Photo courtesy Peace Corps By NPCA Staff It’s the news that thousands of us have been waiting to hear since March 2020: The Peace Corps has begun issuing invitations for Volunteers to return to service overseas. Eight posts have met the agency’s criteria when...
Vishakha Wavde: “This journey has brought me to consider what more I can do.”
Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi (2018–20) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer with FEMA in United States (2021) As told to Emi Krishnamurthy Photo: Vishakha Wavde has worked in community outreach efforts with FEMA in the U.S. Photo by Eli Wittum I have been in the health sector my whole life. I’ve been a physical therapist in Chicago since emigrating to the U.S. from India 27 years ago. In 2020, after being evacuated from Malawi, where I served as a community health advisor, I continued as a physical therapist until I found the opportunity to work with FEMA and the...
Judith Jones: “Literacy will improve countries, economies, and social situations.”
Judith Jones Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Belize (2018–20) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer with FEMA in Oregon, United States (2021) As told to Sarah Steindl Photo: Teacher and student at work in Belize. Photo courtesy Judith Jones My Peace Corps journey was a little bit different. I originally applied to be a two-year Volunteer in Jamaica, and I got rejected for medical reasons. I appealed, and I lost that decision. I was devastated because this was something that I really wanted to do in my retirement. Then out of the blue, a month later, a friend who works for...
From the Editor: Crisis and Response
Beginnings. Good sense. And the second time in history that Peace Corps Volunteers have been deployed in the United States. By Steven Boyd Saum Photo from 1994: A Rwandan refugee camp in eastern Zaire. Photo courtesy CDC Here’s an instructive but heart-wrenching place to start, if we want to tell the big story at the center of this edition of WorldView. It’s one of crisis and response: April 1994. A plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi is shot down over Kigali. The assassination ignites events that lead to horrific genocide in Rwanda. Over 100 days, 800,000 people are killed....