Dallas Smith: From experts, I learned knowledge passed along generations.
Dallas Smith Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia (2017–19) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Malawi (2019–20) As told to Emi Krishnamurthy Photo: Baobab tree — used for food and medicine. Photo by Dallas Smith While earning my Doctor of Pharmacy in the States, I spent a month in India learning about what’s known as traditional and complementary medicine. Then, in Cambodia, I saw it utilized to heal people, using local culture and expertise. I brought that perspective into Malawi, but I took it one step further: I know it works, but why? How do we make it better?...
Beginning with Belize: Peace Corps Takes Steps to Return to Service Overseas
The Peace Corps announced on June 30 that it was a step closer to returning Volunteers to overseas service — starting with Belize. By NPCA Staff Photography by Emily Gale. Pictured here: BRO club members, hijinks, and a freshly painted world map in 2019 The Peace Corps announced on June 30 that it was a step closer to returning Volunteers to overseas service — starting with Belize. With a set of health, safety, and security criteria met for the post, Volunteers could arrive as early as this fall. At the request of the government of Belize, Volunteers will...
Virtual Service: Going Big
Peace Corps expands the program, launched in 2020, to scores of countries around the world — and opens it to returned Volunteers who have served across the decades. By NPCA Staff This summer Peace Corps kicked off the third round of the Virtual Service Pilot. Round one launched in October 2020, with a handful of countries participating, matching up Volunteers who had been evacuated in 2020 with projects in the countries where they had served. Round two expanded the number of countries and ran through April 2021. We shared the stories of a couple of participants in Senegal and...
Letters: Readers respond to the Spring 2021 edition of WorldView
Letters, emails, LinkedIn and Instagram comments, Facebook posts, tweets, and other missives: Readers respond to the stories in words and images in the Spring 2021 edition of WorldView. We’re happy to continue the conversation here and on all those nifty social media platforms. One way to write us: [email protected] Sixty Years of Peace Corps Thanks for another great issue! Glad you included “If I had three minutes to talk to President Biden about the Peace Corps…,” which we heard in March, and then lots of other good stories such as “Once More, with Feeling” in Moldova and “Triage, Respite, and Isolation” at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. Glad, too, to...
President’s Letter: An Historic Moment
A time to honor the past — and commit to a different future By Glenn Blumhorst Illustration by Richard Borge HERE’S A FAMILIAR CELEBRATORY REFRAIN: On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps with the mission of building world peace and friendship. In honor of that beginning, every spring is a time for us to recognize the ways that the Peace Corps has made an impact — in individual lives and in communities around the globe. But this year is different. And an unprecedented time in so many ways. One year...
Triage, Respite, and Isolation
COVID-19 and the Lord Baltimore Hotel By Marik Moen IN SPRING 2020, the State of Maryland, with the help of the Army Corps of Engineers, transformed the Baltimore Convention Center into to the 250-bed University of Maryland Medical System Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital. I was living in Fairfax, Virginia, at the time but was looking for an opportunity to serve in the COVID response — an infectious disease disproportionately affecting populations who have experienced historic discrimination. You could say it was my gig. I went to get oriented and do a few shifts. I heard some pejorative language being...
We’ll Always Have Sefrou
Evacuation, some Peace Corps history, and #apush4peace When Coronavirus Unmapped the Peace Corps' Journey Jeffrey Aubuchon (92252 Press) Reviewed by Jake Arce and Steven Boyd Saum In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the unprecedented global evacuation of Peace Corps Volunteers. Jeffrey Aubuchon brings together stories of some evacuees chronicled in WorldView: Chelsea Bajek, who was working with a women’s group in Vanuatu; Jim Damico, evacuated from teaching in Nepal; Benjamin Rietmann, yanked from his work with farmers and young entrepreneurs in Dominican Republic; and Stacie Scott, who left behind the community she was serving as a health volunteer in Mozambique. Aubuchon follows...
Video: Returned Volunteers Share Some advice — “If you need help, reach out through the Global Reentry Program”
Three returned Peace Corps Volunteers talk about some of the tough aspects of readjusting to life after service — including being evacuated in 2020. And how the Global Reentry Program has made a difference. By Dan Baker It’s been just over a year since National Peace Corps Association launched the Global Reentry Program to support evacuated Volunteers in a time of crisis. “If you need help, reach out to an RPCV through the Global Reentry Program, and you will find it,” says Hugh McIvor, a Volunteer who was evacuated from Costa Rica. He and fellow returned Volunteers Mariana Cubillos (Panama 2018–20) and Jennifer Gonzales (Namibia 2015–18)...
Peace Corps Response Volunteers Will Partner with FEMA at Vaccination Centers Across the United States
Evacuated Volunteers will put their skills and experience to work at home helping during the pandemic. By Glenn Blumhorst This week we received very welcome and timely news: Peace Corps Response Volunteers will be deployed to work with FEMA, to assist at vaccination centers across the United States. Not since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have Response Volunteers been deployed domestically. From the early days of the pandemic, we’ve seen members of the Peace Corps community step up to help communities across the United States — as contact tracers, working with food banks, making masks, as part of NPCA’s Emergency Response...
This Isn’t Over
One year after being evacuated from the Philippines, a Peace Corps Volunteer faces the trauma of leaving, the country he returned to, and a question that’s impossible to answer. By Rok Locksley Work and friendship: Rok Locksley, left, with Ban-Ban Nicolas. Photo courtesy Rok Locksley The last day of my Peace Corps service was Friday, March 13, 2020. Together with my wife, Genevieve, I was serving in the Peace Corps in the Philippines. We had gotten up early to enjoy the sunrise on what we knew would be our last day on the island that had become our...