Peace Corps Connect to the Future: A vision of unparalleled scope for an unprecedented time
After all Peace Corps Volunteers were withdrawn from around the world in March 2020, an unprecedented community-driven effort has charted a course for how to reimagine, reshape, and retool the Peace Corps for a changed world. By Steven Boyd Saum Washington, D.C. (November 13, 2020) — Amid a time of unprecedented crisis for the Peace Corps and our nation as a whole, the Peace Corps community has come together to chart a way forward: with specific, actionable steps that will help reimagine and retool the Peace Corps for a changed world. Those steps are outlined in “Peace Corps Connect to...
Peace Corps Connect to the Future: Views from around the world and Volunteers at home
Eight town halls and a global ideas summit to reimagine the Peace Corps for a changed world. By Glenn Blumhorst What are the big ideas for the Peace Corps, National Peace Corps Association, and the Peace Corps community going forward? To answer that, in July we convened eight town halls and a global ideas summit that brought together thousands of members of the Peace Corps community. The reason: In March 2020, all Volunteers were evacuated from around the world because of COVID-19. They came home to a country in economic turmoil and with a worsening pandemic, and soon wracked by...
Is virtual volunteering an idea whose time has come?
Testing the waters — and exploring an idea that a commission on national service says will open up opportunities to more diverse and talentted candidates. By WorldView Staff Is virtual volunteering an idea whose time has come? It’s a proposal in the report issued by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service earlier this year. As Lex Rieffel wrote in this magazine, the report explicitly calls for “an expansion of Peace Corps Response, making the program more accessible to older Americans and people with disabilities, with increased opportunities for ‘virtual’ volunteering.” Now Peace Corps has floated the idea...