On the Road to Kinale
To get to the town of Kinale — a small settlement of mud huts and brick-and-mortar blocks situated in the high country along the Western edge of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, East Africa — one must negotiate four miles of evergreen-forested terrain, the distance between the Nairobi Highway and the village itself. This negotiation is abetted by an unnamed road connecting the two points, a dirt track that can, at least in the brief dry season, accommodate, along with the plentiful bicycles and ubiquitous humans on foot, actual cars, a rare mode of travel in this poor, rural...
The Longest Extra Time
Jill Tucker sat quietly in a bar, watching the World Cup match unfold on the TV with everyone else, when a man sitting nearby addressed her: “You were my teacher.” Tucker had served the Peace Corps in 1990, teaching English for two years in the Capital of Cape Verde, Praia. Thirty-five years later, Ivan, a student in her class, wound up at the very same bar that night, watching the World Cup, too. When Tucker finished her Peace Corps service in 1992, there was no video call or social media to keep her connected to her students or the friends...
The Idea That Wouldn’t Die
Let’s face it: Peace Corps has seen better days. In the past year, six programs have announced closures or canceled cohorts, including South Africa, Mozambique, and Ethiopia—a host country since 1962—and dozens of staff positions have been cut both at headquarters and abroad. The agency, once firmly independent, has seen the State Department and Congress pledge closer oversight. Recruitment is down, with more than half (55 percent) of available Volunteer placements going unfilled, compared with just 6 percent in 2019. But before we declare the end of JFK’s bold experiment, consider another truth in this 65-year story: Peace Corps has...
Hard Corps
A Domestic Version of Peace Corps In February 2026, Peace Corps announced the launch of its newest program: The Tech Prosperity Corps. This new service opportunity, which aims to facilitate international development and economic growth in Peace Corps host countries through the adoption of artificial intelligence, marks the latest example of Peace Corps’ continuing legacy today. In the decades since Peace Corps’ founding in 1961, its success has sparked a movement of service-based organizations, many of which have incorporated the word “corps” into their name. The word “corps” itself has long carried associations of shared mission, discipline, and collective identity....
Posters for Peace
As Peace Corps launches a retro recruiting campaign to mark its 65th anniversary, the art of the poster has always been key. A past exhibition by ArtReach Gallery and the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience did more than trace marketing materials for the agency. In images and words — including works by renowned artists Peter Max and Shepard Fairey — it explores how we think about and talk about the idea of peace itself. And how we make it. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps in 2011, Shepard Fairey created a poster that was widely distributed across...
You GLOW Girl
Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a transformative initiative launched by Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) that has empowered tens of thousands of girls and young women worldwide through self-confidence and leadership development programs, promoting gender equality and fostering community building across 60 countries since its inception in Romania in 1995. One of Peace Corps’ most widespread gender empowerment initiatives is Camp GLOW, which has provided the opportunity for tens of thousands of girls and young women to attend programming that develops self-confidence, leadership skills, goalsetting, gender equality, and more. Camp GLOW has been hosted in 60 different countries by...
When Small Things Make Great Things Possible
Editor's Note: “It is way past time for the Peace Corps to tell the story of some of its numerous great achievements. How do we make that happen?” This question was posed by William “Bill” Josephson, a longtime collaborator with Sargent Shriver and who contributed directly to the design and scope of the Peace Corps. In 2023, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer John Chromy (India 1963-65) decided to take Josephson up on his challenge. To do so, he selected 10 illustrative stories that demonstrate the profound impact Peace Corps has had on communities around the world. The result is the collection...
Domestic Dividend: Part III
From its Cold War–era founding, Peace Corps has always carried national security implications. When President John F. Kennedy created the agency through an executive order in 1961, he directed its initial funding to come from the Mutual Security Act of 1954, a post–World War II law that provided economic and military assistance to developing nations. Peace Corps was formalized into law a few months later, and now more than 240,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in over 60 countries as a key pillar of United States national security. “U.S. national security has historically rested on a three-legged stool: defense, diplomacy...
The Domestic Dividend: Part II
It was more than altruism that motivated John F. Kennedy to start Peace Corps. By 1961, the Cold War had split the world into opposing camps: the communist East and capitalist West. On a late-night campaign stop in 1960, Kennedy informed a large group of University of Michigan students that the Soviet Union “had hundreds of men and women, scientists, physicists, teachers, engineers, doctors, and nurses . . . prepared to spend their lives abroad in the service of world communism.” In the spirit of Cold War competition, he challenged those young Americans into do the same—to give a few...
A Founding Father
At 92 years old, Chuck Laskey embodies a rare spirit of dedication and adventure. As a former Peace Corps Volunteer and international relief worker, Laskey spent over three decades traveling the world, helping those in need, and experiencing the beauty of cultures across continents. His story is one of courage, resilience, and an enduring commitment to humanity. It also exemplifies an often-overlooked early collaboration between the Peace Corps and the stalwart development agency CARE International (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere), founded in 1945 to fight global poverty. “When the Peace Corps emerged in 1961 as a government program, they...