Frostbound and Down
The wind howls desolate, and the numbing of my fingers inch further and further up the wrist alarmingly. These unrelenting high velocity winds continue to crank at unfathomable knots and send flurries of hard-wrought regrets ringing between the ears. The ears that are also like icicles at the moment as I toe the start line of the almighty Antarctica Marathon. The desire to run a full 26.2-mile marathon in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments in existence isn’t without its fair share of cocked eyebrows and earnest inquiries into one’s mental health. The journey to the continent alone is...
Reading Room: RPCV Book Clubs
Nobody joins Peace Corps without a hunger to understand cultures beyond their own. But where does that hunger go once Volunteers are home again, amid traffic, school pickups, and email pings? For many, book clubs have become a doorway back to service, a place where returned Volunteers can feel the same spark of curiosity that once led them across oceans. Each meeting is an echo of those shared nights in far-flung Peace Corps sites, trading tattered copies of The Poisonwood Bible for One Hundred Years of Solitude. In Portland, Oregon, Bill Stein (Niger 1990–93) has been tending one of the...
Snapshots of Service
RPCV Sam Friedberg (Madagascar 2017–19) has spent more than a year traveling solo through Africa and Asia, staying with over 50 Peace Corps Volunteers at their sites along the way. During his travels Sam asked four of the Volunteers who hosted him about their favorite books and advice for aspiring Volunteers. The last names of currently serving Volunteers have been withheld for privacy and adherence to Peace Corps policies. Luke, Lesotho The Site: As West Virginia is to the United States, Lesotho is to Africa - that is, a state in the mountains. One would be hard-pressed to find...
Made in America
Charlie Clifford (Peru 1967–69) is the founder of Tumi Inc., a global travel luggage brand, as well as Roam Luggage. He spoke with WorldView editor Robert Nolan about how Peace Corps helps develop entrepreneurial skills and gives RPCVs the tools and confidence to start their own business ventures. RN: What skills did you learn in Peace Corps that helped you when you embarked on a business career upon your return? CC: I think it takes a certain amount of entrepreneurial DNA to be interested in something like the Peace Corps. Once you’re assigned to a particular location, everything you’ve spent...
Return on Investment
Editor's Note As federal funding for international aid and cultural exchange programs continues to shrink, policymakers are increasingly asking whether these initiatives deliver tangible benefits to Americans. In 2021, National Peace Corps Association commissioned a major study to mark the Peace Corps’ 60th anniversary. The result—The Domestic Dividend of Peace Corps—was published in 2023 and stands as the most comprehensive analysis to date that demonstrates how Peace Corps service benefits communities back home. What follows is an executive summary, as written by the task force. Preface In August of 2019, two of my 1960s PCV friends, Art Flanagan, and Randy...
Signal Boost
The digital world is awash in voices seeking monetary reward or improved social status, as the online acronym goes, IRL (in real life). There are, however, some that have dedicated their time, effort, and social media platforms to those who are in most need of the spotlight. Not surprisingly, these voices include several Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. In many ways, social media has transformed how the Peace Corps’ third goal—to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans—is achieved. Storytelling by Volunteers is at the heart of this goal; now, that storytelling is done with...
Plains to the Pacific
We are in uncharted public policy territory. Our nation’s foreign assistance infrastructure has been gutted with the elimination of USAID, the dismantling of entities such as the U.S. Institute of Peace and Voice of America, and cuts to the Department of State budget, which are likely to be implemented in 2026. President Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal to Congress also includes the elimination of AmeriCorps, the premier federal program supporting national service. It is not a good time to be in the business of promoting international peace and development, or even service here at home. Comparatively, Peace Corps is...
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...
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...
Retrograde
Baktash Ahadi (Mozambique, 2005– 07) is an award-winning filmmaker, human rights activist, TEDx Speaker and RPCV. His latest film, the Emmy Award winner Retrograde, offers a first-hand account of the controversial U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the human toll the war has taken on Afghans and Americans alike. Below is a condensed and edited conversation Ahadi had with WorldView editor Robert Nolan. Robert Nolan: When I watched the film there was a particular scene when the Green Berets are breaking the news to their Afghan counterparts about the U.S. withdrawal. You could just feel how emotional those guys were and...