Peace Corps Documentary to be Broadcast Nationwide on PBS Stations
Starting on September 2, the Peace Corps documentary, A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps will be available on PBS stations across the country. But there are still some regions that will need to request that their local stations air the documentary. A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps is coming to PBS stations nationwide, starting September 2. You can help make sure this documentary airs in your region. With local PBS stations scheduling programming 2-3 months from air date, the time is now to reach out to your local station. The PBS World channel will host a nationwide broadcast premiere on...
Unfinished Business: From the Editor of WorldView Magazine
Hopeful work, as Volunteers return to serve alongside communities overseas. And crucial work to ensure Ukraine survives. By Steven Boyd Saum Illustration by Anna Ivanenko For so much of the Peace Corps community, the months since March have been brimming with optimism, bringing news of Volunteers returning to service in countries and communities across the globe. In Africa, they’ve returned to countries including Zambia and Madagascar, Ghana and The Gambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. They have returned to the Eastern Caribbean and the Dominican Republic. In Latin America, Volunteers have been welcomed in countries including Paraguay and Peru, Colombia and Costa...
Here’s Where Peace Corps Volunteers Have Returned to Service
Two dozen countries have welcomed them back. And some fifty countries have issued invitations for Volunteers to return. By Steven Boyd Saum Two years after all Peace Corps Volunteers were brought home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they began returning to service overseas in March 2022. We shared the exciting news in the previous edition of WorldView that the first Volunteers had returned to Zambia and the Dominican Republic. In the months since, posts around the world have been busy welcoming back Peace Corps Volunteers and Response Volunteers to work alongside communities. As of August 2022, Volunteers have returned to some...
What We Mean by Friendship
With the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Friends of Moldova has stepped in to provide crucial support to thousands of refugees. by David Jarmul Logo by Friends of Moldova Until this past February, Friends of Moldova was like many “Friends of” groups within the Peace Corps community: a loose organization of returned Volunteers sharing news and supporting small grant programs in the country where they served. Then Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and everything changed. As millions of Ukrainians fled the fighting, nearly half a million refugees came to Moldova — a small, crescent-shaped country with a population...
The Future Is Unwritten
Peace, friendship, and a people whose anthem is “Ukraine Has Not Perished Yet” From the editor of WorldView By Steven Boyd Saum In the summer of 2019, during early parliamentary elections in Ukraine, I served as an observer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. With a fellow observer from Canada and a driver and interpreter from Kyiv, we visited polling places just northwest of the capital, around a pair of suburban communities — Irpin and Bucha. Irpin in particular had earned a reputation in recent years as a bucolic bedroom community, a place of fresh air and spacious green parks....
On the Plain of Snakes
In the mountains near Oaxaca, tales of El Norte: among weavers and migrant workers who left family and home for work across the border — and returned. Conversations from a time before COVID. By Paul Theroux On a sojourn in pursuit of understanding, writer Paul Theroux set out five years ago to travel the length of the U.S.–Mexico border. Then he drove his old Buick south, visiting villages along the back roads of Chiapas and, here, a mountain town near Oaxaca. An excerpt from On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey. In the small Zapotec-speaking town of San...
Understanding New Diasporas and Transnationality Through the Voices of African Immigrants to Kentucky
Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky Migration, Identity, and Transnationality By Francis Musoni, Iddah Otieno, Angene Wilson, and Jack Wilson University Press of Kentucky Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum The heart of this book is based on oral history interviews with nearly 50 Africa-born immigrants in Kentucky — of which there are now more than 22,000. From a former ambassador from The Gambia to a pharmacist from South Africa, from a restaurant owner from Guinea to a certified nursing assistant from the Democratic Republic of Congo, every immigrant has a unique and complex story of their life experiences and the decisions...
President’s Letter: Time of Hope, Time of Crisis
Volunteers have begun to return to service. Yet millions in Ukraine are now in harm’s way. By Glenn Blumhorst This is a hopeful time for the Peace Corps: On March 14, a group of Volunteers arrived in Lusaka, Zambia. Just over a week later, on March 23, Volunteers arrived in the Dominican Republic. They are the first to return to service overseas since March 2020, when Volunteers were evacuated from around the globe because of COVID-19. The contributions of Volunteers serving in Zambia will include partnering with communities to focus on food security and education, along with partnering on efforts...
A Collective Memoir of Peace Corps Libya
101 Arabian Tales How We All Persevered in Peace Corps Libya Edited by Randolph W. Hobler Lulu Books Reviewed by D.W. Jefferson Randy Hobler has taken on the herculean task of writing a comprehensive history of the Peace Corps in Libya, in the form of a collective memoir of 101 Volunteers. He interviewed as many Libya RPCVs as he could find and asked for journals and letters. The result is a collection of tales covering the brief span Volunteers served in Libya, from the training of Libya I to the termination of Libya III before they left their training...
Good News from Maryland: Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Will Now Get In-State Tuition
It’s a change long overdue. And advocacy from NPCA and dozens of returned Volunteers ensured support for bipartisan legislation signed into law in April. By Jonathan Pearson Far too often, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are left behind at the state government level when it comes to benefits that are afforded others for their service to our nation. In the state of Maryland, a bill was just signed into law to address one of those inequities: who qualifies for in-state tuition. Marylanders seeking in-state tuition have to prove they have lived in the state for the past two years. Because...