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...
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...
Ten Hidden Heroes
A conversation with author Mark K. Shriver By Steven Boyd Saum Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Mark K. Shriver teamed up with illustrator Laura Watson on 10 Hidden Heroes, published by Loyola Press, which aims to help children develop counting skills while learning ways to make the world a better place. It shows how acts of kindness and generosity can be found all around us. Shriver has served as president of Save the Children Action Network and now leads Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School in Maryland as its first lay president. He is the author of Pilgrimage: My Search for the...
From the Editor: Honoring Your Stories
Sixty years of Peace Corps. Volunteers returning to service. And a first for this magazine. Illustration by Tim O’Brien By Steven Boyd Saum A year ago the cover of WorldView bore the image of a dove encaged by a COVID-like molecule and asked: “What’s the role of Peace Corps now?” It’s a question we’re still seeking to answer. There were then, as now, no Volunteers in the field — though staff in posts across the globe were sustaining connections with communities. And tens of thousands of returned Volunteers, whether they had been abruptly evacuated because of the pandemic or had...
Now Is the Time: From the Editor of WorldView Magazine
An invitation to listen, learn — and roll up our sleeves. By Steven Boyd Saum Let’s start with a story about an invitation. There’s that historic letter from JFK below, sent to the first would-be Volunteers. And let me tell you about Laurel Hunt, a recent engineering grad from University of Minnesota, and the years of Peace Corps service she has yet to undertake in Peru, working with a community on health and sanitation. Return to March 2020: “Friday the 13th was my last day at work,” Hunt writes. “As I packed up my desk that afternoon, I got a...
In an election year marked by crisis, here’s how you can help expand and protect voter participation
Tools for constructive conversations about the election. Plus organizations seeking volunteers — and offering a few paid positions. Their vital mission: expand and protect voter participation. By James Rupert and NPCA Staff Democracy for President Why does democracy matter? It’s about a system and a culture — and a shared commitment to one another. At a time of national division, Democracy for President is a new nonpartisan initiative to help individuals and communities across the country bolster confidence in the integrity of the 2020 election. Created by research group More in Common, the Democracy for President website poses some big questions: Can we trust the outcome of...
Shoulder to Shoulder
Every Volunteer has a counterpart. That’s Peace Corps lingo for one person in the community tasked with helping make this endeavor possible. Interviews Edited by Steven Boyd Saum and Cynthia Arata Photo: Sharmae Stringfield (left) Chippie Ngwali. Courtesy Sharmae Stringfield. Malawi | Sharmae Stringfield, Volunteer Home: Virginia, United States The day I had to leave my village in the district of Blantyre was the day the painter I hired finished our mural at the health center: a dedication to sanitation and critical times to wash hands. Seeing as the evacuation was due to a virus that spreads rapidly through a lack...