Heavy Medal
Last year marked the 60th anniversary of the return of the first Peace Corps Volunteers to the United States. Members of Congress and all those who support the outstanding contributions of the Peace Corps should consider nominating Returned Peace Corps Volunteers as a group for a prestigious Congressional Gold Medal, an accolade that would encapsulate their profound impact across 140 nations. As many of the first Volunteers sent abroad enter their retirement years, now is the time to show our nation’s appreciation for their outstanding global accomplishments. As President John F. Kennedy said in his remarks upon signing the Peace...
Peacebuilding with Persistence
As the world has shifted its collective attention to conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, it might be hard to remember that it was only two years ago that American forces withdrew from Afghanistan after more than 20 years of waging war there. For the NPCA group Friends of Afghanistan, however, the fight for women’s rights, children’s education, health equity, and fair refugee policies hasn’t stopped. In November 2023, Friends of Afghanistan proudly celebrated 61 years since the establishment of Peace Corps in Afghanistan in 1962. The program thrived for 17 years before closing its doors in 1979...
A Matter of Perspective
One criticism often leveled at the standard maps of the 20th century is that they represent a Eurocentric view of the world. The maps we see hanging in countless classrooms and depicted on globes aren’t necessarily to scale. Commercial maps often depict an outsize Europe and a shrunken Africa, and place Asia and the Pacific Ocean on the periphery. Intentionally or not, such depictions carry with them ingrained ideas and ideologies about the geography of the world and where countries and people belong in it. The small multi-island nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific has been home to Peace...
The Map Makers
Forestry Volunteer Barbara Jo White (Dominican Republic 1987–89) wanted to plant fruit trees near the school in Hondo Valle, the small town she lived in on the Dominican Republic’s mountain border with Haiti. “What happened was some fruit trees came my way, and I made compost and all of that stuff and planted my fruit trees on the border of the school grounds,” White says. But after the fruit trees were planted, the school’s head- master decided to lease the plot to a farmer, who tilled it with oxen to sow his bean crop. When Peace Corps’ forestry sector director...
Through Service, Comes Peace
Dharamsala is a bustling market town in the western Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Nestled deep in the Himalayan foothills along the northern section of the India-China border, it became the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959. These days, the Tsuglagkhang Complex, in Dharamsala’s McLeod Ganj neighborhood, is like a tiny piece of Tibet—with an active monastery, a museum, and, of course, the Dalai Lama’s residence. Nirav Shah (Zambia 2013–15) has long been fascinated with the Dalai Lama and the Nobel Prize winner’s philosophy, so when he realized he had 53 days of...
The Art of Reconciliation
Kathleen Malu served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda in 1980. Thirty years later, in 2010, she returned as a Fulbright Scholar to a very different country. In the intervening years, the horrors of the Rwandan genocide had shocked the world. In 1994, over the course of 100 days, it is estimated that close to one million Tutsi were massacred by Hutus. During her second stay in Rwanda, Malu met Christiane Rwagatare and a group of women using art to preserve tableaus of ordinary Rwandan life, as well as scenes of reconciliation and restoration. The intricate tapestry featured here...
Follow the Energy
It was a frigid winter in 1993, and Damian Jones (Nepal 1987–91) was shivering in a sleeping bag inside his car some- where near the Eastern Market in Washington, D.C.. His big idea, to bring aid to Nepal through artisan trade, was just beginning to take off. Large entities like UNICEF and Save the Children had begun exploring small-scale handicraft initiatives in developing countries, but not in a way that Jones saw as sustainable. “Nepal receives a ton of aid, and none of it makes its way back to the villages. All this money comes in, but then it’s kind...
American Moon, Tongan Sun
January 6th is a date most Americans will not soon forget. Looking back now, after the insurrection, I marvel that, in 1988, 400 of us Returned Peace Corps Volunteers were invited to spend 24 hours in the Capitol Rotunda with little more than the directive that we provide our names and Social Security numbers—and this was after closing hours! The event, dubbed “Journals of Peace: A Very Special Commemoration by the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers,” was first announced in the Fall 1988 issue of this magazine, WorldView. The announcement read: “Come join us for this singular event....
Where is the Peace?
Those concerned with the state of global peace might be forgiven for succumbing to a melancholic, even defeatist point of view given the events of the past few years. The world is experiencing the highest level of violence since World War II, with armed conflicts simmering, enduring, or raging in Ukraine, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine, to name just a few. In 2022, more than 2 billion people lived in conflict-afflicted areas, and 110 million were displaced by violence, according to the United Nations. And the 2023 Global Peace Index, one of the most reliable measures of current levels of...
The Three Amigos
June 2022: We were on the short flight from Miami to Havana, Cuba. Tres amigos. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Mike Tulley, Rick Smith, and myself (all Honduras, late 1970s), we were on an adventure to the off-limits Latin American country that is so close, yet so far away. There is no group better able to transcend political differences than a group of Peace Corps Volunteers, so we set about our self-styled diplomatic “mission” to foster peace and friendship across the island. Before leaving, we checked out the confusing State Department requirements that have vacillated from one presidential administration to the...