Found Objects: Two Medical Kits Filched from the Field
To assure that Volunteers had ready access to emergency medicine in the world’s remote and sometimes dangerous places, the U.S. Public Health Service issued medical kits to all serving Volunteers for their personal use. Thirty-five items were packed in each metal box. Contents included 100 Aralen tablets, 100 water purification tablets, 25 Band-aids, a small tube of Neosporin ointment, a thermometer, two ounces in insect repellant, a snake bite kit, a tourniquet, 50 tablets of Gantrisin, and five safety razor blades. Peace Corps prohibited Volunteers who had no training from using any of the kit’s contents to serve the health...
Mental Health Hurdles
Serving in the Peace Corps is hard. It’s right there in the tagline: “The toughest job you’ll ever love.” Arguably, the single most important trait of a Peace Corps Volunteer is the grit it takes to overcome the many challenges of working in a resource-poor environment. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began turning lives upside down, more people than ever before have seen their resilience tested. The impact of the pandemic on mental health has been significant across the board, but especially for the young Americans who make up the bulk of the Peace Corps’ Volunteer applicant pool. While the prevalence...
Doubling Down on the Future
As a Volunteer serving in Romania after the fall of communism, Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn worked with entrepreneurs who wanted to start businesses during a time when the country was shifting toward a market economy. Nearly 30 years later, she was sworn in to lead the Peace Corps as its 21st director and seventh woman director on January 11, 2023. After serving as Acting Director since January 2021, Spahn’s nomination was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in December. Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA) administered the oath of office after his opening speech where he proclaimed that “Peace Corps is Back” to...
A Walk in (the) Peace Corps Park
When scores of members of the Peace Corps community visited Congress in March 2022 for the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) Day on the Hill, those who made their way on foot from Union Station southwest toward the U.S. Capitol might have passed a spot that will soon symbolize the very Peace Corps ideals they hold dear. Just steps from the National Mall, in a triangular park bounded by Louisiana Avenue, 1st Street, and C Street NW, lies the future home of the Peace Corps Commemorative—the nation’s first commemorative work dedicated to the timeless search for world peace. It’s meant...
Department of D.I.Y.
When Jodi Hammer trained to serve as a community health worker specializing in child and maternal health in Ecuador in 1994, she learned about nutrition, malnourishment in children, and how to identify and treat common health conditions in the absence of health clinics or medical professionals to staff them. One lesson covered the basics of delivering a baby. The Peace Corps gave her a copy of “Where There Is No Doctor”, a basic health guide especially for people living far from doctors or medical facilities. Living in Urcuqui, a village in the highlands of the Andes Mountains, Hammer kept her copy of...
President’s Letter: Helping the Peace Corps Be Its Best
As we celebrate Volunteers returning to service in dozens of countries, we pay tribute to a leader here at NPCA who made a difference at a critical time for the Peace Corps community. By Dan Baker At left: El Paso, 2019 — Glenn Blumhorst assists migrants at the border. Just as the Winter 2023 edition of WorldView went press, Carol Spahn was sworn in as Director of the Peace Corps. I was delighted to be there as RPCV Rep. John Garamendi delivered the oath of office. This is an exciting and important moment. The Peace Corps community has spent nearly three years seeking to maintain and...
Be Good, Be Kind, and Be Lucky
Parting advice from a writer and friend By Steven Boyd Saum Almost three decades ago, before I left California to begin serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, my friend Clark Blaise passed along the phone number for a fellow writer he knew in Kyiv. Yaroslav Stelmakh was the first Ukrainian to receive a fellowship to attend the International Writing Program at Iowa — a program that Clark directed and, since 1967, has connected well-established writers from around the globe. Slava Stelmakh (that's him on the left) was primarily a playwright — and staking out what was newly possible to say and...
Mapping a Life
A Life Unimagined: The Rewards of Mission-Driven Service in the Peace Corps and Beyond By Aaron S. Williams International Division, University of Wisconsin-Madison Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Aaron S. Williams grew up in a segregated neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s. When he began studying geography at Chicago Teachers College, it was because the subject would offer him good career opportunities in the public schools. But, as he notes early in the memoir A Life Unimagined, “studying the geography of distant places around the world…the seeds once planted by my father of distant travels began to take root.” That’s not to...
A New Fellowship for Global Peacebuilders
NPCA President Emeritus Chic Dambach has previously been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Now Oklahoma State University has launched a scholarship program in his honor. By Steven Boyd Saum Illustration by Matt Wuerker October brought a special celebration for a leader in the Peace Corps community. The School of Global Studies at Oklahoma State University announced the creation of the Dambach Peacebuilder Endowed Fellowship, a program for students with a career interest in global peace. Named after OSU alumnus and NPCA President Emeritus Charles “Chic” Dambach, the fellowship will provide funding for students in the school’s graduate program and support a...
Reporting on Ukraine
Two returned Volunteers who served in Ukraine now play key roles as journalists reporting on that country. By NPCA Staff Sabra Ayres (Ukraine 1995–97) was named chief correspondent for Ukraine at the Associated Press (AP) in September. She manages and coordinates AP’s coverage of Ukraine, including text, photography, and video storytelling. Ayres has nearly two decades of reporting that covered U.S. state and national politics, international relations, and developing democracies—with bylines from Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan, Europe, and India. Christopher Miller (Ukraine 2010–12) has joined the Financial Times as Ukraine correspondent. He has previously covered Ukraine for Politico, BuzzFeed News, and Radio...