Park Experience, Antarctic Service, a National Press Foundation Award — and a Recently Appointed Rep in Raleigh
Recognition for three members of the Peace Corps community. And an RPCV appointed to the North Carolina Legislature. By NPCA Staff Photo: Shelton Johnson, recipient of the 2022 American Park Experience Award. Courtesy National Park Service Shelton Johnson | Liberia 1982–83 Shelton Johnson received the 2022 American Park Experience Award for his years of advocating for diversity in national parks and helping families and youth feel welcome by seeing their stories told there. Johnson has worked for the past 35 years as a ranger with the National Park Service at Yellowstone and now Yosemite National Park. His storytelling talents landed him a prominent...
Peace Corps Volunteers Have Begun Returning Overseas
After a send-off from First Lady Dr. Jill Biden at the White House, Volunteers headed for Zambia and the Dominican Republic in March. Here are the 24 countries they will be returning to first. More are being added this spring. By NPCA Staff Photo courtesy Peace Corps Zambia Two years after all Peace Corps Volunteers were brought home from service overseas because of COVID-19, Volunteers are returning to posts around the world. On March 14, the first group of Volunteers arrived in Zambia. On March 23, Volunteers arrived in the Dominican Republic — the second group to return to...
Peace Corps Begins Sending Invitations: Return to Service in 2022
Eight posts have met criteria for Volunteers to return. Invitations are out for five: Belize, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Zambia. And the agency is recruiting returned Volunteers for the Virtual Service Pilot. Colombia mural: one of the countries to for which Peace Corps has sent out invitations for Volunteers to return in 2022. Photo courtesy Peace Corps By NPCA Staff It’s the news that thousands of us have been waiting to hear since March 2020: The Peace Corps has begun issuing invitations for Volunteers to return to service overseas. Eight posts have met the agency’s criteria when...
Carlos Jean-Baptiste: When the earthquake hit Haiti, I started trying to find ways to help.
Carlos Jean-Baptiste Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya (2006–08) and Zambia (2008–09) | Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Haiti (2010) As told to Ellery Pollard Photo: Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake: Carlos Jean-Baptiste, in blue shirt, assisting with relief. Courtesy Carlos Jean-Baptiste I identify as a first-generation Haitian American, born of an immigrant mother. I grew up in a community where my grade school was 50 percent first-generation American, so I experienced the world through these relationships. I was always aware of how big the world is. Peace Corps was a path to experience it firsthand, and it helped...
In It Together
Before Milana Baish served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, she interviewed 15 who had served across the decades. Then came the global evacuation. Interview by Jordana Comiter Meeting multiple returned Volunteers while studying at University of Texas, Austin, led Milana Baish to interview 15 RPCVs and write an honors thesis on how they perceived their experiences’ impact — in their communities and on themselves. They served from the 1960s to 2015, from Ghana to Sri Lanka, Brazil to Ukraine. Then it was Baish’s turn. Her service in Zambia was cut short by evacuation. A Coverdell Fellowship brought her to Clark University for...
Coming Home: Zambia
Zambia | Amber Cohen Home: Washington, D.C. Area In the village of Itinti, a 15-hour bus ride from the capital, Amber Cohen assembled a meeting of the farmers with whom she’d built 27 fish ponds during almost two years. “It didn’t really hit me that this was the last meeting I’d be having.” Her work as an aquaculture Volunteer was small-scale, in-person, and hopefully long-lasting and sustainable. In training she learned to speak Bemba, one of Zambia’s 72 languages, and gathered resources to teach fish pond construction and management. She lived in the compound of the “head man” — a...
Letters Spring 2020: WorldView Readers Write
Zambia Microfinance I am a Peace Corps Volunteer posted in Zambia. I lent a copy of [the Spring 2019] WorldView to some members of my community and they saw the article about TCP Global, “Empowering a Village.” They’re interested in microfinance and would like loans to help with various projects they want to pursue in our village. Then they formed a group of ten and asked me to get in touch with Helene Dudley at TCP Global. The leader of them is Stanley Shikoki. Would it be possible for TCP Global to provide micro-loans in my community? Calvin Yahn Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia...