WorldView | Spring 2020
Words and Deeds
The weather: We talk about it but don’t do a blessed thing about it, right? Until we did, without intending to — into the Anthropocene era we rode, brave new world of climate instability. But that climate changing is accompanied by some very predictable results — at least for small-landed and big-oceaned island nations in the […]
Climate Change in the Pacific
Islands in Peril
Climate change and Pacific nations heroically trying to save themselves By Mike Tidwell Dying trees, sandbagged shore. Photo for Humans of Kiribati by Raimo Kataotao At the United Nations building in New York, the national flag of every country on earth hangs from a pole outside. Whenever a new country is born — South Sudan […]
On the Front Lines
FIJI & BEYOND: A MacArthur Fellow takes stock of climate change loss and damage — and immediate solutions By Stacy Jupiter Under threat: Low-lying islands and coral cays, like barrier islands Wallis and Futuna, are extremely vulnerable to impacts of sea level rise. Photo by Stacy Jupiter. In August 2019, as Pacific Island leaders arrived […]
Writ on Water
Tonga: Lessons and memories, hopes and fears By Siotame Drew Havea Forty years ago I started working with Peace Corps Tonga. When I came on board in the mid-1980s as training director and then associate director, our two main projects focused on education and health. We had also launched an agricultural project, focused on research […]
Dengue Fever Blues
The Marshall Islands: Climate change and healthcare By Jack Niedenthal I work with a group of health care workers whom I will forever consider to be heroic. And this is why this is so: In the Marshall Islands climate change to us is not a “threat,” it already weighs heavily upon our island lives each and […]
Day Begins Here
Kiribati: Land is tied to identity. But the land is vanishing. By Michael Roman Kiribati is the center of the world. Here the international dateline crosses the equator. It is the only country to have territory in all four hemispheres—north, south, east, west—and the first nation to see the sunrise of each new day. It […]
Full Circle
In the wake of a devastating natural disaster, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers mobilized. And the nonprofit Friends of Tonga was formed. By Michael Hassett and Chiara Collette On February 11, 2018, Cyclone Gita, with winds that topped 233 km/h — category 4 hurricane strength — slammed into the Pacific island nation of Tonga. It was […]
Earth, Wind, and Firing the Imagination
Tilting with Windmills
Connect turbines from wind alley to where people need the juice, and you could transform the American energy grid. Even get us to 50 percent renewables. That was Michael Skelly’s grand vision. By Russell Gold This is not a story with a happy ending — yet. It’s a tale of former Peace Corps Volunteer Michael Skelly (Costa Rica […]
Earth Day at Fifty: How it began—and what you can do now
History and ideas from RPCVs for Environmental Action By Kate Schachter It began as a teach-in on the environment. After years of attempting to influence Congress to take action for environmental reforms, Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, turned to the American public: With actions nationwide, it was time to raise awareness of environmental crises […]
A Towering Task
Peace Corps in the American Conversation By Alana DeJoseph Nearly six and a half years ago, when we began production on “A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps,” it was important to get this story out. America was forgetting that there was a Peace Corps. Much has changed in the years since. In […]
An Editorial Giant
When I think of Peace Corps champions, one name often comes to mind. David Arnold has, as WorldView magazine’s editor for 20 of its 32 years in publication, amplified the Peace Corps community’s voice worldwide. Each quarter, David has set the theme, curated content, and assembled a preeminent publication by and for the Peace Corps community. David […]
Shaping Three Worlds
How WorldView pieces together our Peace Corps experience By David Arnold As this magazine continues publishing into its fourth decade, WorldView has become many things for the Peace Corps community. That’s what magazines do. Particularly this one. The tone and texture of this modest quarterly was bound to change for at least several reasons: tumultuous events in most […]
Gold in Peace
WHY I GIVE: From Mongolia to the San Francisco Police. For Kenneth Syring, it’s about service. A Conversation with WorldView Magazine Kenneth Syring joined Peace Corps when Volunteers didn’t choose their destination. He was thrilled when Peace Corps asked him to go to Mongolia. That’s the country he had in mind when this Bakersfield, California native applied. […]
Announcing the Peace Corps Community’s 40 Under 40
To celebrate National Peace Corps Association’s 40th anniversary, we recognize the extraordinary achievements of 40 individuals we believe exemplify a new generation of leadership within the Peace Corps community and beyond, and we are proud to share their stories. Diverse as the countries they served as Volunteers, you will find politicians, entrepreneurs, film makers, professors, diplomats, and more among our […]
Gallery
Flashback 1984: Travels in China
Gallery Photos by Jamie Fouss. Introduction by David Arnold In 1984, Jamie Fouss and a Peace Corps Samoa friend, Liz Alperin, spent six weeks traveling in the People’s Republic of China. The United States had established diplomatic relations only five years prior. China had recently removed the requirement that all foreigners travel in groups; Jamie […]
Global News. Peace Corps’ Independence. Teachers. Letters.
China Farewell and Other Developments In the Peace Corps Community
China Farewell The eve of the Lunar New Year brought some startling Peace Corps news: The program in China — which has sent 1,321 volunteers to teach English in different provinces — would begin winding down immediately. No new Volunteers would be sent—though the 139 Volunteers currently serving would be allowed to finish. That was the […]
Keep Peace Corps Independent
A Senate bill would make Peace Corps part of the State Department. Ten former Peace Corps directors write why that’s a terrible idea. Here’s the text of a letter that ten former Peace Corps directors delivered on January 7 to senators James Risch and Bob Menendez, respectively Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The […]
World-Class Teachers
Thirty years of connecting Peace Corps Volunteers, educators, and classrooms For three decades the Peace Corps’ Paul D. Coverdell World Wise Schools program has fostered global learning in the United States and around the world. And the program is celebrating its 30th anniversary by bringing more to the classroom: new interactive resources that teach intercultural understanding […]
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. […]
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WorldView magazine brings you stories from and about the greater Peace Corps community, with connections to the wider world. We feature news, profiles, commentary and analysis, politics, arts, and ideas with a global perspective. We publish quarterly in print, with digital features throughout the year.
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Steven Boyd Saum came on board as editor of WorldView in January 2020. For more than two decades he has edited award-winning magazines in the San Francisco Bay Area, earning national recognition for writing, design, photography, illustration, and overall excellence. His journalism, essays, and fiction have appeared in Orion, The Believer, Creative Nonfiction, The Kenyon Review, Christian Science Monitor, on KQED FM, and other magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and internationally.
Steven is a native of the Chicago area and has lived on both U.S. coasts and in the South, with a good part of the 1990s spent in Central and Eastern Europe—starting with his Peace Corps service in Ukraine (1994-1996) as an assistant professor at Lesya Ukrainka East European National University. He also hosted a radio show and directed the Fulbright program and other academic exchanges for the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. He has lived and worked in the Czech Republic, and he serves as a consular officer for the Czech Honorary Consulate General in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. He has served on the board of the Northern California Peace Corps Association, appeared on panels representing returned Volunteers, and regularly serves as an election observer with the OSCE.
Steven studied English and philosophy at Emory University and writing at Johns Hopkins. He speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, German, and some Slovak. He was a three-time champion on Jeopardy! and has it on good authority that hieroglyphics is not a language. You can reach him at [email protected].
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