Champions of the Golden Valley is a heart-warming new documentary produced by RPCV Baktash Ahadi that follows Alishah Farhang, a skier who, after failing to qualify for the Olympics as Afghanistan's first winter Olympian, returns home to start a ski club in his mountain village.
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Stay UpdatedFall/Winter 2025-26 Issue
Literary Legacy
Some Peace Corps journals go on to have a much larger reach as they are transformed into compelling memoirs, fiction, and other stories published professionally and even climbing to the top of bestseller lists.
Bookstores Without Borders
Imagine you are living in the capital city of Guatemala. You need an escape, a place to find peace in your daily routine. In different countries, in different languages, bookstores create community through reading.
When a Picture Sells a Thousand Words
WorldView spoke with noted book designer Peter Mendelsund, creative director at The Atlantic magazine and author of multiple novels and cover design books, to understand the process of making a good cover, knowing it will be judged.
Helicopters and The Himalayan Gourmet Cookbook
When Diana Oppedal supported the Peace Corps medical office in Kathmand making house calls by helicopter to those in the most remote sites in the mountains, she never thought it would lead to publishing a cook book.
Born to Serve
Jason Carter, chair of the Carter Center board, reflects on his grandfather’s legacy, his experiences as an author, and his vision for the Carter Center as a new documentary about the effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease is released, and…
A Life Lived in Books
Dan Pelzer started recording every book he read in 1962, when he arrived in Dharan, Nepal, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. After he passed away on July 1, Marci posted her father’s meticulously handwritten record of the 3,599 books he…
A Backpack and a Blog
After travelling through 10 countries, NPCA Board Chair John Lee Evans see a Peace Corps that's thriving and urgently needed worldwide.
Reading Room: RPCV Book Clubs
For many, book clubs have become a doorway back to service, a place where returned Volunteers can feel the same spark of curiosity that once led them across oceans.
Snapshots of Service
RPCV Sam Friedberg (Madagascar 2017–19) has spent more than a year traveling solo through Africa and Asia, staying with over 50 Peace Corps Volunteers at their sites along the way.
From the Community
Frostbound and Down
The desire to run a full 26.2-mile marathon in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments in existence isn’t without its fair share of cocked eyebrows and earnest inquiries into…
Artificial Intelligence Is No Match for Volunteerism
While the latest AI technology continues to shift the way we collectively work, LinkedIn’s Most In-Demand Skills report shows that highly-transferable, “human-centric” soft skills like communication, adaptability and leadership are the most…
The Fourth Goal?
At the July 2025 Peace Corps Connect conference, OHAP led an interactive workshop called “Enriching American Communities” to tap into the Peace Corps community at large and encourage the RPCVs…
The Kirwin Effect
When Michael Kirwin looks back on his life, he traces its turning point to a single decision he made as a young man in the late 1960s. What he didn’t…
Spring/Summer 2025 Issue
The Domestic Dividend: Part I
How do you measure the value of transformation? Ask almost any RPCV if their service was worth it and you get a resounding “Yes.” But ask the average American taxpayer and you may get a different answer.
The Domestic Dividend: Part II
It wasn’t until the late 1980s that Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power,” but Peace Corps fit Nye’s description: a foreign policy tool that achieves desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion.
Domestic Dividend: Part III
As Dean Rusk, former U.S. Secretary of State, once said, “The Peace Corps will make its greatest contribution to foreign policy by not being a part of foreign policy.” It’s a concept the agency has had to navigate since.
“Bigger Than Peace Corps”
California Service Corps is the largest state-based service program in the U.S. , with more than 10,000 volunteers across the state in 2025. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom proudly calls the program “bigger than the Peace Corps.”
Show Up, Stand Up
For now, at least, Peace Corps remains one of the last vestiges of America’s position at the vanguard of soft power, leadership, and international cooperation. NPCA President Dan Baker on why now is the time to stand up for service.
When Small Things Make Great Things Possible
In 2023, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer John Chromy (India 1963-65) selected 10 illustrative stories that demonstrate the profound impact Peace Corps has had worldwide. The result is the collection When Small Things Make Great Things Possible.
