Peace Corps News

RPCVs speak out on the issues

Shalala pledges to continue fight for wounded soldiers
Shalala said she and Dole have every intention of continuing to push the administration and Congress for changes, including amending the Family Medical Leave Act to allow for up to six months leave for a family member of a wounded service member. Most of the recommendations can be implemented by the administration, though some would require legislative approval. To that end, Dole and Shalala made the rounds on Capitol Hill the day after the report's release, meeting with House and Senate leaders to gain their support.  Shalala balanced the demands of the commission — visits to various veteran health care facilities around the country and seven public hearings — along with her duties at the university. She also taught a class on the politics of health care to 150 students. "She's type triple A," Dole said, laughing. "I'm a type A, but she's triple A. She's either got the cell phone going, or the Blackberry or she's in a conversation. She doesn't waste any time. She's all business, 'Let's get this done and get this done right."'  "I was at the White House when they asked me about the commission and we sort of kicked names around," Dole said. "Donna's name came up and that was the end of the conversation. "I knew it wasn't going to be partisan, but solution driven," Dole said. "We knew there were problems, otherwise there wouldn't be a commission, but we weren't there to review complaints, we were there to solve the problem."  University of Miami President and former Clinton Cabinet member Donna Shalala served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran in the 1960's. Read more.

Caption: President Bush, right, meets veteran Sgt. Major Mike Welsh who is using the 'Nu Step Machine' as he visits the rehabilitation room at the Washington Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, Monday, Aug. 13, 2007. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, left, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, second from left, co-chairs of the President Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors look on. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Morocco RPCV Sue Hilderbrand brings energy, experience to Peace and Justice Center
Since April, Hilderbrand has been director of Chico Peace and Justice Center. A self-described political theorist, she speaks freely and articulately about what she thinks and believes, about what she has read and where she has been. Stopping funding of the war in Iraq is paramount to Hilderbrand. "Right now things like health care and the environment are taking a back seat."  Hilderbrand came to Chico two years ago when her partner, cartographer Seth Paine, got a job at the Nature Conservancy. Living in Phoenix and thinking about perhaps a trip to sub-Saharan Africa, the prospect of moving to a California valley town didn't thrill Hilderbrand at first. But she warmed to the idea when she found Chico's Peace and Justice Center online. Hilderbrand met Paine while they were serving in the Peace Corps in Morocco. "I was a rural-socio-economics planner. I worked on a national park, which was the largest cedar forest in Africa. I dealt with social, economic and political forces and saw that they all work together." Read more.

Caption: Sue Hilderbrand, director of Chico Peace and Justice Center, invited people to call Congressman.

Sarah Chayes writes: NATO didn't lose Afghanistan
"In 2003, NATO moved peacekeeping forces into Kabul and parts of northern Afghanistan. But not until 2005, when it was clear that the United States was bogged down in Iraq and lacked sufficient resources to fight on two fronts, did Washington belatedly turn to NATO to take the Afghan south off its hands. And then it misrepresented the situation its allies would find there. NATO was told, in effect, that it would simply need to maintain the order the United States had established and to help with reconstruction and security. In fact, as was clear from the ground, the situation had been deteriorating since late 2002. By 2004, resurgent Taliban were making a concerted push to enter the country from Pakistan, and intensive combat between American forces and Taliban fighters was taking place north of Kandahar." Morocco RPCV Sarah Chayes has made a home in Kandahar, Afghanistan, became fluent in Pashto, one of the main Afghan languages, and devoted her energies to rebuilding a country gutted by two decades of war. Read more.

Caption:   Sarah Chayes of NPR and Adam Brooks of the BBC, after the fall of Kabul, but before the Taliban fell, in a town just inside Afghanistan called Spin Boldak. People on the walls stare at the journalists while they apply sunscreen to their faces.

Uzbekistan RPCV John Smart writes: U.S. embassy or is it George W. Bush's palace?
It's not only the largest embassy in the world, it's the largest embassy ever constructed by any nation, anywhere, at any time in history! It's larger than Vatican City and much more secure — the outer walls are 15 feet thick. In a country that has only a couple of hours of electricity a day, the new embassy will have its own generators, and in a society where drinkable water is a scarce and precious commodity, it will have its own water filtration system. The people outside those 15-foot walls might get a bit testy about this display of wealth, don't you think? The Iraqis, accustomed as they were to Saddam's numerous marble extravaganzas are referring to this mega-complex as "George W's Palace." Again, I wonder why? It's costing us billions for sure, although that information is apparently classified. Don't you think we should know what it's for? Or maybe we do know what it's for. Maybe it's all of a piece with the expensive and evidently permanent military bases that the Bush administration is building in Iraq. Maybe the plan all along was to occupy this keystone country in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Maybe that's why George W. Bush is so angered by the congress's repeated attempts to put timelines and deadlines on our occupation forces: He has no intention of us ever leaving. Read more.

Caption:  Blueprints for the new US Embassy in Iraq.

Chris Dodd says no easy election for Democrats in 2008
Democratic presidential hopeful Chris Dodd warned his fellow party members not to get lulled into believing the 2008 election will produce the same sweeping victories that Democrats enjoyed last November. "There’s an assumption that people are making that any Democrat can win in ’08," said Dodd, a U.S. senator from Connecticut who has won seven elections since arriving in Congress in 1974. "I don’t believe that." "This is about leadership, it’s about proven ability, it’s about the ability to go with bold ideas and not half measures that I think the country is desperate and hungry for," said Dodd, who attended a minor league baseball game, a farmers market and addressed Iowa’s largest state employees’ union during his latest campaign swing. Read more.

RPCVs speak out on the issues. Read more.

Julia Campbell Murder Trial opens in the Philippines

Campbell’s mother recalls her daughter in testimony
Linda Campbell occasionally smiled, then tried to hold back the tears as she described her daughter Julia and how she had given up a promising career in journalism in the United States to come to the Philippines as a peace corps volunteer. Linda said she learned on April 11 that her daughter had been missing since April 8. Then, shortly before midnight on April 18, Geary received a phone call from Jon Sanders of the US Peace Corps in Washington D.C. relaying the news of Julia's death. "It was like someone had ripped my heart," said Linda, describing how she felt the day she got the news. Lawyer Reynaldo Agranzamendez, lead counsel for the prosecution, said he called on Linda to testify to show the gravity of the family's loss and how they suffered as a result of Julia's death should the court require Duntugan to indemnify them. Peace Corps Volunteer Julia Campbell, reported missing after hiking in Ifugao, was found dead April 18, 2007.  Read more.

Teenager testifies he saw Duntugan just a few meters from where the 40-year-old Campbell was slain
A witness, who was one of the boys helping tourists go around the place, said he was playing cards with his friends when he saw Duntugan fleeing the place where Campbell’s body was later found in a shallow grave. The grave was just a few hundred meters below the Duntungans’ house where Campbell was last seen alive sipping softdrink she had bought from the suspect’s wife. Meanwhile, court sources said Duntugan’s lawyers have offered a plea bargain for the lesser offense of homicide, which under the Revised Penal Code carries a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment.   Read more.

Plea-bargain offer rejected  in Campbell murder case
The prosecution in the trial for murder of Juan Donald Duntugan, the accused in the killing last April 8 of US Peace Corps Volunteer Julia Campbell in the highland tourist town of Banaue, rejected last Tuesday a plea-bargain offer of the defense for conviction of the accused for the lower offense of homicide. Lead prosecution counsel Reynaldo U. Agrazamendez of the Baguio-based law firm of Agrazamendez, Liceralde, Gallardo and Associates rejected the plea-bargain offer of the defense on behalf of the family of the late Campbell.

Linda Martin Campbell, mother of the slain peace corps volunteer who was present during the hearing, confirmed the family’s rejection of the plea-bargain offer of the defense when she was asked for her opinion by Presiding Judge Ester Piscoso-Flor of Regional Trial Court’s Branch 34 at the Justice Hall here. Had the prosecution accepted the plea bargain offer the trial would have ended right then and there, and Judge Piscoso-Flor would have pronounced Duntugan guilty of homicide. The accused would have escaped the maximum penalty of life imprisonment and would be meted a 20-year imprisonment sentence.   Read more.

Read more about the Julia Campbell murder case.

Renewing the Bond of Trust with Volunteers

Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff write: Renewing the Bond of Trust with Volunteers
At its founding, the Peace Corps was premised on a radical and idealistic notion that many thought was impractical and even outlandish. It took bold vision and risk taking—a New Frontier mentality, a land-on-the-moon mentality—to give this notion a try. The notion was that we could trust Americans, mostly young Americans, to envision what it would take to improve the lives of villagers in the developing world, to survive hardships, and to make the best of the situation and its challenges. It took visionaries like Sargent Shriver, Bill Moyers and Harris Wofford—leaders who trusted and listened to Volunteers—to put this brilliant idea into practice.

Over the decades, there has been no change in Volunteers that warrants a diminution of this bond of trust. As stated above, we are impressed with the Volunteers with whom we serve. Almost without exception, they are idealistic, resourceful and hard working. We find that they are more mature and wise to the world than we were at their age. We are proud to serve with them, and know that many will be friends for life. We invite you to visit the Volunteers in the field to see for yourself. We believe you will be inspired as we are.

Unfortunately, today some Peace Corps managers seem to assume that Volunteers are slackers and adolescents needing strict rules and discipline. Volunteers often get the impression that the managers don't trust us. They often seem to act as if Volunteers need to be tethered so that we won't embarrass the Country Director or generate a Congressional inquiry. When the agency suffers a rare negative incident, its instinct is to construct a bulwark of paperwork and rules in hopes of preventing a recurrence. En loco parentis condescension and risk aversion seem to be common attitudes.

One probable cause of condescension is the substantial age differential between managers and Volunteers, who tend to be straight out of college with little work experience. These skewed demographics might pose problems, but they do not justify treating Volunteers like juveniles. The Volunteers may be young, but they are exceptional individuals with deep insights into their work, their sites, and their needs at site. Condescension is sure to discourage older Volunteers from serving.

Hierarchical organizations, like the present-day Peace Corps, are notoriously poor at listening. They tend to command, dictate and impose, demoralizing Volunteers in the process. In many cases what Volunteers hear from the managers are demands—to write more reports or comply with more rules. Predictably, some Volunteers become resentful and unproductive or they terminate their service early.

Early termination is a plague in the Peace Corps. It squanders the expenses of the selection process, screening, site preparation, training and settling in. It dashes the hopes and expectations of the community in which the Volunteer was serving. The best way to reduce ETs is for the Peace Corps to listen better to what the Volunteers need to be effective and productive, as S. 732 commands.

Read the rest of this article.

Obituary for Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman

Obituary for Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman
At age 88, World War II veteran and former diplomat Everett M. Woodman took the podium as guest speaker at the 2004 Fourth of July celebration in Hanover, N.H., and condemned the war in Iraq as a betrayal of American ideals. Some in the crowd booed the former Navy intelligence officer, who 60 years prior had stormed the beaches at Normandy and now stood with the help of two canes. But Mr. Woodman continued speaking, according to his daughter Betsy, of Andover, N.H., who was in the audience. "I think they expected a normal patriotic speech and he came out with this blistering stuff," she said.

From 1952 to 1954, Dr. Woodman worked in Madras, India as a cultural affairs officer for the United States Information Agency, and for an interim as acting public affairs officer for South India. For the next four years he served as an attaché at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and as director of the Educational Exchange Program under the India-U.S.A. Agreement of Public Law 48. In 1958, Dr. Woodman joined the Ford Foundation as an educational consultant to the Government of India's Ministry of Education until his appointment as president of Colby Junior College in 1962.

As president, Woodman led the college through ten years of growth and transformation. During his term, he emphasized the importance of an international perspective on education, as evidenced by campus events such as United Nations Day and Reaching the Questioning Mind Overseas. He also sought the opinions of the college's students, faculty, and alumnae and cultivated a strong relationship with them. Dr. Woodman served as president of the American Association of Junior Colleges from 1969 to 1970 and was also active in the New Hampshire Council on World Affairs.

After leaving Colby Junior College in 1972, Dr. Woodman served as president of the Nature Conservancy in Washington, D.C. Later he was appointed director of the Peace Corps in Morocco. Colby-Sawyer College presented him with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in May of 1995. Read more.

Speech by WWII D-Day Veteran and Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman on July 4, 2004
I am glad that we are not closing this event with a bugle sounding taps, for it is not a military funeral.

It is our celebration of freedom -  our  pledge to be worthy.

And while a holiday is all around us, this gathering on the green is not a high-five conqueror’s party.

We gather in justifiable pride, knowing likewise that  we have as much to mourn as to memorialize.

We weep for those we have lost, and combat veterans will best understand that kind of loss, for they had loved each other in that bond of danger and death.

I am especially mindful of that ultimate patriotism for exactly four Sundays ago I was at the American Military Cemetery, at Omaha Beach in Normandy where 9,387 headstones mark our permanent  presence on “that terrible and Sacred Shore.”

My thoughts of D-Day 60 years ago prompt thoughts of why wars should and should not be, and includes deep feelings for all families of  soldiers, sailors, airmen  who long ago gave their lives for America. Most  recently I think  today of the sadness of  Iraq - and join you in tribute to the unselfish service our forces are still performing over there with honor and courage - pray that we can say sometime soon, honestly this time,  “Mission accomplished.”

Permit me now to pursue that theme - quietly - because the subject is delicate, and I am sensitive to that.

I say this carefully:

I am glad that  Saddam Hussein is no more a worry.

He was brutal and good riddance -  but to get rid of him we betrayed our ideals and sold our soul to the totally un-American concept of “preemptive attack deterrence” - the most transparent rationalization of  Pentagon double  talk and in that unprovoked invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation  we forfeited our claim to the moral high ground.

There is no need to multiply illustrations of why much of America is now recognizing that the Iraq adventure was a colossal tragic mistake – and when history fully appraises this worst military and diplomatic blunder in memory it will portray properly a man so hungry to be a war time President that he could  taste it. “Bring ‘em on” he said.

It will also reveal how every episode of this dreadful undertaking , from the constantly concealed civilian death toll, to American torture of prisoners, to the hastily arranged secret and superficial ceremony conveying  “full sovereign authority” to Iraq, how every aspect of this long charade has been slanted and sold by shameless rationalizations – semi-plausible sounding reasons for doing what should never be done, and not doing what should be.

Now we look ahead and our prayer is that our young people and their children will develop the courage and wisdom to find victorious living in ways other than war - that their lives in a contracting world will eliminate fear of cultural differences - the mindless prejudice that often twists proper patriotism into negative nasty nationalism that  turns otherwise civil societies into warring tribes.

Teach our children to have faith in humanity and to know the dignity of all human beings. Reaffirm America’s basic belief that all people are created  equal -   that we all are children of the Universe.  There is no nonsense about that - it is universally obvious and fundamentally American.  Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Morocco.

Read more about Peace Corps Country Directors.

In the shadow of Virginia Tech, RPCV Sandra Lee Anderson remembers those killed by a gunman at the University of Texas

In the shadow of Virginia Tech, RPCV Sandra Lee Anderson remembers those killed by a gunman at the University of Texas
August 1, 1966–Our Peace Corps training class of 35 was ending its first Turkish class of the day. It was noon, and we anticipated the long walk across the 95-degree University of Texas campus to lunch.

We were a standard set of recent liberal arts graduates, a profile of what the Peace Corps wanted for a Muslim nation. We had a few sets of married couples, and some of us seemed square. I might have fit that description, but I had taken the role of smart aleck, out of character if you know me today. We had a group comedian, Bob Zahn, a tall, blonde, happy-go-lucky math major who didn’t seem to know where he was going. If anyone seemed to hear a different drummer, one with an upbeat cadence, it was Bob. A few of our guys joined to avoid the draft and being shot at in the Vietnam War. Strange irony.

We were Turkey-13, the 13th group. We studied Turkish language morning and afternoon. Grateful for lunch break, we gathered up our books and disregarded the pop, pop in the distance. It had started a little before class ended.

I didn’t glance at the tower of the University of Texas as I walked down the wide set of cement stairs of the old classroom building. I edged over to the right to hold the cement banister. Slowly, one at a time is how I had to take those stairs, always leading with my left leg.

Playing soccer, the national sport in Turkey, earlier that month, I had torn the cartilage of my left knee. I remember waking up lying on the grass. I stood, with help, then locked my left leg and walked, peg-leg fashion, back to the motel, explaining to everyone that I was fine and knew how to handle this. Halfway back, I gritted at the pain and wondered why I was so foolish to not accept help. But I knew: Nothing was going to keep me from going to Turkey with the Peace Corps.

Peg-legging down those stairs, I wondered what was going on.

The lawn was green, the trees full. Hot is usual for Austin, but not unpleasant. The tower, a 307-foot looming building, commanded the university landscape. Below the surmounting clock was the 28th Floor Observation Deck extending around all sides so visitors could see the far reaches of the University and the city of Austin. Encasing the platform was a thick wall with six-inch slits above the drain spouts. Perfect for a sniper.

I was headed for the tower. Intervening was Garrison Hall, and my view of the observation deck slowly slipped behind that building. About a block north over to my right, something was going on.

“A .30 caliber,” noted Gary Medlin, a trainee from Kentucky, his head cocked. “A magnum projectile carries farther.”

That’s the first I realized we were listening to gunshots from high-caliber rifles and handguns. I decided to stick with Gary: He knew what he was doing.  Read more.

RPCVs remember Thomas Ashton
Died: 08/01/66

Age: 22

Training to serve in: Iran

Died in: USA

Cause of Death: hemorrhage, cardia ar: gunshot to heart

Cause of death category: homicide

Notes: Trainee was killed instantly by sniper fire while crossing U/Tex campus traing site. # dead unk. At least 33 wounded. Sniper killed by police.  Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Turkey.

Read more about Peace Corps Iran.

Read more about the Peace Corps Fallen.

Michael O'Hanlon writes: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq

Michael O'Hanlon writes: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq
In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more.

Phillip Carter writes: Why O'Hanlon's latest good news from Iraq doesn't matter
In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

Today, in Iraq, we face a similar conundrum. Our vaunted military has won every battle against insurgents and militias—from the march up to the "thunder runs" that took Baghdad; the assaults on Fallujah to the battles for Sadr City. And yet we still find ourselves stuck in the sands of Mesopotamia. In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack argue that "[w]e are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." They go on to describe the myriad ways the surge is succeeding on the security front. But in emphasizing this aspect of current operations, they downplay the more critical questions relating to political progress and the ability of Iraq's national government to actually govern. Security is not an end in itself. It is just one component, albeit an important one, of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Unless it is paired with a successful political strategy that consolidates military gains and translates increased security into support from the Iraqi people, these security improvements will, over time, be irrelevant.

O'Hanlon and Pollack report progress from several diverse Iraqi cities, including Sunni-dominated Ramadi, Arab-Kurdish-Turkman Tal Afar and Mosul, and Shiite-Sunni Baghdad. Curiously, the scholars' dispatch ignores Baqubah, Samarra, Kirkuk, and the areas south of Baghdad—places with the highest sectarian tensions, worst fighting, and least progress.

The short, selective itinerary raises questions about who planned the trip, whom O'Hanlon and Pollack were able to talk with, and what they actually saw—as opposed to what they were briefed on during visits to U.S. bases. At best, these two men saw enough of Iraq to get a glimpse of reality there. At worst, they saw a Potemkin Village of success stories, not unlike the picture shown to visiting congressional delegations, that left them with a false vision of progress. Read more.

Read more about RPCV Michael O'Hanlon.

Read more about RPCVs and Iraq.

China has been using a new approach to public diplomacy to expand its influence and global appeal

China has been using a new approach to public diplomacy to expand its influence and global appeal
It's an approach at which the United States once excelled but now does badly.  Call it "soft power." This term was coined over a decade ago by Harvard professor Joseph Nye to describe a country's ability to lead by example and get others to follow because they admire what you are. The Chinese have expanded people-to-people diplomacy, set up their own Peace Corps, and trained diplomats to speak local languages and appear on local TV shows.

China took advantage of the decline of America's soft power even before the Iraq war. That decline began in Asia when U.S. officials were perceived as indifferent to the suffering caused by the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. Our soft power eroded further when we eviscerated the United States Information Service and its cultural centers during the 1990s. Then came Iraq. President George W. Bush touts the need for public diplomacy. But his appointment of Karen Hughes as public diplomacy czar has been a failure, as evidenced by poll after depressing poll.

What's so disturbing about "Charm Offensive" is the larger problem it illuminates. America is no longer taking advantage of its greatest strength: leading the community of democracies by example. Our diplomacy, as Kurlantzick notes, is preoccupied with Iraq and the "war against terrorism" to the exclusion of other countries' concerns. Read more.

Beijing has created a Chinese version of the Peace Corps to send idealistic young Chinese on long-term volunteer service projects to developing nations like Laos and Burma
In the past decade, China has upgraded its public diplomacy, which has focused on selling the idea that China will not be a threat to other nations. China’s public diplomacy efforts reinforce the concept of peaceful development. They include museum exhibits in Malaysia and Singapore to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the voyages of Zheng He, a Chinese admiral who sailed across Asia, encountering but never conquering other nations.

Part of this new public diplomacy has been increasing cultural exchanges with Southeast Asia. China has begun hosting overseas scholars, the kind of programming the US State Department has long done.

Beijing also has created a Chinese version of the Peace Corps, run by the China Association of Youth Volunteers, to send idealistic young Chinese on long-term volunteer service projects to developing nations like Laos and Burma. Read more.

Young Chinese idealists vie to join their 'Peace Corps' in Africa
Across the border from South Sudan, in the small Ethiopian village of Asossa, Sun Yingtao, a young agriculture student from Hebei Province in China, is teaching subsistence farmers – many of them refugees from war-torn Sudan – techniques for getting good yields out of their meager lands.

Seconded to the Ethiopian Department of Rural Development, Mr. Sun spends his days trying to identify various vegetable diseases, discussing possible alternative water usage, and debating the pros and cons of sowing onions and peppers in rows or in a scattered fashion.

Sun, who has been here for six months, is a civilian volunteer – one of a group of 50 young men and women who have been sent by the Chinese government as part of a new, experimental "peace corps" project in the country. This is the program's second year, and there are small volunteer groups in three locations: Ethiopia, the Seychelles, and Zimbabwe – three countries of limited economic importance for China.

Tens of thousands of young Chinese went through a rigorous three-month application process last year to compete for a spot on the volunteer team, says Liu Wei, another volunteer in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. And, though small now, the program is expected to expand.

Last November, at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, President Hu Jintao said China would send 300 young volunteers to Africa by 2009 to do jobs ranging from teaching Chinese to introducing poultry technologies to introducing traditional Chinese medicinal treatments in local hospitals. Read more.

Caption: Sun Yingtao, A Chinese volunteer in rural Ethiopia, helps local farmers use techniques to get better yields for their crops. Photo: Danna Harman

Read more about Peace Corps China.

Read more about the Peace Corps and Public Diplomacy.