Peace Corps News

Ethiopia RPCV Allan Reed created a Diaspora Skills Transfer Program to bring educated southern Sudanese living abroad back to the country that needs them

Ethiopia RPCV Allan Reed created a Diaspora Skills Transfer Program to bring educated southern Sudanese living abroad back to the country that needs them
More than 5 million southern Sudanese were displaced by war. Up to 90 percent of the population cannot read or write. Ten miles of paved road exist in a region the size of Europe. And diseases eradicated elsewhere in Africa, such as sleeping sickness and guinea worm, flourish. "Both health and education are critical to the needs of the returnees," Reed said. They are also the "least controversial" types of aid that can be given to a country still recovering from political strife, he added. Reed directs this and other humanitarian efforts from a four-bedroom house he shares with other international-development agency staff members in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan.

Since the program started in November 2005, about 100 doctors and educators have given up Western salaries and living conditions to return to Sudan for three months of service. In Sudan, the reception has not always been rapturous. "Sometimes there are attitudes (like), 'Who are these people coming back who were living these cushy lives while we were suffering?' " Reed said. "But the Sudanese government has clearly recognized the importance of (returnees) and the skills they bring." Reed said the proof of this is in the outcome: Almost 50 percent of the volunteers have since returned to Sudan, and several have stayed permanently. One volunteer, a doctor from Tennessee, is now the deputy director of southern Sudan's National HIV/AIDS Council. A Texas professor has become a minister in Sudan's fledgling government of national unity.  Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Ethiopia.

Read more about the Peace Corps and NGO's.

Read more about the Peace Corps and Service.

Caption: Allan Reed and wife Ayo Reed pose next to Sudanese art which represents Dinka tribal life. They met when she was working as a nurse in Sudan in 1972 and were married in 1974 and are preparing to return.

Recent RPCV Obituaries

Obituary for Nepal RPCV Loret Miller Ruppe
Inspired by her mother, who was director of the Peace Corps at the time and who later, was the U.S. ambassador to Norway, Dr. Ruppe served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal from 1985 to 1987. She married another Peace Corps volunteer and moved to Charlottesville where she received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia in 1990. While pursuing a doctoral degree in environmental engineering from the University of California at David, she completed the demanding Program in College Teaching and taught undergraduate classes. Dr. Ruppe organized conferences aimed at encouraging under-represented minorities and women to enter the engineering field. She also organized the National Science Foundation’s First Women in engineering Leadership Conference. She returned to the Washington area in 2003 to work at AID, where in addition to her role on the global climate change team, she also provided technical support on a range of climate-related issues to missions in Asia and the Near East and was a U.S. delegate to negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Dr. Ruppe received her doctorate in 2005. Read More.

Obituary for Jamaica RPCV Bonita 'Bonnie' Mather
Bonnie's life was rich with service to others. After nursing school, her nursing career began in the early 1950s with assignments in Billings, Williston, North Dakota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota. She received her bachelor of science degree in elementary/special education at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and her master's in special education from Eastern Montana College in Billings, going on to teach regular and special education for Great Falls Public Schools until 1972. She also piloted the first elementary program for the emotionally disturbed. Bonnie again returned to nursing at the Montana Deaconess Medical Center (now Benefis East) in various units from 1985 to 1993. In 1995, Bonnie joined the Peace Corps and served two years in Jamaica as a primary health care and health education nurse. Bonnie retired to her residence in Monarch, where her intelligent wit, keen sense of humor, and desire to give to others made her a fast friend to the community. Read more.

Obituary for Pakistan RPCV Richard Bowman
After returning to the United States, he was among the first employees of the Peace Corps, joining in 1961. For two years, he spoke at college campuses and gave television and radio interviews throughout the country recruiting for the Peace Corps. He served with the organization in Pakistan from 1963 to 1966. Read more.

Obituary for Togo Medical Officer Albert E. Henn
He had been a Peace Corps medical officer in Togo in 1968 before working for the U.S. Agency for International Development. During 1970 and 1971, he served as regional medical officer for the Peace Corps in Washington, where he recruited, hired and trained Peace Corps medical staff and helped to formulate Peace Corps health policies; coordinated international emergency care; represented the Peace Corps with other government agencies; and conducted clinical research. Read more.

Obituary for Thailand RPCV Henry Ginsburg, Curator of Thai and Cambodian Collections at the British Library
Introduced to Asia with a stay in India, Ginsburg nevertheless studied Russian at Columbia, then joined the US Peace Corps, which sent him to Thailand. There he taught English in the provincial town of Chachoengsao, 1964-66. His interest subsequently took him to the only viable academic institution where he could pursue the topic of Thai literature, namely the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. Under the guidance of Stuart Simmonds, he wrote a dissertation on a set of embedded Thai fables, progeny of the Sanskrit Pancatantra, that, as can be learned from his 1975 scholarly article on the subject, serve to discourage humans from allowing identities to be perverted (don't marry a nymph, and remember that the mythic Garuda bird lost his credibility when he allowed the birds he ruled over to see him featherless while moulting). Read more.

Obituary for Malaysia RPCV Norman Leo Haug
He served in the Peace Corps from 1964 to 1966 and was stationed on a Malaysian island where he was often the only physician for a population of several thousand. After the Peace Corps, he joined the Army. While serving in Vietnam, he narrowly survived the Tet Offensive. He was a volunteer physician after the 1998 Hurricane Mitch in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and received many awards including the Colorado Rural Health Excellence Award in 1999, the Civis Princeps Award from Regis University in 2001 and the National Rural Health Practioner of the Year in 2003. Read more.

Memorial tree planted for Uzbekistan RPCV Melissa Reynolds
Reynolds, who was in her second year of the sociology and anthropology masters program, was studying to become a historical archeologist when she came to ISU in 2005. Born in the Netherlands, Reynolds joined the Peace Corps for two years and taught English to elementary students in Uzbekistan before attending ISU. She aspired to become an archaeologist when she was in elementary school and was well on her way to achieving that goal. Read more.

Obituary for Colombia RPCV Bill Bullard
Mr. Bullard retired in 1976, and he and his wife promptly joined the Peace Corps, spending 1 and a half years in Colombia helping to plan new national parks there. Most of the volunteers were much younger, but "we could keep up with them pretty well," Jean Bullard said. Read more.

Obituary for Chile RPCV Charles Grier Johnson Jr.
After graduating from Glassboro High School, he earned a bachelor's degree in forest resource management from the University of Idaho in Moscow in 1967 then joined the Peace Corps and served in Chile. While in Chile, he met and wed Angelica Gonzalez Sotomayor. Read more.

Obituary for Poland and Sierra Leone RPCV Ellen Elliot
Mrs. Elliott's passion for social causes provided the framework for an adventurous life. Her charity work took her to West Africa, Nigeria, India and Poland. In the Bay Area, she championed fair redistricting rules in state government, opened educational opportunities to poor children on the Peninsula, started a message service for inmates at the San Mateo County Jail, fed the poor in East Palo Alto, and, as the public face of the League of Women Voters, advocated for more open government on television and radio.  She tried her hand at book publishing, after returning to the Peace Corps with her husband to help promote tourism in Poland during its transition back to democracy in 1991. While she was leading community-building groups there, Mrs. Elliott was also editing a book about the history of the large prewar Jewish community in the area, "Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in Eastern Poland." The book was favorably reviewed by the New York Times and is now in its second edition. Read more.

Obituary for Somalia RPCV Laurence Bourassa who led Catholic Relief Services in Cambodia during the bloody era of the infamous killing fields
Mr. Bourassa's life was most notably shaped by two episodes, friends and colleagues said - his stint in Somalia with the first group of Peace Corps volunteers, which first gave him a taste for overseas humanitarian work, and two harrowing years he spent in Cambodia during the bloody era of the infamous killing fields. He first went to Cambodia in 1973, as the conflict in Vietnam was spilling across the border and the brutal Khmer Rouge communist regime was gaining power. Mr. Bourassa was in charge of field operations for Catholic Relief Services, where he worked for 40 years. He provided food, medical assistance and water to Cambodians who were fleeing to government-controlled pockets of the country. He set up a relief operation and field hospital in Neak Loeung, where he briefly was stranded in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge was shelling the city round the clock. "We were in a siege situation," said Pat Johns, the director of emergency operations for CRS and a fellow worker in Cambodia. "We couldn't get a chopper in there to get them out." Mr. Bourassa and several medical personnel finally escaped via helicopter just 12 hours before the city fell to the Khmer Rouge. "When the helicopter landed in Phnom Penh it was a sight to behold," Mr. Johns said. "It was shot to hell. There were bullet holes all over." Read more.

Obituary for Lesotho RPCV Ruth Dunn
In 1984, Ruth Dunn joined the Peace Corps and went to Lesotho, a country surrounded by South Africa, said her son. "You have to remember that South Africa was in upheaval with apartheid," he said. "Nelson Mandela was in prison. Lesotho was not a place you wanted to be." Dunn, described as "about as big as a bird," thrived. Assigned to set up business cooperatives, she became a beloved and trusted member of the community. "Everyone called her 'Miss Ruth,' " her son said. "She adopted a dog she called Chang II after her cat Chang at home, and they went everywhere together. It was the best time of her life. " Read more.

Obituary for Tonga RPCV Ervin "Duane" Lassen
Duane received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from ISU in 1972 and, after serving in the Peace Corps in Tonga, he returned to ISU, where he completed a residency in veterinary clinical pathology and obtained his Ph.D. Duane was an avid runner, weight lifter and scuba diver. He biked the Leadville 100 and was an avid sports fan. Beyond his hobbies and his career, Duane's great love was his family, and he will be missed as a son, husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend and teacher. Read more.

Obituary for Ethiopia RPCV  Claudette Renner
It was natural for Claudette Renner, who passed away Feb. 6, to find ways to help others. She dedicated her life to helping others who couldn't help themselves. She was an active member of the Peace Corps volunteering in Ethiopia from 1965-1967. After Africa, she came back to the United States as a social worker in the Appalachian Mountains. Read more.

Obituary for Mali RPCV Clarence Wilson
Clarence Wilson, born in 1916, was inspired by the exploits of Charles Lindbergh to join the Navy as a pilot. After fighting in World War II, Wilson continued working for the Navy until he was hired in the early 1960s to work on unmanned space exploration by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He helped launch a satellite in 1963 that allowed the United States to watch the 1964 Olympics from Tokyo, his wife said. When Wilson's first wife died, he joined the Peace Corps in Mali, where he taught agriculture. "He had to learn French in no time flat, because that is what they spoke," his wife said. "He joined the Peace Corps to get his life back together." Read more.

Notes from All Over: Ethiopia, Dominica, Korea, Swaziland

Some 40 US Peace Corps volunteers are expected to arrive in Ethiopia soon to serve in the Amhara and Oromia regional states
Peter Parr, director of the Peace Corps office says that the volunteers will be working with the Ministry of Health, and will mainly be involved in efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. The Peace Corps volunteers will work with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. Parr said that at present the Peace Corps office is being set up and Ethiopian staff are being recruited for administrative positions and to help volunteers in their training of local languages and customs. There director said, however, that he could not at present stage provide details of the 40 volunteers or the exact time of their arrival. Read more.

Ronald Reagan thought Chris Dodd was "far out liberal and left winger" who served as a volunteer in Dominica
If your name is Chris Dodd or Lowell Weicker, please, read no further. It seems our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, was no fan of either Connecticut senator during his eight-year tenure in the Oval Office. Weicker may have been a Republican, but he was no Reagan Republican. And Dodd? Well, he was a Democrat and therefore part of the evil empire. Reagan kept up a public persona as an affable, polite, regular guy. Even on the campaign trail, he would refrain from attacking his opponents. When Jimmy Carter took shots at him, Reagan famously responded: "There you go again." And, in Berlin he firmly — but politely — told "Mister Gorbachev" to tear down this wall.

But that doesn't mean Reagan was without his private opinions. Those he kept in a daily diary for himself — until now. Just out in hardcover is "The Reagan Diaries," which features 693 pages of his daily observations while in the White House. From the Reagan Diaries: "Today named Dick Stone, former Dem. Senator as personal envoy to Central America. Sen. Dodd & other far out liberals & left wingers are all over the tube screaming foul. Dodd calls me ignorant. His claim to expertise on Central Am. is 2 yrs. as a peace corps vol. many yrs. ago in Dominica."

PCOL Comment: "Mr. President, Senator Dodd served in the Dominican Republic not Dominica."  "You mean they're two different countries?" (Overheard in the Oval Office in 1984)  Read more.

Christopher R. Hill considering visit to Pyongyang soon after it shuts down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor
Senior negotiators in the six-party talks with North Korea -- including U.S. representative Christopher R. Hill -- are considering a visit to Pyongyang soon after it shuts down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, diplomats said. Although no trip has been scheduled, they said, the visit would take place in conjunction with the next round of six-party talks in Beijing, probably next month. The North Koreans are delaying Yongbyon's closure until they receive $25 million that was frozen in a Macao bank in 2005. An American bank, Wachovia, said yesterday that it had agreed to consider accepting the transfer.

Mr. Hill, the U.S. negotiator, told The Washington Times last year that he would not rule out a visit to Pyongyang but said he would not go while the Yongbyon reactor was operating. "We would consider a trip if it would serve our interest to do so," he said. "But our concern is that North Korea is continuing to run a nuclear reactor whose purpose is to make bombs and to be talking to them while they are making bombs doesn't appear to be in our interest." Any visit to the North Korean capital by an American official is rare and could be used by officials there to further their pursuit of international legitimacy. Christopher R. Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. Read more.

Chris Matthews says: Anybody who‘s ever been in the Peace Corps knows people don‘t like being taken over
"I do not accept the idea that the American people were snookered into Iraq.  I know it‘s a comfortable argument to make that we were all tricked into it, but back when we went into the war in 2001, I came across—or 2002, it was in the summer of 2002, the year before we went to war, the American people were asked whether they supported the war, and they said by 55 percent of so they were for the—or 57 percent, they were for the war.  But then asked if there were significant casualties involved, Are you still for the war, and a majority came out against the war. Well, who the hell thought there wouldn‘t be casualties?"

"Well, the Iraqi people—look, anybody who‘s ever been in the Peace Corps knows this.  People don‘t like being taken over.  If you ask any African country, no matter how tough it‘s been since independence, Would you rather the white guys come back and run this place, they might run it a little bit better, maybe, maybe, maybe, they‘d say, To hell with that idea!  We want to run our own country.  Nobody likes to be invaded.  I think the president even said that a while back.  He must have known it intellectually, but he didn‘t act on it." Journalist Chris Matthews served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland in the 1960's. Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Ethiopia.

Read more about RPCV Senator Chris Dodd.

Read more about RPCV Diplomat Christopher Hill.

Read more about RPCV Chris Matthews.

RPCV Owen Cylke writes: Taxi in the Rain

RPCV Owen Cylke writes: Taxi in the Rain
As I was walking across Key Bridge this morning on my way to work, it suddenly started to pour rain.  Totally unexpected.  Totally unprepared.  But a cab honked, picked me up, and, as expected, an Ethiopian driver was behind the wheel.  So I used my "fluent" 35 words to start up a conversation.

Turns out the driver was from Adigrat and was in the seventh grade there in 1965.  He had two Peace Corps teachers.  He started to cry as he told me the first time he saw his name written out up on the board.  Then he said that the teacher used his name in English exercises.  "Hagos ate breakfast this morning".  "Hagos came to school".  "Hagos plays soccer".  As a small boy, he said this identification gave a slight shy boy new status with his classmates and served to shape the man he is today.

When I tried to pay for the ride, he absolutely refused.  Forty plus years later for the both of us.

Photo: nep Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0

RPCV Paul Tsongas remembered on the 10th anniversary of his death

RPCV Paul Tsongas remembered on the 10th anniversary of his death
Ten years after Paul Tsongas died, Sen. John Kerry remembered the man he replaced in Congress as a “modest but incredibly forceful” politician.

“Paul was a very different kind of public person,” Kerry, D-Mass. said in a tribute speech on the Senate floor. “He walked his own path. Today, in remembering his loss, we join people in the Merrimack Valley and across Massachusetts and many more who came to appreciate and respect him through his presidential campaign. We honor a life that elevated those he knew and countless people he never met.”

“He ran one of the most bracingly honest and politically courageous presidential campaigns of our lifetimes,” Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, said of Tsongas. “His was a campaign defined by commonsense and that wry sense of humor more than fiery oratory. ... If he were with us today, Paul would be a strong voice, full of insight, humor, and wisdom.”

From 1997: Paul Tsongas Passes
Mark Shields: "Most Americans who run for President lose. And most Americans who lose leave that race--the presidential candidate--with their reputation, their stature, their popularity diminished. Paul Tsongas was that rarest of candidates. In 1992, he not only shaped the entire debate of that campaign, the fact that we’re seriously debating a balanced budget in 1997 is testimony to Paul Tsongas, who treated voters like grown-ups, albeit grown-ups with an unlimited capacity for cold showers and root canal work sometimes. He was very tough, very direct, but I mean, he thought more about being President than he did about running for President. He put his ideas in a book between covers, forced other candidates to do the same thing."

Judy Woodruff: "Here is someone who had a life threatening illness, cancer, who went off and had time to consider what is really important in life. You had time to spend more time with your family. Why would you then throw yourself back into the fray of this crazy schedule that a Presidential candidate that he has to out himself or herself through?"

Mike Barnicle: "I think we should really reflect on here was a man who was, you know, from the Lowell City Council to the Middlesex County commission which was, you know, a rather arcane function of government up here to the Congress, to the United States Senate, to a run for the presidency. He gave up an enormous amount of power that could have been his in 1984--he certainly could have won re-election--for his family. He chose his family over his career. He had a life apart from politics, which I think made him more interesting than many people who are in politics, and that’s all they are about as politics. Tsongas was about much more than politics." Read more.

About Paul Tsongas
Paul Tsongas was a Presidential Candidate, a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the United States Democratic Party. Tsongas was born to a working-class Greek father and native Massachusetts mother. He attended Dartmouth and Yale Law School before settling in Lowell, Massachusetts. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia in 1962-64, and as Peace Corps Country Director in the West Indies in 1967-68.

Tsongas first entered politics as a city councillor, elected to the Lowell City Council in 1969 and served two consecutive terms. Tsongas went on to serve as a county commissioner of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1974 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, defeating Republican incumbent Paul Cronin. He served two terms in the House, and in 1978 he was elected to the Senate, defeating incumbent Edward Brooke. In 1983, however, he was diagnosed with cancer and in 1984 announced his retirement from the Senate. After fighting the illness he returned to politics and in 1992 ran for his party's nomination for President. He ran a strong campaign and succeeded in winning the New Hampshire primary, but was eventually eclipsed by a resurgent Bill Clinton (the "Comeback Kid"), who would go on to win the Presidency. Tsongas was viewed as social liberal and economic conservative. He was especially known for his pro-business economic policies that have come to be embraced by many in the modern Democratic Party. In particular, he focused on the United States budget deficit and its harmful effects, a cause he continued to champion after his primary campaign ended by co-founding The Concord Coalition.

A few years later the cancer returned and he died of pneumonia and liver failure.

Read more about Paul Tsongas.

Ethiopia RPCV John Garamendi takes oath of office as California Lt. Governor

Ethiopia RPCV John Garamendi takes oath of office as California Lt. Governor
"Will history judge that we—in the early days of the 21st century -set the stage for the 22nd century California by design, or by default? Will our descendants honor our stewardship or regret the opportunities lost by short-sighted policies and selfish consumption? We can’t imagine the economy of the future. None of us can define the dimensions of the frontiers that will be conquered in the next ninety years or anticipate all the challenges to be faced. But the essential foundations of prosperity are no different today than they have been at any time in California’s past."

"We must begin with mother earth. The California we envision depends on our deciding today to reverse the environmental trajectory on which we have placed our planet. Just as miners of the 19th and 20th century gnawed at and destroyed the land, the flawed energy policies of America and other advanced economies threatens to create an “Inconvenient Truth”. Now it is abundantly clear the that human activity is changing the climate of our world and foisting upon the next generations a far different environment and climate with challenges and effects far greater and more serious than any we have endured."

"We all share deep concerns for our current state of affairs, However as Martin Luther King, once said, “The arc of history is long, but it trends toward justice.” Dr. King had occasion to see the worst instincts of the human heart, but he woke up every day with the confidence that the progress of human history was moving towards a better day."

"Our Peace Corps experience in Africa many years ago taught Patti and me that we must row our small boat of hope against what appear to be overwhelming odds. If our effort could create one wave for peace and justice in this world, that wave might reach far and on some distant shore bring hope. I expect that Dr. King’s hope was rooted in the assurance of God’s amazing grace…an assurance kindled by the community who stood together, who marched together, and who believed together that justice would one day roll down like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

Caption: Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, center, is sworn in by State Supreme Court Justice Ronald George, left, as Garamendi's wife Patti, right, looks on during ceremonies held at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Sunday Jan. 7, 2007. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Read more about John Garamendi.

Recent RPCV Obituaries

Obituary for Colombia RPCV James W. Thomas
He graduated from high school in Oakdale and went on to serve in the Peace Corps in Colombia. Jim is remembered by all who knew him as a man of few words. He never hesitated to lend a helping hand, whether it was moving equipment for a gymnastics meet, painting sets for plays, or going on stage as a pageant dad. He never complained about doing any ridiculous thing that the women in his life asked of him. He was a wonderful father, husband and friend. The real Jim left us several years ago, and he has been greatly missed by us all.

Obituary for Malaysia RPCV David Behm
Behm enjoyed the outdoors, cooking, his extended family and, of course, music. He was a member of the Angel Band, a Celtic music group and performed regularly throughout the Seacoast area. He was a Friday night regular at the Press Room in Portsmouth for many years and read the Declaration of Independence at Demmons Store and the West Nottingham Post Office on July 4th also for many years. His last CD, Hellfire and Behmnation, a tribute to a fellow musician Chip Chase, is available locally and shows his variety of style and musicianship.  Behm was a US Marine from 1956 to 1958 and a union bricklayer for many years. He discovered wood turning and in 1985 opened his own woodworking and chairmaking shop. He served in the Peace Corps with his family in Sarawak, East Malaysia in the early 1970's. He was also a Justice of the Peace for many years whose last official act was officiating at the marriage of his son on December 1.

Obituary for India RPCV Dennis Best
He joined the Peace Corps and traveled to India, where he was first exposed to eastern philosophies of healing. It was in California where Dennis became a member of the Baha'i Faith in 1970, captivated by its universal principles centering on the oneness of God, of religion, and of humanity. While researching Chinese medicine and acupuncture, he lived with his family in China from 1994-1996.

Obituary for Ethiopia RPCV William Giacofci
After earning his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1966, he served in the Peace Corps for three years as a legal adviser to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, according to his family. Mr. Giacofci enjoyed reading and genealogy and was also an accomplished artist who created oil paintings in religious themes. He was a communicant of St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church in Queenstown, where a Mass of Christian burial will be offered.

Spotlight on Peace Corps Ethiopia

Peace Corps Volunteers to Return to Ethiopia
Peace Corps Deputy Director Jody Olsen announced that volunteers will be returning to the African nation of Ethiopia, the second most populated country in sub-Saharan Africa, for the first time since 1999. The Peace Corps/Ethiopia program is scheduled to open in fiscal year 2007, with approximately 40 volunteers arriving next summer. The volunteers will be working in the field of health and HIV/AIDS education and prevention, with possible expansion into other sectors in the coming years. Read more.

RPCV Ric Haas founded the Fistula Foundation to help women with fistula in Ethiopia
Like most Americans at that time, Haas had no clue the problem existed. Then he and his daughter, Shaleece, visited the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, founded in 1974 by an Australian couple who were both physicians and missionaries. Dr. Catherine Hamlin, now in her 80s, is still performing surgeries there. Read more.

Ashley Tsongas writes: Ethiopia lost World’s Focus, but Aid Needs Remain
"Two decades after Live Aid drew millions of dollars in donations to help people starving in the Horn of Africa, hunger in Ethiopia is no longer headline news. The focus on other world crises — Darfur, the South Asian tsunami and a myriad of others — has obscured Ethiopia where four million people are in need of emergency assistance." Ashley Tsongas, daughter of Ethiopia RPCV and Presidential candidate Paul Tsongas, is an emergency media and advocacy officer for Oxfam America and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar. Read more.

Craig Wilson writes: I was retracing the steps my partner, Jack, took almost 40 years ago in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia
We went with few expectations. Jack assumed everyone he once knew would be dead. Life expectancy hovers around 48, and with wars, AIDS, famines and brutal dictatorships, hopes of finding anyone still alive were dim. But we hadn't been in Gorgora 10 minutes before someone yelled "Mr. Jack?'' His name was Tesfaye, a man who was only 6 when Jack lived there. His brother, now dead, was in Jack's class. But Tesfaye had his own memory: a Frisbee Jack had given him. Read more.

In the 1960's Carl Purcell landed a job with the Peace Corps to document the work of volunteers - his first assignment was Ethiopia
'The day after I was hired, I started on a round-the-world trip,' he says. First stop: Ethiopia. 'A Peace Corps worker had just been eaten by a crocodile in the Nile,' he remembers. 'I was granted an audience with Haile Selassie and was shocked to see that he had two full-grown lions posted outside his throne room.' Read more.

Arthur  Goldblatt's passion for tennis began when he served as a teacher in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia in 1965
He was approached by a man who was the tennis champion of Ethiopia. The man wanted to learn English and offered to give Goldblatt tennis lessons. "He gave me tennis lessons and I gave him the language lessons, but I think I got the better end of the deal," Goldblatt said. Read more.

Recent RPCV Obituaries

Obituary for St. Vincent and Hungary RPCV Verona McCrary Thomas
Ms. Thomas served in the Peace Corps from age 67-69 as a librarian in St. Vincent and 74-75 as an English teacher in Hungary.

Parents plant seeds of caring for Armenia RPCV Carrie Jane Dulin
The Dulins' daughter, Carrie Jane, died in a car crash on her 28th birthday, Aug. 5, 2003, en route to a new assignment in Nigeria. She had spent five years as a Peace Corps and World Vision worker in Armenia. A year after her death, the Dulins took a trip to Armenia to deliver money donated in their daughter's name to two orphanages in Sissian and Spitak. They purchased appliances for the kitchen in Spitak and an organ for the orphanage in Sissian. They also took part of Carrie's ashes and spread them at a deserted monastery near Sissian. As they left the orphanages, they asked the directors what they could do to make a difference in the lives of the children there. They were told that the children at both orphanages needed warm clothing for the winter, when they are forced to bundle up in bed and stay home from school because the buildings aren't heated. Last year, the Dulins' church, Doylestown United Methodist, organized a coat campaign and collected about 30 boxes of coats that were shipped to Armenia through the United Methodist Committee on Relief, just after Hurricane Katrina.

Obituary for Ethiopia Country Director Henry Donald Wilson
Mr. Wilson graduated from Columbia Law School in 1948 and worked for two years as a lawyer before becoming a regional organizer for the United World Federalists, an international peace movement. In 1955, he joined the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, and joined Arthur D. Little in 1960. Mr. Wilson took a leave from Arthur D. Little in 1964, when he was appointed by R. Sargent Shriver as a Peace Corps director in Ethiopia.

Obituary for Togo RPCV John Peter D'Agostino
He worked as a freelance artist as well as a Peace Corps Rural Development Volunteer in West Africa. John also worked in many facets at The Ohio State University in addition to working at the BakeHouse Richmond and Dunbar Elementary Schools in Florida, The Historical Museum of Southern Florida, the Miami-Dade Community College, Pine Villa Elementary in Florida and at Enka Schools in Istanbul, Turkey. He spent his life learning and teaching.

Obituary for Malaysia RPCV Ross Pelton
Ross Pelton taught chemistry in Malaysia through the Peace Corps. He said his parents and sister visited him there and quickly fell in love with international travel. Like everything else in life, Pelton and his wife traveled with gusto once they got started, eventually visiting all 50 U.S. states, Mexico, South America, Australia, New Zealand and China. Pelton served as principal at Logan with no assistants, Fregin said, and volunteered to coach the school's football team as well. He said the school, which then held grades 7 through 9, had more than 800 students at the time. "That was his life," Fregin said of Pelton's commitment to the school. "He devoted everything to that."

Obituary for Belize RPCV Charlene Andrews
Andrews, known internationally for her support of Oregon's Death with Dignity law, wanted to keep helping people even after her death. In lieu of flowers, Andrews had asked people to bring children's books to donate to a library she created while serving in the Peace Corps in Belize.