Peace Corps News

Charles R. Larson donates African collection to University of Texas

The University of Texas at Austin, has acquired a collection of African, African-American and Native-American literature from Nigeria RPCV Charles R. Larson, a professor at American University who is highly regarded for his work on African and Third World writers

"I began reading African writers in 1962 when I was sent to Nigeria as a Peace Corps volunteer," said Larson. "It was immediately apparent to me that a rich and exciting literature was emerging across the continent. My interests expanded when I returned to the United States and discovered similarly important (though sadly overlooked) writing by African-American and American Indian writers. I feel as if I've been in a privileged position to observe so many great writers during what is fast approaching a half century." "Charles R. Larson has written books on African, African-American, American Indian and Third World literatures, and his library reflects his wide-ranging interests," said Dr. Bernth Lindfors, professor emeritus of English and African literatures at The University of Texas at Austin. "It is especially rich in books, manuscripts and correspondence by authors Larson was studying, interviewing and writing about. Scholars working at the Ransom Center on any of these literatures will find his collection an invaluable resource." Printed highlights include inscribed copies of major works of African, African-American, and Native-American literature; substantial runs of African literary magazines, including the foundational Nigerian journal Black Orpheus; and more than 120 Onitsha Market pamphlets, an important form of Nigerian popular literature. Read more.

Congress votes to triple AmeriCorps' ranks to 250,000 Volunteers

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to broadly expand national community service programs, increasing the number of positions to 250,000 from 75,000 and creating new cadres of volunteers focused on education, clean energy, health care, and veterans. In addition to adding positions to the 75,000 existing AmeriCorps slots, the bill would create four new service corps, specializing in areas that largely align with President Obama’s early agenda. The Senate measure will now be sent to the House, which approved a different version of the legislation last week. Officials said they expected the House to adopt the measure next week and send it on to President Obama, a huge proponent of community service programs, who will sign into law. “The American habits of the heart are shining through,” declared Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, who helped shepherd the bill to final passage. “All across America, people want to volunteer if they have the opportunity to do so.” Read more.

How AmeriCorps Became Bipartisan

A half million people have served through AmeriCorps now - a voting constituency - and every member of Congress has shaken their hands and heard their stories of how they’ve worked in schools, nursing homes, crime-ridden neighborhoods to help communities. More important, lawmakers have met with the heads of the local non profit groups that run the AmeriCorps programs, often popular and influential leaders in any congressional district. Advocates for AmeriCorps now include not just national service fetishists like myself (wrote a book on the subject) but the entire non-profit and charitable sector. AmeriCorps members, you see, don’t work for the government. The feds offer the money for a small stipend and scholarship but most of the corps members are recruited and managed by non-profits. For charities, AmeriCorps has become a valuable form of in kind subsidy. Indeed, it’s often a way to increase a charity’s ability to use unpaid volunteers - a key reason it’s won over hardcore conservative like Hatch. “National service programs [have] a multiplying effect,” he declared during the debate. Based on past patterns, the 250,000 AmeriCorps members will help recruit or manage seven million unpaid volunteers. “This is a conservative program in many respects,” Hatch said. Read more.

Vice President Biden Meets With Peace Corps Volunteers And Staff In Costa Rica

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, accompanied by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, met with and thanked Peace Corps Volunteers and staff for their service in Costa Rica. Vice President Biden in Costa RicaMagnifying glass iconWhile traveling in Chile and Costa Rica to consult with Latin American leaders regarding the Summit of the Americas, the Bidens met 20 Peace Corps Volunteers and six Peace Corps staff members at a reception held on Monday, March 30, at the U.S. embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica. Vice President Biden in Costa RicaMagnifying glass iconThird-year Volunteers Deborah Winiarski from Battlecreek, MI, and Porter Searcy from Atlanta, GA, were among the Volunteers attending the reception. Said Winiarski, "As Volunteers, we truly appreciated the Vice President taking the time with us and expressing his genuine interest in who we are." Searcy added, "It was a real morale booster for all of us!" Read more.

Paul Theroux promotes Responsible Tourism

"There's a good reason why people fly first-class and stay in luxury hotels: it's an awful lot of fun. But I do think that if a traveller wishes to know how people live, and wishes to gain a little insight in a country, it helps to travel on the ground and stay in simpler places that might not have a big wall around them. Overland travel is obviously more difficult and time-consuming, but it is much more revealing. I could have hopped from capital to capital in travelling through Africa for "Dark Star Safari", but African capitals – new buildings surrounded by preposterous slums – are places to avoid. And you can't say that you have travelled anywhere unless you have crossed a frontier – in a literal and also figurative sense. "Becoming a volunteer teacher in Africa with the Peace Corps changed my life. I was in a bush school, with wonderful students, absolutely cut off – no telephone, no computer. And because I was cut off I had to make friends, learn the language (Chichewa) and get to know the area. I realised that Malawians had dreams of transformation just like mine. I assumed that the Africans I knew would become teachers and doctors, following the example of foreign volunteers. This did not happen, as I saw to my dismay 40 years later." Author Paul Theroux served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi in the 1960's. Read more.

With Twenty Countries Requesting Volunteers, Peace Corps Needs a Complete Top-Down Examination on Where to Send PCVs

At a time when the Obama administration is seeking to repair the image of the United States around the world, an estimated 20 nations are ready to accept Peace Corps workers. But the agency can't afford to start new programs in all of them. And despite the Peace Corps' still potent image as a symbol of American idealism, reformers say the organization must make fundamental changes to meet modern diplomatic and technological needs. There is also, they say, a reluctance to consider broader foreign policy goals when deciding where to send volunteers. It is a stance that many say undermines the Corps' mission: An organization dedicated to demonstrating America's commitment to understanding other cultures operates in only two Arab countries, Jordan and Morocco. On a strategic level, reformers say, the Peace Corps needs to rethink where it sends volunteers. The organization is adamantly apolitical, and volunteers do not want to be used for short-term foreign policy objectives. But many officials said the Peace Corps is missing an opportunity to improve relations in critical regions, while keeping volunteers in areas where such people-to-people diplomacy is no longer needed.

Byron Battle, the country director in Mexico and former director in Mali, wishes the Peace Corps would expand to India, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Indonesia and - when it's deemed safe - to Pakistan. Other officials would add Vietnam and Brazil to the list. Mark Schneider, who directed the Peace Corps during the last two years of the Clinton administration, hopes volunteers will be sent back to Haiti, where security worries forced the suspension of the Peace Corps there in 2005. "You've got to make sure that the places they're living and working make sense," Schneider said. Meanwhile, others wonder why the Peace Corps is still in Caribbean vacation spots, or in Romania and Bulgaria - both of which are now in the European Union, and could look closer to home for developmental help. The Peace Corps sends English teachers to China, but Strauss believes that China - which owns a great deal of US debt - should be able to pay for the teachers, many of whom work at universities. "I am a firm believer in Peace Corps, but I am not a firm believer that Peace Corps needs to be in every one of the places it is, or that it's an effective use of this very limited amount of money," Strauss said in an interview from Madagascar, where he now is a business consultant. Read more.

The Peace Corps Model for Mexico is to Send Older Specialized Volunteers

This is the new face of the Peace Corps: older - often retired - volunteers, many with years of professional training or advanced degrees, who work with foreign government agencies to advance environmental and scientific goals on their own. Launched in 2005, the Peace Corps Mexico program is a prototype, supporters say, of what the volunteer program should be in many parts of the world. The average age of a volunteer in Mali, where the Boston-born Battle was also country director, was 24. In Mexico, it is 48 (including one 79-year-old), the result of increased Peace Corps recruitment through professional organizations and the AARP. Under the Mexico plan, the country's government reviewed the resumes of Peace Corps-approved applicants, and selected a team of economists and ecologists to work with its own environmental protection agencies. The Mexico program requires five years' experience - and, preferably, a master's degree - for participation. While volunteers perform some field work - married couple Ben and Buffy Lenth, both Colorado ecologists, routinely go into the Sierra Gorda mountains to conduct environmental tests - the Mexico-based volunteers spend much time in offices, helping Mexican officials run their own programs. Read more.

Ex-EPA engineer Paul Ruesch is getting his hands dirty in Mexico, and loving it

Running hand augers and sampling oil-soaked soil as a Peace Corp volunteer has energized the former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineer. In the midst of a two-year stint in Mexico -- the Peace Corps´ first in that country -- Ruesch has shed his white-collar duties at EPA for a more hands-on experience. Ruesch, 36, and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, is one of 25 volunteers advising Mexican businesses and government officials. Instead of organizing conferences about industrial byproducts from the EPA´s Chicago office, Ruesch spends his days at landfills and wastewater treatment plants. Of late, he´s in Leon in central Mexico helping that region´s leather and tanning industries reduce their environmental impact. Ruesch´ s main role is as teacher. He also assists Mexican co-workers on project bids. "When we win them, I help them select the appropriate equipment, buy it and then show them how to use it," he said. Ruesch, now fluent in Spanish after starting from scratch, will leave behind the equipment and, hopefully, pass along some know-how to colleagues, including scientists at the oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or PEMEX. Before Mexico, Ruesch´s travels abroad opened his eyes "to environmental conditions which made the problems I was working on back home pale in comparison." Mexico´s small, dry and remote landfills don´t generate much leachate or pose great risks to drinking water. Yet, Ruesch said, there is little oversight on where and how these disposal sites operate. More eye opening, though, are the large groups of pepenedores, or garbage pickers, that sift through trash on the working face of Mexican landfills, separating anything that can be reused or sold. "It is not uncommon to see whole families dedicated to this practice [and] specialize in one particular commodity. The others working a particular landfill will respect each other´s domain and not touch the materials that they know another family is recovering," he said. Ruesch´s presence on the Peace Corps team has aided Mexico´s National Council on Science and Technology, too. The council and U.S. EPA are collaborating on a number of projects, thanks to Ruesch, said Hector Raul Pacheco-Vega, senior researcher at the council´s Leon office. Read more.

Obama's Public Diplomacy

Obama engages Students in Town Meeting in Turkey

"I believe we can have a dialogue that's open, honest, vibrant, and grounded in respect. And I want you to know that I'm personally committed to a new chapter of American engagement. We can't afford to talk past one another, to focus only on our differences, or to let the walls of mistrust go up around us. Instead we have to listen carefully to each other. We have to focus on places where we can find common ground and respect each other's views, even when we disagree. And if we do so I believe we can bridge some of our differences and divisions that we've had in the past. A part of that process involves giving you a better sense of America. I know that the stereotypes of the United States are out there, and I know that many of them are informed not by direct exchange or dialogue, but by television shows and movies and misinformation. Sometimes it suggests that America has become selfish and crass, or that we don't care about the world beyond us. And I'm here to tell you that that's not the country that I know and it's not the country that I love. America, like every other nation, has made mistakes and has its flaws. But for more than two centuries we have strived at great cost and sacrifice to form a more perfect union, to seek with other nations a more hopeful world. We remain committed to a greater good, and we have citizens in countless countries who are serving in wonderful capacities as doctors and as agricultural specialists, people -- teachers -- people who are committed to making the world a better place." Read more.

To Rebuild U.S.-Muslim World Relations, Obama Is Not Enough

President Obama has demonstrated a strong personal commitment to strengthening relations between the United States and the Muslim world, in support of common security, political, economic, and social interests. He needs an army, of civilians, behind him. President Obama has a vital role to play in forging this new relationship, but he needs to harness the energies of U.S. businesses, universities, charitable institutions, non-governmental organizations, faith groups, and private citizens if he is to sustain it. We will need to see more educational and professional exchanges, sister cities programs, jointly produced media products, co-developed cultural activities, joint scientific research projects, co-developed social networking sites, co-produced fundraisers for humanitarian causes, co-written textbooks. Such engagement contributes to mutual trust and tangible partnerships that solve real problems concerning education, employment, energy, and commerce. President Obama's political instincts are right: a change in America's approach toward the Muslim world -- one that seeks to build common ground with faithful majorities while marginalizing fanatics -- will ultimately be the most successful strategy to diminish support for Al Qaeda and likeminded terrorist networks, find solutions to persistent conflicts, and enhance global prosperity. The president has bipartisan Congressional backing. His commitment was echoed by both Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar in recent Senate hearings on U.S.-Muslim World engagement, Read more

Caption: President Barack Obama addresses his remarks at a town hall meeting Tuesday, April 7, 2009, at the Tophane Cultural Center in Istanbul. White House Photo/Chuck Kennedy