Peace Corps Polyglot

Benin RPCVs Start Girls' Camp Fund in Honor of Kate Puzey

The death of a Peace Corps Volunteer is always devastating, not least for the Volunteer community left behind. In the case of Kate Puzey, a TEFL Volunteer in Benin who was murdered in March 2009, several of her fellow Volunteers are stepping forward to create a meaningful remembrance of her life. On the eve of Thanksgiving, we’re sharing their message with you.

Our names are Megan Grann, Jordan Steiner and Carly Loehrke. We served as TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteers in Benin, 2007-2009. In March 2009, Kate Puzey, a fellow TEFL volunteer, was tragically murdered in her village of service. Kate was an exemplary Volunteer, a true beacon of positivity and advocate for justice. Throughout her service, she was actively involved in projects that benefited youth and women, in particular young girls. In Kate’s honor, we have started the Kate Puzey Girls’ Camp Commemorative Fund.

Kate was involved in the organization and implementation of several girls’ camps during her time in Benin. Girls’ camps are a popular way for volunteers in Benin, in conjunction with host country nationals, to promote the empowerment of Beninese girls. Sessions often include encouraging girls in school, health, women and children’s rights, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, and other issues specific to Beninese life and society. These camps give girls an opportunity to share, learn and play in a safe environment.

Our fund works in cooperation with SIN-DO, a Beninese NGO dedicated to promoting and protecting women and girls, to financially support girls’ camps with grants of up to approximately $200. Last year, 179 girls participated in four camps across the country. Our hope is that with this fund, more girls each year will have the opportunity to attend a camp.

As RPCVs, you know the challenges of empowering youth, young girls in particular. But you also know the rewards - seeing previously shy girls blossom into leaders. Your contribution to the Kate Puzey Girls’ Camp Commemorative Fund will help a new generation of Volunteers and young women to reap those rewards while honoring Kate and her dedication to service and to a brighter future.

Contributions can be made online through the Peace Corps's Benin Country Fund. Click on "Donate" in the right sidebar. In the comments section it is IMPERATIVE to specify “Kate Puzey Girls’ Camp Commemorative Fund” in order for your donation to be routed to the appropriate account. The donation process is anonymous. However, if you’d like, you can email us at katepuzeyfund@gmail.com after you’ve donated and we will send an annual report once the camps have finished. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

Thank you very much for your support.

Sincerely,

Megan Grann (Dallas, TX and NYC areas) Jordan Steiner (San Francisco, CA and NYC areas) Carly Loehrke (Chicago, IL area)

RPCV Visionary Brings Innovative Eyewear to Liberia

This photo may bring back nightmarish memories of those Peace Corps replacement glasses volunteers used to receive!  But in fact, it represents a potential dream come true for up to a billion people.

One billion is the estimated number of people with poor vision in rural communities around the world who don't have access to eyecare services.  But RPCV Nancy Wallace of Annapolis, Maryland is involved in an innovative enterprise to address the challenge.

It all began in Liberia, where Nancy served as a Peace Corps Response volunteer from 2008 - 2009.  A friend connected her with Kevin White, the Executive Director of Global Vision 2020, an international organization working to prevent avoidable blindness.  One of the organization's projects involves the distribution of self-adjusting eyeglasses.  The glasses are designed to allow users to turn a dial on the side of each lens to correct their own vision in regions that do not have access to eye care professionals.

With the hope that glasses could be distributed through existing local networks, Nancy jumped at the invitation when White asked her if a pilot project could be launched at the Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute.  In September, a training was held for 40 volunteers to distribute glasses.  An initial scanning of 1,200 teachers, students and market women revealed that 700 were in need of (and received) glasses to correct their vision.

Featured above with NPCA Advocacy Coordinator Jonathan Pearson (l) and Tom Jacobs (r), host of the annual Maryland RPCV summer picnic, Nancy attended the gathering to share the experience of trying on the spectacles and urge fellow RPCVs to help with the initiative.  "It's incredible to watch", she says.  "For people in other countries who don't even know they need glasses, and to see their reaction when the world around them comes into focus.  It's exciting!"

Pres. Obama Views Photos Chronicling Peace Corps in Korea

On his visit to Korea, President Obama yesterday viewed a display of photographs of Peace Corps Volunteers and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) volunteers with U.S. Ambassador Kathy Stephens, herself a former Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Korea. The photographic exhibit, which will tour the country, was organized by the U.S Embassy with Peace Corps-related photos provided by Korea RPCVs.

 

GlobalEd Goes to Atlanta!

I've worn many hats over the years at NPCA, but the one that I've had on since Day One back in October of 1996 is that of the director of the Global TeachNet program.  I treasure my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer fulfilling Goals One and Two, but the Third Goal is at the heart of my current work and one key reason why I traveled to Atlanta this past weekend.  (That’s me in the photo, but my co-presenter Deb Hutton is the one literally wearing all of the hats.)

International Alley – Here We Come…

Why Atlanta?  This year, that city hosted the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Annual Conference – a highlight of which was the International Alley, with NPCA at its entrance!  For two days, educators collected resources to bring global perspectives into classrooms and communities through our Global TeachNet exhibit.  Atlanta Area RPCVs (AARPCV) joined in to sell calendars and “We All” poster sets from the RPCVs of Wisconsin-Madison.

I loved seeing familiar faces (including Merry Merryfield, RPCV Sierra Leone 1977-1979 - shown in the middle here with Kathy Parker and Susan Neyer - who won not just one, but TWO awards from NCSS this year!) and connecting faces with emails.  It just makes my day when I hear a teacher say “You’re the Anne Baker that sends me those great emails each week!”  (You, too, can get those great GlobalEdNews emails.  Learn more or subscribe.)

 We’ve been working with NCSS since 2002 to put together the International Alley in the exhibit hall – growing from just ten exhibitors in its initial year to 30 now.  I understand there will be even more of a “global” focus next year in Denver.  That’s just one of NPCA’s Third Goal efforts!

… Plus a Happy Hour with RPCVs!

To top off a great weekend, I joined the AARPCVs for their Happy Hour on Friday evening.  While enjoying the local brew (always go with the local brew!), I had a chance to brainstorm about the 50^th anniversary with RPCVs working for Habitat for Humanity, catch up with current and potential AARPCV board members, and meet a very recent RPCV, back just four days from Kazakhstan.  He isn’t even from Atlanta, but he came to town to talk with his buddy’s middle school class about Peace Corps.  (The teacher-buddy was there, too, and he isn’t even an RPCV.)  That’s dedication to the Third Goal.

Thanks, AARPCV, for a great weekend and for your help promoting the Third Goal.

Missouri RPCVs Host Successful Film Festival

Small groups can do great things! Case in point: the Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.

Earlier this month this NPCA member group hosted the “Third Goal” International Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. The festival featured films made by or about the work of Peace Corps Volunteers in Afghanistan, Mali, Latin America and Vietnam. The headliner film was "I Bring What I Love," about the international recording artist, Youssou N'Dour. 

So, why a "Third Goal" International Film Festival? Because it fulfills Goal Three of the Peace Corps: "Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans."

After the event, group leader Karen Davis wrote us:

We had a great turn out… RPCVs, PC recruits and community members. We had two articles in newspapers and lots of PR on radio stations. RPCVs from our group did a great job speaking following the films to add a direct link between the film and our group. And, best of all, it took over 25 RPCVs to pull off the event, which is fantastic for our little group! I loved that so many RPCVs were willing to come together to get the event off the ground. This is truly our strongest film schedule yet!

Well done!

Click here for a story about the film festival that appeared in The Missourian.

NPCA Spreads the Word About Africa Rural Connect

Autumn is always a time of transition for me, and this October I was in a position at the National Peace Corps Association transitioning from one continent to another, from one set of ideas to another, and in conversation with different types of people, representing our special online community Africa Rural Connect.

My first stop was England.  London in the autumn was a bit rainy and chilly for my tastes, but I received a warm welcome from the organizers, presenters, and attendees at Africa Gathering. I gave a presentation about Africa Rural Connect to an audience of social entrepreneurs, technologists, development workers, and Africa enthusiasts, who all appreciated the bottom-up approach that NPCA was taking to solving Africa’s rural challenges.  I learned about the creative start-up efforts people with varied connections to Africa were undertaking, and it was a wonderful opportunity to hear the stories and successes of others in this space.  

From London, I had a brief overnight retreat with my NPCA colleagues in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, where we all were able to interact in a serene yet casual environment and discuss our visions for the upcoming year.  We elaborated on our preparations for the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps, and how we would each contribute to reaching NPCA’s goals of connecting, informing, and engaging the Peace Corps community.

From the mountains of Virginia to the hills of Iowa, I jumped on a flight to celebrate the World Food Prize and attend the Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, with thought leaders and decision makers from around the world.  After a keynote speech by Bill Gates who announced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s nine new grants for agricultural development, I listened to panels and speeches by current and former presidents of African countries, government ministers of agriculture, and other voices that fight poverty including Jeffery Sachs and Roger Thurow.  Highlights of the World Food Prize experience included a formal ceremony at the State Capitol building with the governor, Ethiopian dancers, and singer Chachi Tadesse.  World Food Prize winner, Dr. Gebisa Ejeta – who helped create drought-resistant hybrids of sorghum that have enhanced the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa – got up and started dancing with the band, in typical Peace Corps style.  There were RPCVs among the attendees and I tried to meet as many as I could. 

All of these trips gave me perspective about the efforts that both those who are working from the ground up and starting their own initiatives to impact hundreds of people, to those who are running countries that impact hundreds of millions of people, can do to improve agricultural initiatives around the world.  NPCA’s role will be to provide a platform to connect these people online.

I won’t be back in DC for long.  As the transition to winter arrives, so too does a fantastic opportunity to travel to Kenya where I will be presenting the Grand Prize winner of Africa Rural Connect at the Africa Gathering conference in Nairobi on December 21.   You’ll be able to read more about our efforts to reach out to the African Diaspora, people in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Peace Corps Community on this and the Africa Rural Connect website.  I look forward to sharing the experiences with you.

NPCA Welcomes Intention to Return Peace Corps to Indonesia

The National Peace Corps Association welcomes the announcement that the United States intends to send Peace Corps Volunteers to Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country and the country with the world's largest population of Muslims. Peace Corps Volunteers last served in Indonesia from 1963 to 1965. 

As in the case of Sierra Leone, many people and organizations--including the National Peace Corps Corps Association and Alexander Shakow, the last Peace Corps Country Director in Indonesia--spent many years working behind the scenes to help pave the way for the resumption of a Peace Corps program in Indonesia.  One example:  In March 2006 NPCA hosted a Director’s Circle reception at the Indonesian Ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC.  There an introduction was made between Indonesian officials and the then-Peace Corps Director. 

Mr. Shakow writes:

"When I closed the Peace Corps Office in Jakarta over 44 years ago, I had no idea that it would take so long before Peace Corps Volunteers would return to Indonesia.  Today's news is very exciting and most welcome—and long overdue.  In spite of the political tensions between our two countries in 1965 that prompted our decision to withdraw, the nearly fifty Volunteers located throughout this vast archipelago were able to establish warm and productive relationships with their Indonesian hosts.  During the tumultuous two years or so we were there not a single Volunteer chose to leave early - a tribute to their resilience and good humor as well as to traditional Indonesian hospitality.  
 
I am delighted that Volunteers will once again work together with Indonesian colleagues, and I am sure they too will have a very rewarding stay in this fascinating and beautiful country.  I also hope that over time it will be possible to turn this program into a model of service reciprocity, with Indonesian Volunteers coming to the United States to help in our schools just as our Volunteers work with theirs.  
 
In short, my warmest congratulations to the Indonesian Government, the Peace Corps and all who had a hand in making this announcement possible - and to the future Volunteers who will have a wonderful and stimulating experience ahead of them."

The National Peace Corps Association joins in his congratulations.

Peace Corps Director Comments on Expansion

Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams, in a November 15 interview published in Parade magazine, says the agency plans to add a couple of thousand volunteers over the next two years.

You can read the interview by following this link.

RPCVs Rally During International Day of Climate Action

Heavy, heavy rain did little to dampen the spirit and resolve of hundreds of climate activists who gathered in Washington on the October 24th International Day of Climate Action for a rally and march to the White House to call for global action to address the climate crisis. The NPCA banner was a magnet, attracting the attention of about 30 individuals at various stages of their Peace Corps experience.

"In addition to hearing good music and inspiring speeches, I talked to RPCVs, Peace Corps applicants and supporters", said Kristina Owens (Bolivia 00-02) one of the RPCVs who helped organize an NPCA presence at the rally.  "RPCVs had stories about their service and how climate change is affecting their countries."

You can now hear some of those stories in a short video that NPCA has produced.  Special thanks to the RPCVs who agreed to participate and to Nathan Kennedy for his technical assistance.

Follow this link to check out images of climate rallies held in current and past Peace Corps countries all around the world.  And share your stories about events you attended on Connected Peace Corps. 

Help Choose NPCA's 2010 Advocacy Priorities

As 2009 comes to a close, the National Peace Corps Association is in the process of selecting advocacy priorities for 2010.

Members of the Peace Corps community are invited to help us select our priorities.  Between now and November 22nd, you are invited to follow this link and take our three question, five minute survey.