Peace Corps Polyglot

Friends of Thailand Sponsors Current PCV Projects

Friends of Thailand, the official alumni organization of Peace Corps Thailand, has made helping out current PCV's one of its top priorities. The organization achieves this goal by providing financial support for Peace Corps Thailand Volunteer Projects. Friends of Thailand has sponsored 48 PCV projects in Thailand since 2002, in amounts ranging from $70 to $1300. Funded projects have ranged from assisting a local woman's cooperative develop a chili paste business to providing funds to build and install children's playground equipment in an urban housing project.

When Friends of Thailand was forming in 2001 then-current Country Director, Roger Harmon, specifically asked if they could help with PCV project sponsorship. This organization was able to make this a reality with the help of membership fees and special donations. Friends of Thailand President Carolyn Nickels remarked that providing this assistance to Peace Corps and the people of Thailand "has been our way of saying 'thank you' for all we have received as volunteers."

In 2007 FoT helped support PCV Welcome Bisson of Buriram in Northeastern Thailand assist a mushroom cooperative expand his base to include a new member (pictured above). Welcome assisted with the project and documented its successful launch for the Friends of Thailand community and website. Click here to see photos and narratives about the project.

Update: "One Person Can Make a Difference"

Almost as soon we posted about the search for Thailand RPCV Rebecca Pherin, she was "found." It turns out that my colleague David Arnold has been in touch with her for several years and will write a story about her and Sompop in the Spring issue of WorldView magazine. 

In the wake of the daisy chain of RPCV connections, Rebecca wrote David:

"I have read the Wallenberg Medal website. It is clear from that information that Sompop is in exactly the right company alongside the Dalai Lama, Paul Ruseabagina and others ... right up there next to the Nobel laureates (for which he was, BTW, re-nominated this year by my congressman). The kudos ALL go to Pop. HE is the one - not me - going from family to family year after year with reasons why they should not sell their daughters. HE is the one - not me - who has all the children's safety on his mind and heart 24/7/365 ... x 18 years. My other students had much the same encouragement from me as Pop did, but it was he especially who decided on and set out to do this purposeful thing with his life. This is Pop's story and is exemplary of the kind of change that Peace Corps hopes for when it places volunteers around the world. That's how I see it."

"One Person Can Make a Difference"

Critics of the Peace Corps sometimes carp that volunteers don't do much in the way of lasting development.  "What do we have to show for 45 years of sending Americans overseas?" they ask. 

Well, here's a story that points to the value...and values... of Peace Corps service. 

This letter made its way to the NPCA, and is addressed to Carolyn Nickels, leader of the Friends of Thailand affiliate group.

Ms. Nickels,

I am chair of the University of Michigan's Wallenberg Committee.  The Committee oversees the award of the annual Wallenberg Medal ( http://www.wallenberg.umich.edu/medal.html).   This award was established in 1985 to commemorate Michigan alumnus Raoul Wallenberg who, as a Swedish diplomat during World War II, engineered the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis in Hungary.  The Medal recognizes outstanding humanitarians whose courage calls to mind Wallenberg's extraordinary values and accomplishments.  Past recipients have included Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, Congressman John Lewis, and Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan hotel-keeper who rescued many hundreds of Rwandans during the 1994 genocide.   

This year the Committee has selected Sompop Jantraka to receive the Wallenberg Medal.  Starting in the late '80s, Sompop began working to rescue young girls from being trafficked to Thailand's sex trade, and established the Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities in Chiang Rae.  He resigned as director this past spring, and has embarked on an effort to address trafficking of young girls in the broader regions of the Mekong basin, including Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province.  The organization ( http://www.depdc.org/index.htm), with support from Canada and several European governments and NGOs, is continuing to do very important work.

We noticed in an article that appeared about Sompop in Time Asia, that he attributed his start to a Peace Corps volunteer named Rebecca Pherin, who he met in Surat Thani.  He says that she gave him two gifts:  the chance to get an education and the sense that he could do something with his life. They may have met in the 1970s or early 1980s.  The Committee would very much like to find Ms. Pherin who, like Sompop, exemplifies the inscription on the Wallenberg Medal:  "One Person Can Make a Difference." We would appreciate it greatly if you or some of your colleagues in the Friends of Thailand might know how we might find her.

Many thanks for your assistance,

John Godfrey