Voices from the Peace Corps


Book Description

Based on more than one hundred oral history interviews, [this title] follows the the experiences of Kentuckians who chose to live and work in other countries around the world, fostering close, lasting relationships with the people they served. -- jacket.




Voices from the Peace Corps


Book Description

President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961. In the fifty years since, nearly 200,000 Americans have served in 139 countries, providing technical assistance, promoting a better understanding of American culture, and bringing the world back to the United States. In Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers, Angene Wilson and Jack Wilson, who served in Liberia from 1962 to 1964, follow the experiences of volunteers as they make the decision to join, attend training, adjust to living overseas and the job, make friends, and eventually return home to serve in their communities. They also describe how the volunteers made a difference in their host countries and how they became citizens of the world for the rest of their lives. Among many others, the interviewees include a physics teacher who served in Nigeria in 1961, a smallpox vaccinator who arrived in Afghanistan in 1969, a nineteen-year-old Mexican American who worked in an agricultural program in Guatemala in the 1970s, a builder of schools and relationships who served in Gabon from 1989 to 1992, and a retired office administrator who taught business in Ukraine from 2000 to 2002. Voices from the Peace Corps emphasizes the value of practical idealism in building meaningful cultural connections that span the globe.




Voices from the Peace Corps


Book Description

President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961. In the fifty years since, nearly 200,000 Americans have served in 139 countries, providing technical assistance, promoting a better understanding of American culture, and bringing the world back to the United States. In Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers, Angene Wilson and Jack Wilson, who served in Liberia from 1962 to 1964, follow the experiences of volunteers as they make the decision to join, attend training, adjust to living overseas and the job, make friends, and eventually return home to serve in their communities. They also describe how the volunteers made a difference in their host countries and how they became citizens of the world for the rest of their lives. Among many others, the interviewees include a physics teacher who served in Nigeria in 1961, a smallpox vaccinator who arrived in Afghanistan in 1969, a nineteen-year-old Mexican American who worked in an agricultural program in Guatemala in the 1970s, a builder of schools and relationships who served in Gabon from 1989 to 1992, and a retired office administrator who taught business in Ukraine from 2000 to 2002. Voices from the Peace Corps emphasizes the value of practical idealism in building meaningful cultural connections that span the globe.




A Life Inspired


Book Description

Contains a collection of autobiographical reminiscences written by about 28 former Peace Corps volumteers.




It Depends


Book Description

It Depends" is a Peace Corps guide dedicated to present and future volunteers preparing for their first, second, or even third Peace Corps Journey. The title was inspired by the phrase often used by Peace Corps staff when volunteers asked questions about what to expect during their service. The Peace Corps staff always settled on the same answer, "It Depends." This guide draws from past volunteers' individual experiences as well as the author's personal journey and presents real stories, ideas, experiences, and advice on how to make the most of the Peace Corps lifestyle, experience, and journey. The author will take you through the Peace Corps life from start to finish, from considering Peace Corps to closing out your service. This guide is short, informative, fun, and will get any person considering Peace Corps excited to start the adventure and assist current volunteers in finding their next passion in life once their passion for Peace Corps has been completed.




Voices from the Field


Book Description

The publication "Voices From the Field" contains personal essays written by returned Peace Corps Volunteers, accompanied by standards-based language arts lesson plans and workshops that Stengthen students' reading comprehension and writing skills. Engage and inspire students to respond to the text and create original narratives Broaden students' perspectives on the world and themselves.




Answering Kennedy's Call


Book Description

Fifty years after President Kennedy signed the 1961 Executive Order creating the Peace Corps, nearly 100 former volunteers who joined the new organization in the first year for service in the Philippines recall why they joined, what they experienced, and how this service in the Philippines affected their lives. In addition a half dozen members of the Peace Corps staff in the Philippines and a similar number of Filipinos have contributed their recollections from the period. The book includes photos of individuals from both the 1960s and more recently as well as maps showing communities of service. The Peace Corps program in the Philippines was the first in Asia. Three factors set it apart from others during the early years of the Peace Corps' existence. First, it was the largest program in the world, absorbing 25 per cent of all volunteers at the beginning. Second, all volunteers in the first years were assigned to be "teacher's aides," a position that was never clearly defined and that the Country Director later admitted was a "non-job." And third, the Philippine program occurred in a nation that only fifteen years earlier had become independent from the US, having been America's single effort at establishing an imperialist colonial empire. This history gave the Philippine program a distinctly different political and social dynamic from what was the case in all of the other early Peace Corps countries. These are the reminiscences of a group of young Americans of varying degrees of idealism who answered President Kennedy's call to do what they could for their country. Assigned each to a separate school in the central part of the country, they lived far from the bright lights of Manila. The stories illustrate varying degrees of integration into the local culture, different ways of coping with the frustrations of their "non-job," and what many learned as they came to terms with themselves living far from familiar comforts on a salary of about $55 per month. Above all the stories tell of the determination and spirit of these early volunteers in establishing a strong basis for one of the important first Peace Corps programs.




Kosher Chinese


Book Description

An irreverent tale of an American Jew serving in the Peace Corps in rural China, which reveals the absurdities, joys, and pathos of a traditional society in flux In September of 2005, the Peace Corps sent Michael Levy to teach English in the heart of China's heartland. His hosts in the city of Guiyang found additional uses for him: resident expert on Judaism, romantic adviser, and provincial basketball star, to name a few. His account of overcoming vast cultural differences to befriend his students and fellow teachers is by turns poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. While reveling in the peculiarities of life in China's interior, the author also discovered that the "other billion" (people living far from the coastal cities covered by the American media) have a complex relationship with both their own traditions and the rapid changes of modernization. Lagging behind in China's economic boom, they experience the darker side of "capitalism with Chinese characteristics," daily facing the schizophrenia of conflicting ideologies. Kosher Chinese is an illuminating account of the lives of the residents of Guiyang, particularly the young people who will soon control the fate of the world.




PACA


Book Description

This idea book was designed to give a focused history and description of Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA), while sharing excellent examples from the field that illustrate how volunteers and their communities, host country organizations, and Peace Corps projects have used these tools successfully.




The Couscous Chronicles


Book Description

Make movies in the Peace Corps? Richard Wallace did just that. Fresh out of college and packing his film production degree, he wanted to travel. In 1977, he joined the annual deployment of trainees to Morocco's capital city of Rabat, learning French, some Arabic and the nuances of Islamic culture. Richard's job post: a media team for the Ministry of Agriculture, producing training films and printed materials for farmers. Sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with a new job to tackle, he was challenged to assimilate into the Moroccan way of life. Associations with his female roommate and co-worker, plus a steady parade of visitors, proved both entertaining and educational. This memoir relates the adventures a bunch of ambitious, curious and mostly dedicated twenty-somethings would experience, living and working among a population so unlike their own. For Richard, trips to many small towns expanded his impressions of his adopted home. The sights, the banter, the flavors of Morocco are vividly captured during Richard's excursions. Highlighting his account are the favorite memories recalled by volunteers in his 1977 class, all cherished personal examinations and life lessons -- unforgettable moments -- cemented in their minds. The Couscous Chronicles delivers a lighthearted behind-the-scenes look at life in the Peace Corps, capturing volunteers' efforts to make a contribution to one of America's longstanding allies -- as JFK's ambassadors of peace.