WorldView Magazine: WorldView Winter 2023
A Leg Up
The Paul D. Coverdell Program is one of the best RPCV benefits for financing a graduate degree
Retrograde
Baktash Ahadi (Mozambique, 2005– 07) is an award-winning filmmaker, human rights activist, TEDx Speaker and RPCV. His latest film, the Emmy Award winner Retrograde, offers a first-hand account of the controversial U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the human toll the war has taken on Afghans and Americans alike. Below is a condensed and edited conversation Ahadi had with WorldView editor Robert Nolan. Robert Nolan: When I watched the film there was a particular scene when the Green Berets are breaking the news to their Afghan counterparts about the U.S. withdrawal. You could just feel how emotional those guys were and...
Rallying Point
Peace Corps service instills an ethos of growth through giving back that still drives Returned Peace Corps Volunteers today. Volunteerism is declining across the United States, according to Philanthropy News Digest, but RPCVs understand the personal enrichment that comes from service done right. We have firsthand experience of the profound fulfillment offered by meaningful volunteer opportunities with visible community impact, versus passive acts such as signing petitions or donating money. In the current social and political climate, we must keep this distinctive spark of service alive by engaging in actions that have purpose beyond ourselves. That doesn’t mean preaching morals;...
Engineered for Consumption
Most people in the developed world would agree with the statement “Water is life.” After all, our hands, lips, food, clothing, and household surfaces come in contact with clean, safe water multiple times a day. How could we exist without it and still be healthy enough to maintain our daily activities? We couldn’t. Most of us have never needed to try. Poor-quality water equates to a suboptimal life, one at significant risk of poor health, poverty, and hopelessness. Water Engineers for the Americas and Africa (WEFTA) is intent on reducing that risk by working with rural and Indigenous com- munities...
Putting the Peace in “Peace Corps”
Peace Corps has played a significant yet often unrecognized role in global peacebuilding, the focus of this edition of WorldView. Current conflicts around the world, especially those occurring in countries where many of us have served, are heartbreaking to follow and devastating to our families, counterparts, and communities. At NPCA, our unequivocal goal is to help counter the forces that drive conflict by supporting the deployment of greater numbers of Peace Corps Volunteers to serve (safely) in developing countries where war has existed in the past and will likely exist again. And, of course, we continue to support the valiant...
Heavy Medal
Last year marked the 60th anniversary of the return of the first Peace Corps Volunteers to the United States. Members of Congress and all those who support the outstanding contributions of the Peace Corps should consider nominating Returned Peace Corps Volunteers as a group for a prestigious Congressional Gold Medal, an accolade that would encapsulate their profound impact across 140 nations. As many of the first Volunteers sent abroad enter their retirement years, now is the time to show our nation’s appreciation for their outstanding global accomplishments. As President John F. Kennedy said in his remarks upon signing the Peace...
Peacebuilding with Persistence
As the world has shifted its collective attention to conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, it might be hard to remember that it was only two years ago that American forces withdrew from Afghanistan after more than 20 years of waging war there. For the NPCA group Friends of Afghanistan, however, the fight for women’s rights, children’s education, health equity, and fair refugee policies hasn’t stopped. In November 2023, Friends of Afghanistan proudly celebrated 61 years since the establishment of Peace Corps in Afghanistan in 1962. The program thrived for 17 years before closing its doors in 1979...
A Matter of Perspective
One criticism often leveled at the standard maps of the 20th century is that they represent a Eurocentric view of the world. The maps we see hanging in countless classrooms and depicted on globes aren’t necessarily to scale. Commercial maps often depict an outsize Europe and a shrunken Africa, and place Asia and the Pacific Ocean on the periphery. Intentionally or not, such depictions carry with them ingrained ideas and ideologies about the geography of the world and where countries and people belong in it. The small multi-island nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific has been home to Peace...
The Map Makers
Forestry Volunteer Barbara Jo White (Dominican Republic 1987–89) wanted to plant fruit trees near the school in Hondo Valle, the small town she lived in on the Dominican Republic’s mountain border with Haiti. “What happened was some fruit trees came my way, and I made compost and all of that stuff and planted my fruit trees on the border of the school grounds,” White says. But after the fruit trees were planted, the school’s head- master decided to lease the plot to a farmer, who tilled it with oxen to sow his bean crop. When Peace Corps’ forestry sector director...
Through Service, Comes Peace
Dharamsala is a bustling market town in the western Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Nestled deep in the Himalayan foothills along the northern section of the India-China border, it became the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959. These days, the Tsuglagkhang Complex, in Dharamsala’s McLeod Ganj neighborhood, is like a tiny piece of Tibet—with an active monastery, a museum, and, of course, the Dalai Lama’s residence. Nirav Shah (Zambia 2013–15) has long been fascinated with the Dalai Lama and the Nobel Prize winner’s philosophy, so when he realized he had 53 days of...
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