WorldView Magazine: WorldView Fall 2023
The Three Amigos
June 2022: We were on the short flight from Miami to Havana, Cuba. Tres amigos. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Mike Tulley, Rick Smith, and myself (all Honduras, late 1970s), we were on an adventure to the off-limits Latin American country that is so close, yet so far away. There is no group better able to transcend political differences than a group of Peace Corps Volunteers, so we set about our self-styled diplomatic “mission” to foster peace and friendship across the island. Before leaving, we checked out the confusing State Department requirements that have vacillated from one presidential administration to the...
Make America a Better Place by Leaving It
As country singer Merle Haggard sang “If you don’t love it, leave it” repeatedly in his 1970 hit “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” the Peace Corps released a recruitment poster encouraging the very same thing. Americans could improve their country by leaving it. Everyone thinks of the good Peace Corps Volunteers do where they serve. Just as important is what they bring home from their time away. Peace Corps’ on-the-job skills training prepares Volunteers to be diplomats, entrepreneurs, teachers, public health workers and more. When they return home, they invest what they learned back into their communities. Thousands of leaders...
Found Objects: Cabinet of Curiosities
If you had no smart phone, no laptop, no internet, and you had to walk, bike or ride a horse three villages away to make a call or post an aerogram, what to do at night? Turn up the wick on your kerosene lantern and pull your paperback copy of J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories from your library. Yes, for the first several years of Peace Corps, Sarge Shriver’s staff shipped to almost every Peace Corps site a curated library of about 200 books, a moveable post-graduate world study assignment. Not long after the first flights of Peace Corps Volunteers landed in Africa...
Hey, There’s A Peace Corps!
In September 22, 2019, A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Directed by filmmaker Alana DeJoseph (Mali 1992–94) the documentary focuses on Peace Corps history along with its past and current struggles. Nearly four years after the film’s premiere, NPCA communications intern Megan Dial interviewed DeJoseph just before the documentary aired nationwide on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in September. Megan Dial: This edition of WorldView magazine focuses on the meaning of service. In a previous article (Summer 2015), you said Peace Corps acts as a prism for some of the nation’s hardest questions, such as the notion of service. What does service mean to...
Reel vs. Real: Peace Corps, Pop Culture, and Public Perception
In the ever-evolving landscape of pop culture, the Peace Corps has not only made its mark as an international force for world peace but has also found its way into the hearts and minds of creative storytellers across the decades. From the early sixties to the digital age of today, Peace Corps has left an indelible imprint on the silver and small screens, offering the community a unique thrill — spotting those unmistakable Peace Corps references that hit close to home. The experience of volunteering abroad is a tapestry of triumphs, trials, and transformation. Peace Corps’ complex tapestry has been...
Keeping it Real: Narrative Integrity and Ethical Storytelling
This year’s Peace Corps Connect conference offered a 360-degree view on all things Peace Corps. For advocates, Congressman John Garamendi, the only RPCV currently serving in Congress, gave his views on Peace Corps funding and its role in U.S. foreign policy. For observers of the agency, Director Carol Spahn shared her vision for the future of Peace Corps, including greater efforts to combat climate change, expand youth development, and address gender equity at new posts being added regularly since the decline of the COVID-19 pandemic. For champions of the work RPCVs do at home, awards were announced, and a new platform for the continuation of...
A Bipartisan No-Brainer
The existence and efforts of the National Service Caucus are indicative of the power and potential of national service in the United States, something that should be continuously celebrated and cultivated. The National Service Caucus was established in 2004 by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), Rep. David Price (D-NC), Rep. Tom Osborne (R-NE) and Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN). The caucus became bicameral in 2008 when Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) established a companion caucus in the Senate. “My ambition when I was in college was to be in the Peace Corps and maybe serve in some public way in government…and give that to discussions when I was growing up by Kennedy and others,”...
Pride and Prejudice
In a small village in western Kenya, a Peace Corps Volunteer who, for safety reasons, will be referred to as Michael, is engaging in meaningful discussions about sexuality, where he encourages the people he meets to pursue life as who they are and safely explore relationships with others. Michael identifies as a bisexual man but has been careful about whom he shares this with during his service. In Kenya, many regu-lations make same-sex relations unlawful, and a majority of Kenyan society holds negative views toward LGBTQ+ persons. “If you do any sexual acts with a same-sex person, you can go...
The Admiral Thanks You for Your Service
Admiral James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander and past dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy speaks with WorldView editor Robert Nolan about the role of Peace Corps in national security, how national service can be better incentivized, and career opportunities for newly returned Volunteers. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Robert Nolan: As we were putting this issue together, it raised a question for many of us in the community about how we actually define the term “national service.” What are your thoughts on that question? James Stavridis: I’ll get to your question, but first let me say...
Call of Duty
Despite broad support for volunteering and a successful track record, national service programs have not been able to close the gap between supply and demand. Is this a missed opportunity to help heal a fractured country?
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