INTRODUCTION:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Volunteer Patty Gagnon showing dance step to kids in Kyrgyz Republic (Peace Corps)
Volunteers at Work
Peace Corps volunteers work at the request of other countries to help develop better opportunities for their people, living and working with people in remote villages and burgeoning cities in the developing world. Since 1961, more than 200,000 Americans have served as volunteers in 139 countries, teaching English, helping people improve their families’ health and nutrition, working on HIV/AIDS issues, encouraging entrepreneurs to build their own businesses, introducing new farming techniques to bolster crop yields and protect the environment, and providing leadership to the young. While they’re at it, they teach others a few things about Americans and learn a few things about other people to help Americans better understand the world. Here are glimpses of a few volunteers.
Photo 1:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Woman and man examining coffee plant and fruit (Peace Corps)
Kathleen Fraser, Panama
After working for two years in the U.S. financial sector, Kathleen Fraser of North Carolina was able to apply her business skills as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Araglacias, Panama. During her time there, she worked with a small group of women to build and maintain beehives and sell honey to the tourist market. Fraser also helped coffee producers make more money from their crop by toasting and grinding the beans instead of just selling the raw coffee cherries. “There are a lot of intermediaries involved in the coffee chain,” she said, “so the higher up that they can be on that chain, the more money they can earn.”
Photo 2:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Woman with stringed instrument in group of singers (Peace Corps)
Peter Hendricks and Alene Kennedy Hendricks, Georgia
Peter Hendricks and Alene Kennedy Hendricks came as a married couple to Rustavi, a city in the Republic of Georgia. They not only taught English to young students, they also trained teachers. Lesson planning is not common for teachers in Georgia; Peter and Alene showed teachers how to put together lesson plans and learning objectives for each lesson. They also explored ways to make learning more fun, such as holding spelling bees and creative writing contests, singing songs and dancing.
Photo 3:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
Three women sitting on carpet (Peace Corps)
Tia Tucker, Morocco
Besides teaching English in Tiflet, Morocco, Tia Tucker of Louisiana worked closely with women in the community. During her time in Morocco, Tucker worked with a women’s sewing group and advised a women’s weaving co-op. She taught the women about nutrition, exercise and disease prevention, but also helped them realize that women can have a voice — that they can impart useful knowledge. “They think, ‘I know something, and I can share it with somebody else. Just because I didn’t finish high school or just because I am a girl doesn’t mean I am not important,’” she said.
Photo 4:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Man standing, surrounded by boys seated at desks (Peace Corps)
Don Hesse, Jordan
Don Hesse enjoyed his Peace Corps service in Sierra Leone in 1968–1970 so much that nearly 40 years later he left San Francisco to serve two more years as a Peace Corps volunteer. This time he went to the town of Ayl in southern Jordan. Before he came, no one in Ayl could speak more than a handful of English words. Some teachers could read English science textbooks or Shakespeare plays, but no one knew how to carry on a conversation. At the boys’ school where he taught, his most enthusiastic students were the other teachers. “Not just the English teachers, but all of them, including the school custodian,” Hesse said. “They really want to learn how to speak English.”
Photo 5:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Two men with plants and raised bed of dirt (Peace Corps)
Jared Tharp, Senegal
Californian Jared Tharp worked as an urban agriculturist in Dakar, Senegal. He and three local assistants worked in a garden at a hospital to provide free food to poor patients in the infectious disease ward. About two-thirds of those patients had HIV/AIDS and suffered from poor nutrition; most could not afford the regular hospital meals. At the same hospital, Tharp worked in another garden for the psychiatric ward. That garden not only produced food for patients, but also provided patients with therapeutic activity.
Photo 6:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Man with children at computers (Peace Corps)
Juan Rodriguez, Guyana
When Juan Rodriguez of New Jersey came to English-speaking Guyana, he had to persuade the children he worked with that he was really an American, despite his Spanish name. The first graders through sixth graders came to understand more about the diversity of Americans as Juan helped them with their reading, typing and computer skills. He also showed them how to play America’s national pastime, baseball. “That was a really fun thing because they came and they really enjoyed it, and every time they come up to me they wanted to learn more and play more baseball,” Juan said.
Photo 7:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: People painting mural (Peace Corps)
Rachelle Olden, Dominican Republic
Some young women in Santiago, Dominican Republic, got a lengthy lesson about healthy living from Rachelle Olden of South Carolina. Olden taught them about avoiding HIV/AIDS, making healthy decisions and building self-esteem. The young women went back to their neighborhood schools, youth groups and community centers and shared what they had learned. At one of those community centers, Olden encouraged some boys and girls to paint a mural about this initiative. “This is a mural for Escojo mi vida, and Escojo mi vida means ‘I choose my life,’ which means I choose what decisions I make — I make my own healthy decisions and I protect myself from HIV and AIDS,” she said.
Photo 8:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Group of people standing in front of building (Peace Corps)
Scott Lea, Indonesia
Scott Lea of Colorado is the first and, so far, only Peace Corps volunteer on the Indonesian island of Madura. He is the first foreigner to have visited some communities, the people told him. Six days a week Lea teaches English to 210 11th graders. He also runs an English club one afternoon a week and holds a special class to prepare 12th graders for national exams. “Many days I feel like the best thing I do is walk around the community and greet people, chat,” he said. “It makes me feel like part of the community, and they appreciate the effort I, as a foreigner, put into learning their language and their culture.”
Photo 9:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
Woman and girls in ring gesturing and smiling (Peace Corps)
Kelly Petrowski, Malawi
The only science teacher for more than 300 students at a secondary school in rural Malawi, Kelly Petrowski of Illinois taught biology and physical science. The school had no electricity or running water, but it did have science books, microscopes, glassware and chemicals. When she arrived, all that equipment was sitting in boxes without instructions. Sorting through the boxes to set up a lab was a challenge. Even more challenging was getting students to show up for class, but she won them over by doing some fun activities. “A big thing for me is that the students are becoming more motivated,” Petrowski said.
Photo 10:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
ALT: Man leaning over girl and writing something in notebook (Peace Corps)
Albin Sikora, Bulgaria
Albin Sikora taught English in a Bulgarian village. His students loved the American street basketball they viewed online, so he started a basketball team. He loved the Bulgarian countryside but lamented the junk littering the streams, so he helped organize the first river clean-up in the village and invited students, their parents and their grandparents to participate. As he learned about the costumes and customs of this community, he shared with them small celebrations of American life: the villagers’ first Halloween costume party, complete with trick-or-treating, and their first American Thanksgiving dinner.
Photo 11:
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Peace Corps
Woman showing dance step to ring of kids (Peace Corps)
Patty and Harvey Gagnon, Kyrgyz Republic
Retired couple Patty and Harvey Gagnon from Michigan came to the Kyrgyz Republic to have an “adventure on the roof of the world.” She taught English to pupils from the first grade through the ninth. He worked as a business facilitator. “I try to help people either find grants, donors, loans, whatever it takes to get their project going,” he said. She baked cookies for the children — “I've never seen cookies go so fast,” she said. And with Harvey’s participation, Patty taught songs and dances. The children especially wanted to learn the lyrics of American pop songs.
Photo 12:
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CREDIT: Peace Corps
Line of people walking and laughing (Peace Corps)
Löki Tobin, Azerbaijan
Alaska native Löki Tobin wanted the young people of Zagatala, Azerbaijan, to express themselves artistically, so she asked the students in her photography class to take pictures of their community. “It provides youth with critical thinking skills, with self-expression, with stress management,” she said. She also took daily walks around the city to meet local people and tell them about America and Americans.