From Peace Corps Belize

Memorandum

To:Friends of the Peace Corps
From:  Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff (RPCVs)
Re: Peace Corps Reform Plan
Date: July 2009

With President Obama’s nomination of Aaron Williams for Peace Corps Director—which we strongly support—and the probable Congressional approval of increased appropriations, the Peace Corps is poised to embark on a journey of renewal and reform. We have developed a detailed and comprehensive plan (attached) providing a roadmap for Peace Corps reform with twenty priority initiatives.

Overall, our recommendation is that the agency must listen to, respect, and empower the Volunteers, without whom the Peace Corps accomplishes nothing. We loved being Volunteers, and we still believe in the ideals that drew us to serve in the 1960s and called us to serve again when we retired. We strongly believe that the Peace Corps could be playing a more crucial role in fostering grassroots development and serving the needs of both the U.S. and the host countries in the 21^st Century.

We have been working over the past four years, beginning during our second tenure as Volunteers (2005-07), to document the need for change and to research the policy options. Our effort gained momentum in July 2007 when Senator Dodd invited us to testify in favor of reform on behalf of the Volunteers then serving. Since our testimony we have communicated with many Volunteers about current conditions in the field and their affidavits are presented in this plan. We have been circulating drafts of this plan within the Peace Corps community since last December and have incorporated innumerable edits and ideas that have been submitted to us. We have also secured voluminous documents from the Peace Corps via Freedom of Information Act requests, including the results of the 2008 Peace Corps survey of the Volunteers and data on the number of “qualified applicants.”

Our conclusion is that the first priority at the Peace Corps must be to implement fundamental reforms rather than to increase the number of Volunteers. Quality before quantity. Indeed, considering the pervasive mismanagement in the agency that we have documented, we fear that rapid expansion would jeopardize the performance and reputation of the Peace Corps. We support additional appropriations for the Peace Corps—above the level recommended by President Obama—with most of the increase to be utilized for reforms. For details on our recommended allocations, see Appendix D. The plan makes clear that we support Senator Dodd’s Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act (S. 1382). Amendments to strengthen it are included in Appendix E.

We know we have no monopoly on Peace Corps reform proposals. We hope that the dissemination of this plan will prompt a debate about how best to transform the Peace Corps for the 21^st century. As part of that process, we invite you to forward the plan to PCVs, RPCVs, Peace Corps staff, Members of Congress, and the media. We invite RPCV Friends’ groups to post it on their websites and forward it to their members.

We welcome comments on this plan and recommendations for reform, which we will compile and submit to the Congress and to the Peace Corps. Requests for anonymity will be honored.

Finally, we are looking to recruit an RPCV entrepreneur to establish a “RateMyPeaceCorps” website – a proposal discussed at length in our plan.

We take full responsibility for the contents of the report, for any errors or omissions, and for any excess of zeal or enthusiasm in our quest for reform.

Respectfully submitted,

Chuck Ludlam
Retired Counsel to Congressional committees/White House and lobbyist
RPCV: Nepal, 68-70, and Senegal, 05-07

Founder, Friends of Nepal
Advisor to Obama/Biden Peace Corps Transition Team

Member, National Peace Corps Association Board of Directors

Paula Hirschoff
Writer, editor, and teacher
RPCV: Kenya, 68-70, and Senegal, 05-07

Former Board Member, Friends of Kenya

This Friday [7/31/2009], Friends and RPCVs of Guyana will be hanging out in NYC and we want you to join us! Come meet up at Kettle of Fish at 9:00PM for drinks and “gaffing’. Kettle of Fish is located at 59 Christopher Street, New York, NY. All are welcomed and we’d love to see as many Friends of Guyana as possible. See you there!

Position:          Analyst

Location:        Bay Area

The Analyst will gather and analyze quantitative and qualitative data that will be used by Education Pioneers staff and leadership to inform strategy, assess progress against business goals, make business decisions, and improve day-to-day performance.  Major areas of responsibility include:

Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent Kaieteur News article, well known Calypso artist, Lurlene James highlighted the potential demise for the art form. In an attempt to raise awareness of the issue, Ms. James spoke with the newspaper about issues regarding the art form.

“The calypso art form will die altogether if it is not given the deserved attention, sponsorship and recognition it so truly deserves.”

Over the years, calypsonians have all complained of the lukewarm response given to the art and still today many such artistes are lamenting that their pleas and observations have all fallen on deaf ears.
Yesterday, the veteran calypso queen noted that the art was indeed brilliant and artistic. She however declared that despite the rich traditional value of calypso, the public and relevant authorities, for some strange reason, have turned blind eyes on the need for the development of calypso.

FROG recently decided to put together a press kit for a possible high-level governmental meeting in Guyana that may be happening very shortly.  With little time to prepare, we rushed to gather the needed material for the kit, organized it the best we could and actually lucked out finding a graphic design volunteer to pull everything together in a neat packet.

If you’ve never used DesignismConnects.com for graphic design volunteers, you should check it out.  We were able to use the service and quickly find a volunteer to work on the project.  In less than a week and a half we were able to post the need, locate a volunteer, get her the resources and turn around the press kit.

We want to give a big shout out to Sarah Riddle and thank her for the great work she did on the press kit and on such short notice.  You can check out her other amazing projects here – www.sarahriddle.com

You can check out the press kit Sarah put together here – FROG Press Kit

Thanks Sarah for your help, we’re incredibly grateful for the work!

Eric Hilton, of Guy 12, is featured on an Idealist.org’s podcast this month -

In this episode we hear from Eric Hilton about his new nonprofit Technically Learning.  His organization believes “all students should have the opportunity to discover how fun and inspiring the science, technology, engineering and math fields can be.”   Eric talks about how he got involved with creating educational materials, LEGO robots and the difficulty in starting a new nonprofit.

Click here to listen.

Today, the White House release an official press release stating President Obama’s intention to nominate Aaron Williams as the new Peace Corps Director. Mr. Williams served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic from 1967-1970. Currently a Vice President for International Business Development with RTI International, Mr. Williams has over 25 years of experience in the design and implementation of worldwide assistance programs.

In the Press Release, President Obama stated, “America was built on a belief that the best progress comes from ordinary citizens working to bring about the change they believe in. Through a lifetime of service, Aaron Williams has embodied the very best of that American ideal. I am grateful for his service and honored to nominate him to direct the critical work of the Peace Corps.”

(via timesonline.co.uk)

Before I discovered Guyana, flying over jungle countries used to depress the hell out of me. It’s always fine while you’re actually on the ground, tunnelling among the lush green caverns of the forest floor.

Down there, you can never experience more than the explosion of life, the sensory overload, which is evident within a few metres of you.

Watching a giant morpho butterfly flitting in the dappled sunlight like an electric-blue handkerchief; being hosed down with wee by a churlish howler monkey; happening across a tiny frog carrying its tadpoles to a bijou pond in a treetop flower… these countless small miracles wrap you up in the wonder of the jungle, and it’s easy to convince yourself that everything is well with the world.

Get yourself up in a flying machine, though, and it’s a different story. Now, you can see the wider truth – that some of the most famous and important jungle reserves in the world are actually smaller than an average-sized city.

Their dwindling islands of forest are surrounded by fields, plantations or burnt and barren land, and logging roads penetrate deep into their recesses. Guyana is very different from that, however. A nation the size of Great Britain, its rainforest remains 85% untouched, and you can fly for several hours and see no roads at all, only rivers, glaring up like serpentine mirrors as the sun flashes across them.

Forest, forest, forest, in every direction, and not a sign of the country’s 750,000 people – because they mostly live in and around the drowsy coastal capital of Georgetown.

I’ve spent nearly two years of my life in rainforests, including time on every continent that has them, but I’ve never experienced one so benign as this – so free from plants that want to rip your clothes off, bugs that want to eat you and tropical diseases that make you spend your entire stay hovering over a long-drop toilet.

That said, I did get bitten by a vampire bat, stung by a bullet ant and shocked by a 200-volt electric eel. But it was still heaven.

…Continue

Steve Backshall’s programme Expedition Guyana will air on BBC1 and Discovery this spring

Travel brief: Guyana is best tackled using a tour operator. Responsible Travel (01273 600030, www.responsibletravel.com) has a 14-day tour from £3,345pp, including flights from Gatwick to Georgetown with BA and Caribbean Airlines, via Barbados or Trinidad and Tobago, and internal transfers. Or try Audley Travel (www.audleytravel.com), Andean Trails (0131 467 7086, www.andeantrails.co.uk), or Veloso Tours (020 8762 0616, www.veloso.com). For more information, contact the Latin American Travel Association (www.lata.org).