(via peacecorpsonline.typepad.com)

Peace Corps Director Ronald A. Tschetter officially announced his vision for a Peace Corps Foundation during a town hall staff meeting on October 23. The principal purpose of the Peace Corps Foundation would be to advance the Peace Corps’ third goal of inspiring a better understanding of other cultures through returned Volunteers in America.

The Peace Corps Foundation would be a private charitable non-profit corporation. The goal of the Foundation is to increase public awareness within the United States of Peace Corps Volunteer experiences, and the diversity of the countries in which they serve. Groups such as the National Peace Corps Association and the numerous “friends of” groups comprised of Returned Volunteers could greatly benefit from Foundation resources. The Foundation would not be a federal agency; therefore it would not require any appropriated funds from Congress. Instead, funding for the Foundation would be sought from corporations, foundations, and private individuals; grants would be disseminated for specific programs under a governing board’s direction. The activities of the Foundation will be planned in coordination and cooperation with the activities of the Peace Corps.

Wikipedia content is now available through BitTorrent -

Wikipedia school edition is an offline DVD version of Wikipedia by SOS Children’s Villages (a charity for orphans) filled with “checked content” from the user-edited online encyclopedia. The 2.9GB download is available only via BitTorrent, and to top it off, here’s a quote you don’t hear every day: “It helps our charity if you keep µTorrent running after your download is finished.”

The Prevention Specialist will be responsible for the implementation of capacity building and provision of technical assistance to field activities for prevention with a focus on those programs targeting most at risk population.  An understanding of the socio-cultural issues and nuances of working in such communities is highly desirable.  S/he will work directly with partner organizations, communities and other resource users to execute the various activities.  S/he should have at least a relevant Bachelor’s degree and at least 5 years of experience in the provision of successful, targeted HIV/AIDS prevention programming.  S/he should have considerable experience and technical expertise working with community-based organizations, NGOs, and host-country governments.

Maripili O’Connell

Staffing Specialist

Management Sciences for Health

784 Memorial Drive

Cambridge, MA

www.msh.org