Category Archives: National Peace Corps Association

Preparing for New Experiences Abroad

Bossi Letter 1966

Stephen Bossi, Peace Corps Training Letter, 1966

The Peace Corps Community Archive includes many fascinating stories conveyed through letters, photos, and diaries of returned Peace Corps volunteers.  However, many of the collections also include volunteers’ handwritten notes, outlines, exams, and other materials from their Peace Corps training.  All volunteers attended some form of training prior to their departure, or, in later years, immediately upon arriving to the country of service.

Frum Certificate 1965

Jennifer Frum, Certificate of Completion of Training, 1965

The training materials provide insight into what the Peace Corps considered essential for volunteers to know about the country’s culture, history, and language.  They also demonstrate the process Peace Corps trainers used to educate and prepare volunteers for living and serving in a culture very different from their own.  Several collections include images of service and construction projects undertaken during the volunteers’ training.  Construction projects, as well as visits to local social, industrial, and government agencies provided experiential knowledge for volunteers preparing to work in community development.

Frum Training 1965

Jennifer Frum, Introduction to Field Experiences, 1965

Other documents in the collection include training schedules, exams, note outlines, and diary entries detailing the daily training experience.

Bob Klein: Inspiration for the Peace Corps Community Archive

Bob Klein was among the first Peace Corps volunteers. After teaching in Ghana (1961-1963), he joined the Peace Corps overseas staff.  He served as Ghana Country Director from 1966 until 1968.  Bob was an ardent advocate for the documentation and preservation of the experiences of individual Peace Corps volunteers. He served as organizer for the Returned Peace Corps Archives Project, which collects Peace Corps oral histories in cooperation with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.  Between 1999 and 2012, Bob interviewed close to 300 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.  As the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps approached, he increasingly stressed the importance of collecting archival materials.  With the assistance of Joanne Roll and Pat Wand, Bob prepared a concept statement for a Peace Corps Volunteer archive which they shared with the University Librarian at American University in late 2011.  This document became the starting point for a series of discussions which resulted in the inauguration of the Peace Corps Community Archive in March of 2013.

Before Bob Klein passed away unexpectedly in April 2012, he donated his papers to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.  The collection includes a draft of his book, Being First, correspondence, Peace Corps publications, and circulars & memoranda from the Peace Corps Accra office.

Waging Peace Through a Lifetime of Service: Peace Corps Symposium

The American University Peace Corps symposium, Waging Peace Through a Lifetime of Service, was held on Thursday March 21st in the Abramson Family Founder’s Room in the School of International Service. The symposium featured fourteen returned Peace Corps volunteers (RPCVs), representing every decade of the Peace Corps, as well as every continent on which the Peace Corps has worked.  The volunteers also represented a diverse range of professional sectors, including the fields of education, Foreign Service, peacebuilding, academia, and government.

The RPCVs shared their five-minute Peace Corps story by answering twenty strategic questions.  The format of the presentations allowed the audience to make comparisons across time and place, telling the story not only of the Peace Corps, but also of international travel and international service.

Five friends of the Peace Corps also spoke, each offering their own unique perspective on Peace Corps and service.

For those of you who were not able to attend, you can watch the symposium via UStream.