Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007 - (Page 3)

From the President MORE PEACE CORPS How we can re-invigorate, expand and provide new resources for the Peace Corps by Kevin F. F. Quigley n the next few months, NPCA will launch a major eﬀort to reinvigorate, expand and provide new resources for Peace Corps through a “More Peace Corps” campaign. is eﬀort aims to inﬂuence the next President and will be underway through the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps in 2011. More Peace Corps does not mean a simple expansion of the numbers of Peace Corps volunteers, although that is part of it. More Peace Corps means having the resources to respond to the more than 20 countries that have requested programs for which Peace Corps has insuﬃcient funds. It also means having the resources to give the many highly qualiﬁed Americans who would like to serve overseas the chance to do so. More Peace Corps may mean revising the Peace Corps model in ways to take better advantage of the signiﬁcant technological and demographic changes that have occurred in the 46 years since Peace Corps was launched. More Peace Corps will consider how to make Peace Corps so much more eﬀective at addressing the problems of poverty. is will probably require signiﬁcant innovation and some risk. Earlier this year, I had an experience that may be relevant to one way to think about Peace Corps. I was fortunate to spend four weeks as a Fulbright senior specialist in Ubon, ailand–where three decades ago I served as a Peace Corps volunteer. As a Fulbrighter, I worked to strengthen the capacity of a newly-created interdisciplinary institute focused on development challenges in the lower Mekong Region based at Ubon University. Although this was a short-term assignment, in the months preceding I and following, I was in frequent email contact with my counterparts at Ubon University. rough e-mails, I could advise them about their plans and activities, as well as suggest opportunities and individuals they should pursue. is coupling of direct, on-theground experience with ongoing internet connectivity–especially for individuals who have the requisite professional, language and cultural skills–creates a powerful way to provide more eﬀective and rewarding development assistance. is model may have considerable application to a new kind of Peace Corps program. In addition, the More Peace Corps campaign explicitly addresses the relatively small scale of Peace Corps and its modest impact on development. As Peace Corps pioneer and former U.S. Senator Harris Woﬀord often reminds us: the initial vision was to have 100,000 volunteers a year to build up a credible constituency for an engaged U.S. foreign policy. In the six years since the tragic events of September 2001, Peace Corps has grown approximately 15 percent from 7,000 to 8,079 volunteers. Since its 1961 founding, the Peace Corps community has grown to slightly less than 190,000 Americans who have served–falling far, far short of President Kennedy’s initial aspiration of one million volunteers a decade. Given the declining perceptions about our country, as tracked by such opinion polls as the Pew Global Attitude and the Freedom from Terror surveys, the United States must work assiduously to restore our role as a trusted leader addressing major global challenges. For the next President, Peace Corps will likely be part of this eﬀort, given the agency’s reputation as one of America’s best faces abroad. e More campaign is designed to ensure that this happens. We believe we have a real opportunity to have the next President embrace our goals. For example, RPCV and Senator Chris Dodd has spoken eloquently about the importance of service and the need to expand Peace Corps. In a recent speech in Iowa he said, “I’m issuing a call to all Americans to move our country forward again through service … . Our best days are not behind us. Our best days are in front of us … .” In a recent speech in Massachusetts, Senator John McCain issued a call to service reminiscent of a call from nearly ﬁve decades ago. He said that, “After 9/11, when America was united, I wouldn’t have asked Americans to go shopping or take a trip. I would have asked Americans to serve, ﬁnd ways to serve, and provide ways to serve. I would ask people–ﬁrst and foremost–to consider joining the military. I would have expanded the Peace Corps. I would have expanded AmeriCorps.” Although we are some months away from a formal launch of the More Peace Corps campaign, please stay tuned to these pages and our website at www. peacecorpsconnect.org for the next steps in this campaign and how you can play your part. In service, Kevin F. F. Quigley ailand, 1976-79 WorldView 3 http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007

Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007 Contents President's Note Lafayette Park Note to Readers Commentary Letter from India Commentary Letter from Botswana Letter from Ha Teboho Letter from Jumbi Valley Letter from Mununga Letter from Medellin Giving Back Community News

Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007

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