LEGACY OF JFK: A Peace Corps Story

 

 

 

LEGACY OF JFK: A Peace Corps STORY Through the Peace Corps, President John F. Kennedy sought to encourage mutual understanding between Americans and people of other nations and cultures. On October 14, 1960, at 2 a.m., Senator John F. Kennedy spoke to a crowd of 10,000 cheering students at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor during a presidential campaign speech. In his improvised speech, Kennedy asked, "How many of you, who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana?Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?" His young audience responded to this speech with a petition signed by 1,000 students willing to serve abroad. Senator Kennedy's challenge to these students—to live and work in developing countries around the world; to dedicate themselves to the cause of peace and development—inspired the beginning of the Peace Corps. Just two weeks later, in his November 2, 1960, speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, Kennedy proposed "a peace corps of talented men and women" who would dedicate themselves to the progress and peace of developing countries. Encouraged by more than 25,000 letters responding to his call, Kennedy took immediate action as president to make the campaign promise a reality. The Cold War and the Peace Corps The Peace Corps program was an outgrowth of the Cold War. President Kennedy pointed out that the Soviet Union "had hundreds of men and women, scientists, physicists, teachers, engineers, doctors, and nurses . . . prepared to spend their lives abroad in the service of world communism." The United States had no such program, and Kennedy wanted to involve Americans more actively in the cause of global democracy, peace, development, and freedom. A few days after he took office, Kennedy asked his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, to direct a Peace Corps Task Force. Shriver was known for his ability to identify and motivate creative, visionary leaders, and he led the group to quickly shape the organization. After a month of intense dialogue and debate among task force members, Shriver outlined seven steps to forming the Peace Corps in a memorandum to Kennedy in February 1961. The Peace Corps was established by executive order on March 1, 1961, and a reluctant Shriver accepted the president's request to officially lead the organization. Shriver recruited and energized a talented staff to implement the task force's recommendations. On his first trip abroad as director, he received invitations from leaders in India, Ghana, and Burma to place Peace Corps volunteers in their countries. Tanganyika and Ghana were the first countries to participate in the program. President Kennedy welcomed the inaugural group of volunteers at the White House on August 28, 1961, to give them a personal farewell before their departure to Africa. Congress approved the Peace Corps as a permanent federal agency within the State Department, and Kennedy signed the legislation on September 22, 1961. In 1981, the Peace Corps was made an independent agency. In the 1960s, the Peace Corps was very popular with recent college graduates. But in the 1970s, the Vietnam War and Watergate eroded many Americans' faith in their government. Interest in the Peace Corps began to decline and government funding was cut. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan tried to broaden the Peace Corps' traditional concern with education and agriculture to include more current fields such as computer literacy and business-related education. For the first time, a rising number of conservative and Republican volunteers joined the largely progressive Peace Corps contingent overseas. Peace Corps membership and funding increased after the opening of Eastern Europe in 1990. The Peace Corps Program To participate in the Peace Corps program, countries must meet certain requirements: A country must invite the Peace Corps Based on its limited budget, the Peace Corps decides which countries it can be active in and prioritizes each country's needs Peace Corps volunteers must be safe

Executive Order 10924 Establishment of the Peace Corps   Once these requirements are met, the Peace Corps begins working with the foreign government. Countries seeking help from the Peace Corps propose areas that could benefit from the skills of volunteers. The Peace Corps then matches assignments within foreign nations to applicants with the appropriate skills. Life as a Peace Corps volunteer is not easy and volunteers face many challenges, from language barriers to poor living conditions. There is no salary. Volunteers receive a monthly stipend for room, board, and few essentials—"enough to be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed—doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language." Culturally, volunteers work to build trust within their communities and share their skills to solve challenges that face developing communities. Volunteers work in many different fields, including, education, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS training, agriculture, business, community development, forestry, and environmental protection. Since the inception of the Peace Corps, some 200,000 volunteers have served in 139 countries. They have learned more than 200 languages and dialects. The Peace Corps Today The Peace Corps is always adapting to the times and to an ever-changing world, but has never wavered from its three original goals: To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans The program continues to reflect the evolving priorities of the U.S. government and changes in the population of the United States. Today, on average, volunteers are older than their predecessors and more experienced in specialized fields. After almost five decades of service, the Peace Corps is more vital than ever and still growing. From John F. Kennedy's inspiration came an agency devoted to world peace and friendship and volunteers who continue to help individuals build a better life for themselves, their children, their community, and their country.

Photos from 27 months in West Africa, a Peace Corps story As one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy asked Congress to create the Peace Corps. His brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, was the first director. Through this program, Americans volunteer to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction. The organization grew to 5,000 members by March 1963 and 10,000 the following year. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries. In words and pictures, returned Peace Corps volunteer Alexander Kent shares a brief overview of his 27 months of service in The Gambia, West Africa. Kent is 26 years old, a native of Denver, Colorado and an alumni of the University of Colorado Boulder. He will begin an MBA program in social business and the environment at Duke University this fall. A Personal Journey - Early in my Peace Corps service a friend who I admired went home. I was shocked. I had seen this volunteer learn the local language faster than anyone. Within weeks he was holding hand washing clinics in his village to promote hygiene and was writing grants for water pumps to bring more clean water to the village. Why did my friend and a few others like him go home? Frustration and burnout- the culture had not embraced any of his hand washing techniques and pushing a village to make changes without earning the trust of the village instead alienated him from the people he was trying to help. By contrast the most successful volunteers integrated into the culture and earned the trust of the village for an entire 6 months before doing any work. Becoming a part of Gambian culture and personal growth seemed to be the only way to develop enough understanding to actually be of help to these culturally disparate people. In the above photo I’m dancing in front of the women of my village, during a symbolic rebirthing ceremony organized by Peace Corps for my arrival. In Gambia, a family doesn’t name the baby until it is presented to the village at a large celebration. I was given the name Momodou Ngum. The only ceremonial dress (Kaftan) my family had to lend me was pink. Afterward, I often repeated the phrase “Dress me up in pink and call me Momodou” remembering this moment. My Work: Aiding Dependence or Empowering Hope - Despite millions of dollars of United States aid funding (USAID and USDA), my first job was a failure. In working in and with many development organizations, it became clear they were not always able to help. Poor management, under experienced local staff, and a lack of institutional memory meant most of the aid given to my organization did little more than create the need for more aid. There is no accountability- a poorly organized one hour training session that we paid the farmers to attend would be reported as “Sustainably trained and monitored 500 farmers from 40 villages.” It was clear that making an impact was less of a goal for my organization than receiving an additional year of funding through impressive reports. Disillusioned by NGOs and large scale aid funding organizations, I changed jobs after my first year. At a small beekeeping charity I found the antidote to large overfunded aid monsters. A simple shift in focus from giving out aid money to empowering people to start their own businesses without money showed me that success in development is possible. With as little as a few thousand dollars a month, my second organization, BEECause Gambia, was impacting more farmers than my previous organization was and was doing it with a tenth the funding. The key was focus. BEECause had altruistic westerners at its head who had no money- only beekeeping knowledge. In traveling around the country giving free trainings, we put the burden on the villagers to be in business for themselves, achieve their own life goals, and increase their own standard of living. Here I was highly successful. I trained countless Gambians in beekeeping, was awarded a $35,000 grant and was published in an international beekeeping magazine for our organization’s innovation and success at training rural beekeeping. A Gambian View of Islam - West Africa is Islamic. Calls to prayer would awaken me every morning around 5:30 a.m. A man would often have up to 4 wives and for a month out of each year Gambians fast for Ramadan. Despite this, I learned that just as Christianity has many denominations, cultural roots, and faces, West African Islam holds to a uniquely African foundation and heritage. Colorful fabrics, women dancing at ceremonies, a belief in voodoo, and a complete acceptance of other religions demonstrated that the people were still uniquely African. Islam did not change these peoples’ character; at the heart of most Gambians I found peace and acceptance of different people, races, languages and creeds. In Gambia, where 6-8 languages can be heard on almost any street, my difference of appearance, speech, and belief seemed to blend in naturally with the cultural diversity that surrounded me. At every house that I visited over two years, I felt welcomed and safe. Often Gambians would apologize to me about violence that they heard was done in the name of Islam elsewhere in the world; to them their religion truly was one of peace. In Gambia I found a peaceful and welcoming counter perspective to the one commonly portrayed in the west about Islam. Returning to America - In Gambia, my fellow volunteers and I tackled a once in a lifetime challenge of growth and self-discovery. Learning a new language, living without electricity, fetching water from a well, dancing in a traditional African ceremony and bonding with people of a different culture were just a few benefits conferred on those volunteers who stayed and allowed the experience to transform them. Personally, I found incredible peace in a life outside lights, social media, phones and the internet. In America I always felt over stimulated; in Gambia I found a simple and natural rhythm to life. My mind calmed itself over countless afternoons sitting in silence with Gambians under a tree. Sleep would come to me naturally with the setting sun and, as silence would surround me in the evening, I began to understand myself and my emotions better as I had quiet time to journal and meditate on major life events. It is in this way that Peace Corps became a grand meditation retreat, one that calmed me, gave me perspective, and allowed me to reflect on my life from a distant continent. After returning to Denver this past April, I’m beginning to fully process my Peace Corps experience as a unique combination of personal, professional, and cultural growth that expanded me as a person and led me down the path of ethical business as the means to positive world change. To this end, I believe my Peace Corps experience has been the single most influential and inspirational experience of my life. - Alexander Kent, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Gambia 2011-2013. 1 With no farm machinery in rural Gambian villages, this bull is being returned to its pen after a long day of pulling the plow. # 2 Peace Corps assigned me a family to live with so that I could integrate and be part of the village. The girl in the middle is my host sister Rohie and on the right is a friend of hers. At left is my host brother Malik who died suddenly one year after I arrived, from what I was told was yellow fever. To me this was a shocking experience of how real child mortality is in the third world. # 3 Remy, a fellow Peace Corps member, and his counterpart Alaghie plant cashew trees in a field. We consistently exhausted ourselves planting 30-40 a day. Shockingly, Alaghie keeps up with us; he has had no food or water in the 90 degree heat. In the holy month of Ramadan he fasts sun up till sun down for almost 30 days. # 4 At our demonstration apiary (bee farm) we inspect hives monthly to check for honey, wax, pests, and diseases in the hives. Here we decide to examine each comb in hopes of finding the queen. # 5 Our new bee suits sewn by a local tailor come out orange as it was the only fabric we can find in the market thick enough to keep out bee stingers. My counterpart Balla lights a piece of cardboard used in our smoker. Smoke is our primary method of calming bees. # 6 A coffee vendor sells me "Cafe Touba" a strange mix of Nescafe crystals, sugar, and spices (cinnamon and what else I'm not sure). This brew can be found throughout Senegal and in Gambia where Senegalese is frequently spoken. # 7 Attaya, the primary drug and pastime of Gambia. This super dark green tea is brewed in a small kettle over charcoal and foamed by repeatedly pouring it between glasses. Fortified with sugar and mint leaves this brew is the favorite way for Gambians to pass an afternoon. # 8 Some local dogs relax on the stairs during a hot day. # 9 In the city (Banjul), my friend Mataar (right) had a local gym welded for him from random metal rods. Paul (left) works on not losing muscle due to protein deficiency, a common problem in Gambia. # 10 Just outside the city, was the horrid Manjai dump. Mountains of trash, batteries, pills, needles and the smell of burning plastic and rotting things characterize this place. Sadder still, the poorest people of Gambia come here to sort through the waste with hopes of recovering scraps of metal, old shoes, or anything considered even remotely valuable. # 11 Broken, smoking, crowded and dangerous- this is one of only three ferries that cross the Gambia River into the capital of Banjul. Waiting three hours to cross was a normal waiting time and having your ferry break and drift out into the ocean for hours was common as well. # 12 My host sister and her friend stand in front of their open well. Peace Corps gives us a water filter and bleach, but sadly many drink and get sick from open wells such as this one. # 13 90 days after Ramadan ends, every family that can possibly afford a ram buys one and slaughters it in celebration; Gambian's called this celebration Tobaski. I helped hold down the ram my first year, but seriously considered renewing my vegetarianism afterward. # 14 A Gambian woman prepares a large pot of stew for a wedding ceremony. At great expense and honor, a cow was slaughtered for this event. Shortly after this picture was taken, a whole cow snout disappeared into the stew. # 15 The first rain in 9 months is a magical moment. With a dry season of 9 months and a wet season of 3, the first rain signals the start of farming season and a renewing of life in the Gambia. My friends Remy and John take this opportunity to cool off from 100 degree daily heat. # 16 My friend Remy and his counterpart Alaghie, a poor rural farmer. Alaghie owns one shirt: a Colorado Rockies jersey. I tried to explain to Alaghie that he was wearing the jersey of my hometown baseball team, but after trying to explain hitting a ball with a stick he replied, "Oh yes I think in other places they call it tennis." # 17 Two cashew farmers at the local market. The elder organizes the farmers in a community group called a "Kafo" where they attend trainings and plan ways to improve their farming on their own and through the NGO I worked with International Relief and Development. Our catch phrase in improving understanding of how to sell cashew was "Cashew is Business." # 18 At a beekeeping training, a Gambian stands in front of a hive. As confused bees try to reenter the hive, they instead land on the back of his suit.# 19 After beekeeping we train women how to process honey by cutting up the honey comb and placing it on a sheet of cloth over a bucket. The chopped honey comb will slowly drip honey through the cloth, purifying it of any wax or bee parts. # 20 Konteh finds Marisa's Ukulele and poses for a picture. # 21 Soccer is Gambia's favorite sport; this is a picture from a HIV/AIDS awareness tournament put on by a group of fellow volunteers. This was a very successful project as every game had a halftime presentation relating to AIDS awareness. Using soccer's popularity as a tool for education was a brilliant idea. # 22 Sunset on the Gambia river. # 23 Sometimes we didn't get back from beekeeping before dark. Here we harvest a local grass hive. With as little as a few thousand dollars a month, BEE Cause Gambia gives free trainings and empowers villagers to be in business for themselves, achieve their own life goals, and increase their own standard of living.