"Small communities, everybody knows everybody's business," Mauldin-Curtis said. "Everybody has a history with each other. Sometimes even the best ideas can't move forward because they are deep-seated personal agendas. Just having a neutral, outside party to come in and take those good ideas that already exist right there - because they're neutral they're able to gently move things forward."
The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs offers the Peace Corps Fellows Program in Community Development
Fellows program associated with Western Illinois University requires mission first
Sunday, April 27, 2008
By RYAN ORI
OF THE JOURNAL STAR
The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs uses a different type of AmeriCorps volunteers: ones who already have done Peace Corps missions abroad.
Affiliated with Western Illinois University, the IIRA's goal is to improve rural areas by boosting economic development, technology, health care, housing, transportation and other aspects of life.
The IIRA helps accomplish that goal through a traditional AmeriCorps VISTA program, but it also offers the Peace Corps Fellows Program in Community Development.
Fellows are recruited to a master's program - economics, political science, geography, community health, tourism administration or MBA - upon completing a Peace Corps mission. They do two or three semesters of work in the classroom while serving a graduate assistantship that offers a tuition waiver and living stipend. Fellows then complete degree work by spending 11 months living and working in a rural town, receiving living expenses as AmeriCorps volunteers.
The fellows program currently has seven graduate students in the classroom and five in the field. Fellows in the field currently are working on projects in the northwestern Illinois towns of Lena and Morrison, in Fulton County and in southern Illinois. Another fellow is based in Macomb and is providing technical training to communities throughout the state.
Karen Mauldin-Curtis, a former fellow after she did a Peace Corps mission to the Dominican Republic in the 1990s, is manager of the fellows program.
"Small communities, everybody knows everybody's business," Mauldin-Curtis said. "Everybody has a history with each other. Sometimes even the best ideas can't move forward because they are deep-seated personal agendas. Just having a neutral, outside party to come in and take those good ideas that already exist right there - because they're neutral they're able to gently move things forward."
A rural community must provide a $22,500 sponsorship, which allows the IIRA to cover a fellow's living expenses, training and travel. Because they are students at WIU, fellows also receive health care.
Mauldin-Curtis said fellows are assigned to communities with a clear plan of how to implement changes.
Fellows typically help communities do tasks such as feasibility studies, grant writing, surveys, volunteer management, training, administration and technology upgrades.
"During the planning process, people get all excited," said Chris Merrett, director of the IIRA. "They can imagine a better downtown, better jobs or a better school system. But then within a week or two of those meetings ending, real life comes crashing back down on them. There's a 50-hour-a-week job, plus coaching Little League, caring for an elderly mother-in-law ...
"That momentum fades pretty quickly. The role of the Peace Corps fellow is to take that initial momentum and keep the community moving forward."
More than 90 students have completed the fellows program since it was created in 1994.
"Our hope," Mauldin-Curtis said, "is that when the fellow leaves at the end of 11 months, not only will they have been able to accomplish a number of projects while they were there, but that they have left the community better able to continue those projects."
For more information on the fellows program, log on to www.peacecorpsfellows-wiu.org or call (800) 526-9943.
Ryan Ori can be reached at 686-3264 or rori@pjstar.com.
