November 4, 2004: Headlines: COS - Jordan: Muslim Issues: Seattle Post Intelligencer: At a time when the United States is striving to fight growing anti-Americanism around the world, the Peace Corps is trying to expand its reach into other Muslim countries. Right now, Jordan remains its only outpost in the Middle East.
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November 4, 2004: Headlines: COS - Jordan: Muslim Issues: Seattle Post Intelligencer: At a time when the United States is striving to fight growing anti-Americanism around the world, the Peace Corps is trying to expand its reach into other Muslim countries. Right now, Jordan remains its only outpost in the Middle East.
At a time when the United States is striving to fight growing anti-Americanism around the world, the Peace Corps is trying to expand its reach into other Muslim countries. Right now, Jordan remains its only outpost in the Middle East.
At a time when the United States is striving to fight growing anti-Americanism around the world, the Peace Corps is trying to expand its reach into other Muslim countries. Right now, Jordan remains its only outpost in the Middle East.
Peace Corps expands in Muslim world
By APARNA H. KUMAR
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- When Jennifer Peterson joined the Peace Corps in 2000, she wanted to go to the Middle East. That left her with just one option - Jordan, where she spent two years teaching English to girls.
At a time when the United States is striving to fight growing anti-Americanism around the world, the Peace Corps is trying to expand its reach into other Muslim countries. Right now, Jordan remains its only outpost in the Middle East.
The reasons: Many countries in the region are wealthy and don't need assistance. Most Middle Eastern countries have not asked for volunteers, whether through pride or for political reasons. And then there are security concerns.
"If there ever was a time that we needed to advance the ideal of peace and friendship (and promote) an understanding of Americans, that time is now," Peace Corps director Gaddi Vasquez said recently.
By tradition, the Peace Corps will only go where it is invited.
So for now, its presence in the Muslim world is limited to North and West African countries and to Central Asian nations that were once part of the Soviet Union. In South Asia, Peace Corps volunteers serve in Bangladesh. In Eastern Europe they serve in Albania.
All told, some 20 percent of Peace Corps volunteers are serving in 18 predominantly Muslim countries, which the organization defines as having a population that is at least 40 percent Muslim. Currently, 39 volunteers are serving in Jordan
The Peace Corps has grown to its largest size in 28 years, with 7,533 volunteers working in 71 countries. Volunteers are given intensive language training and work in areas such as health, education, HIV/AIDS prevention, information technology, the environment, agriculture and youth development.
Still, demand for Peace Corps volunteers is at an all-time high, according to Vasquez. Twelve other predominantly Muslim countries - though none in the Mideast - are on a waiting list to become Peace Corps hosts: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Djibouti, Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Tajikistan, Comoros and Sierra Leone. Indonesia has also recently expressed an interest to host volunteers.
"These countries, I believe, want to better understand America, and volunteers want to better understand their host countries," Vasquez said.
Mohammad Nafer, a Jordanian who trained Peace Corps volunteers between 2001 and 2003, said the program helped Jordanians and Americans overcome not just cultural barriers, but political ones.
He wonders why the Peace Corps hasn't gone knocking on more doors in the region, especially in areas where international non-governmental organizations and the U.S. Agency for International Development are already active.
"As long as there is a service to be provided to the host country and the Peace Corps is providing it, I don't see why the average Syrian would say no," Nafer said.
Some of the reluctance may come from the American side. Despite its eagerness to expand, the Peace Corps' overriding concern must be the safety of its volunteers. Many of the countries where fundamentalism and anti-Americanism are most rampant are considered too dangerous.
"The Peace Corps has done more than any single element of American foreign policy in changing the way the world looks at the United States," said Robert Pastor, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia and the current vice president of international relations at American University in Washington.
But he cautioned that while expanding the Peace Corps "would help the United States tremendously, there are also dangers where terrorism confronts us."
The Peace Corps has been forced to constantly evaluate security conditions in its host countries, and at times, pull back its volunteers.
Volunteers returned to Morocco last May after the organization suspended its program there in April 2003 to wait out reverberations from the Iraq war - avoiding the country's worst-ever terrorist attack a month later.
Peterson, 26, could have hardly picked a more interesting time to serve in Jordan.
"It's an important program," Peterson, 26, said. "Jordan's not the poorest country in the world, but the opportunity to build relationships and overcome some people's misperceptions of Americans is greater than in other countries."
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When this story was posted in November 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before.
Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security. |
| Schwarzenegger praises PC at Convention Governor Schwarzenegger praised the Peace Corps at the Republican National Convention: "We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children." Schwarzenegger has previously acknowledged his debt to his father-in-law, Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver, for teaching him "the joy of public service" and Arnold is encouraging volunteerism by creating California Service Corps and tapping his wife, Maria Shriver, to lead it. Leave your comments and who can come up with the best Current Events Funny? |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
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Story Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Jordan; Muslim Issues
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