Poland RPCV Barbara Adam joined the Los Angeles Peace Corps staff last year as a college recruitment officer



Poland RPCV Barbara Adam joined the Los Angeles Peace Corps staff last year as a college recruitment officer

Still giving peace a chance

By Laura Sturza, The Leader

BURBANK -- As a high school student, Barbara Adams got her first taste of what it would be like to serve in the Peace Corps -- which turns 42 on Friday -- when a former volunteer made a presentation at her school.

After getting her degree in African history and film studies, she became a volunteer English teacher in Poland in 1991, following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"I got to witness a historical time period [of ] a country moving away from Communism to a free-market economy," the 33-year-old Burbank resident said.

She joined the Los Angeles Peace Corps staff last year as a college recruitment officer. The job has Adams giving presentations to students similar to the one that first inspired her commitment to the agency.

Adams and other former volunteers will deliver a message of cultural understanding, peace and tolerance at Los Angeles Islamic, Jewish and Catholic high schools on Friday, which is Peace Corps Day.

With the U.S. on the brink of war with Iraq, Peace Corps volunteers can be ambassadors who give a human dimension that can help change "false ideas overseas about the U.S.," Adams said.

Peace Corps volunteers assist developing countries to become self-sufficient in areas including agriculture, education, health care and information technology. City Manager Bud Ovrom was a volunteer in Guatemala when he was 23, and believes students should "walk away from education for a time" to broaden their horizons, he said.

"The Peace Corps was one of the all-time great experiences of my life," Ovrom said.

Adams' accomplishments in Poland include teaching English to about 35 students, and starting a drug-awareness program at the school.

One of her former students is Tomasz Mazur, 28, who went on to become a manager for a computer firm in Poland.

"English class with [a] native speaker teacher was [a] great opportunity to develop myself, and it had impact on my current career," Mazur wrote in an e-mail. "Barbara was just great ... she showed us that English is not only [a] set of rules and words [but] it's a culture, habits, views."

People interested in learning more about becoming a Peace Corps volunteer can call the Los Angeles recruiting office at (310) 235-7444.

When this story was posted in December 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia."

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December 10, 2004: This Week's Top Stories Dodd says Rumsfeld's answer was unacceptable 9 Dec RPCV Blake Willeford runs classic movie theatre 9 Dec RPCV says education is key to curbing AIDS 9 Dec RPCV Dannielle Tegeder opens exhibition 9 Dec Shalala 1st Woman In Touchdown Club 9 Dec "Today we have a new country" says Toledo 9 Dec DDN wins Investigative Reporting Award 8 Dec Celeste on Panel to study Colorado finances 8 Dec RPCV leads Rotary Club medical team to Togo 6 Dec Vasquez to speak at Hawaii, Wisconsin commencements 6 Dec Tom Murphy warns Pittsburgh on budget abyss 2 Dec Venezuela RPCV Martha Egan runs Pachamama imports 30 Nov more top stories...

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