Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Tilda Gouveia Leahy can be contacted at tgleahyapeakdorg
Country of Service: Senegal
Training Group: Forestry
Cities you served in: Marina Sylla
Arrival Year: 1982
Departure Year: 1984
Work Description:
Community Reforestation Project and Promotion of Improved Cookstoves
Other Countries you served in, Training Group Name Arrival Year, Departure Year, Work Description:
Trainer: Peace Corps Niger,Benin, Chad, Central African Republic, Uganda and Madagascar
Bring us up to date on your life after the peace corps:
Is Peace Corps ever really out of your life? It has affected my work, my family and my outlook on life.
I took longer than most to get actually leave Peace Corps. After completing my service as a rural forestry volunteer in 1984 I spent the next 12 years going back to Africa ; designing trainings, evaluating programs and in project management.
My kids grew up in Niger and later Central Asia where my former husband, also a RPCV from Senegal, served as the Peace Corps Director and I managed the USAID Global Training for Development Project. My son, Alex, now seventeen, has his sights set on Westpoint, where he hopes to encourage non-military intervention and mutual respect for other cultures. My daughter, Liz, hopes to be a nurse practitioner, first with Peace Corps, then with the diplomatic corps.
Committment to comunity self-help has pervaded my career, my community life and now my life as a graduate student at OSU in Adult Education and Training.
The credo I learned in Peace Corps: Help people help themselves. Encourage thoughtful change.
Beleive in oneself.
Value life, laughter and love.
And of course, the unofficial Peace Corps motto...BE FLEXIBLE.
Originally posted: January 15, 2005
