2006.04.12: April 12, 2006: Headlines: COS - Panama: Directors - Vasquez: Peace Corps: Director Vasquez signs agreement to expand science education program in Panama
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Panama:
Peace Corps Panama :
The Peace Corps in Panama:
2006.04.12: April 12, 2006: Headlines: COS - Panama: Directors - Vasquez: Peace Corps: Director Vasquez signs agreement to expand science education program in Panama
Director Vasquez signs agreement to expand science education program in Panama
Before signing the agreement, Director Vasquez met with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos. President Torrijos took the opportunity to express his gratitude for the work of Peace Corps volunteers. “Panama would like to accept more Peace Corps volunteers in all areas,” said President Torrijos. “The work that they do and the inter-cultural exchange they provide is impressive.”
Director Vasquez signs agreement to expand science education program in Panama
Peace Corps Director Visits Volunteers in Panama
Caption: President Bush and Panamanian President Martin Torrijos cross the Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal, November 7, 2005. President Bush met with Peace Corps Volunteers while on a visit to Panama in November, 2005. Photo: Jim Young/Reuters
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 12, 2006 – Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez explored the villages and rural areas of Panama to learn about the projects that are making a difference to the people, while meeting with volunteers and dignitaries during his tour of the country. Additionally, he signed an agreement that will expand the science education program.
Before signing the agreement, Director Vasquez met with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos. President Torrijos took the opportunity to express his gratitude for the work of Peace Corps volunteers.
“Panama would like to accept more Peace Corps volunteers in all areas,” said President Torrijos. “The work that they do and the inter-cultural exchange they provide is impressive.”
Director Vasquez also met with Education Minister Miguel Angel Cañizales and U.S. Ambassador to Panama William Alan Eaton. Director Vasquez and Education Minister Cañizales signed an agreement for a new Peace Corps program in Panama. Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education science program that will benefit students in the Central American country.
“The establishment of the GLOBE program represents a new era of opportunity for the Peace Corps to expand its collaboration with the government of Panama,” said Director Vasquez. “The 23-year history of Peace Corps in Panama is rich with success and achievement. With this new program, we usher in a new phase of Peace Corps’ work.”
While traveling through Panama, Director Vasquez met with numerous volunteers like Mike Chapuran of Bloomington, Ind., who is working on a community water project in the Cerro Iglesia, Comarca Ngobe-Bugle region. Chapuran has obtained grant money to complete the system and organized groups in the community to implement the project successfully. During his 18 months of service in Panama, Chapuran has been living in a house built by a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s.
In Ella Purú, Panama Este, Director Vasquez learned about the artisan goods of the Emberá people after traveling via cayuco to the site of Josh Rooke of Honeoye Falls, N.Y. Cayucos are a type of longboat or canoe used throughout Panama. During the visit, Director Vasquez learned that Rooke is working with his community to help coordinate an integrated development project to promote tourism for the village. At the same time, he is helping the local artisans improve their products and connect them to potential customers.
Currently, there are 122 Peace Corps volunteers serving in Panama. Volunteers are working in the areas of sustainable agriculture systems, community economic development, environmental health, community environment conservation and health and HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. Since the program’s inception in 1963, the Peace Corps has sent more than 1,500 volunteers to Panama. To learn more about Panama, please visit the Where Do Volunteers Go? section.
When this story was posted in April 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| The Peace Corps Library The Peace Corps Library is now available online with over 40,000 index entries in 500 categories. Looking for a Returned Volunteer? Check our RPCV Directory. New: Sign up to receive PCOL Magazine, our free Monthly Magazine by email. Like to keep up with Peace Corps news as it happens? Sign up to recieve a daily summary of Peace Corps stories from around the world. |
| PCOL readership increases 100% Monthly readership on "Peace Corps Online" has increased in the past twelve months to 350,000 visitors - over eleven thousand every day - a 100% increase since this time last year. Thanks again, RPCVs and Friends of the Peace Corps, for making PCOL your source of information for the Peace Corps community. And thanks for supporting the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come. |
| History of the Peace Corps PCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help. |
| PC announces new program in Cambodia Director Vasquez and Cambodia's Deputy Chief of Mission Meng Eang Nay announced a historic new partnership between the Peace Corps and the Kingdom of Cambodia that will bring volunteers to this Southeast Asian country for the first time. Under King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia has welcomed new partnerships with the U.S. government and other U.S. organizations. |
| Peace Corps suspends program in Bangladesh Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez announced the suspension of the Peace Corps program in Bangladesh on March 15. The safety and security of volunteers is the number one priority of the Peace Corps. Therefore, all Peace Corps volunteers serving in Bangladesh have safely left the country. More than 280 Peace Corps volunteers have served in Bangladesh since the program opened in November 1998. Latest: What other newspapers say. |
| Invitee re-assigned after inflammatory remarks The Peace Corps has pulled the invitation to Derek Volkart to join the Morocco Training Program and offered him a position in the Pacific instead after officials read an article in which he stated that his decision to join the Peace Corps was in "response to our current fascist government." RPCV Lew Nash says that "If Derek Volkart spoke his mind as freely in Morocco about the Moroccan monarchy it could cause major problems for himself and other Peace Corps volunteers." Latest: Volkart reverses stance, takes new assignment in Paraguay. |
| March 1, 1961: Keeping Kennedy's Promise On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency: "Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet 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. But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps--who works in a foreign land--will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace. " |
| Paid Vacations in the Third World? Retired diplomat Peter Rice has written a letter to the Wall Street Journal stating that Peace Corps "is really just a U.S. government program for paid vacations in the Third World." Director Vasquez has responded that "the small stipend volunteers receive during their two years of service is more than returned in the understanding fostered in communities throughout the world and here at home." What do RPCVs think? |
| RPCV admits to abuse while in Peace Corps Timothy Ronald Obert has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a minor in Costa Rica while serving there as a Peace Corps volunteer. "The Peace Corps has a zero tolerance policy for misconduct that violates the law or standards of conduct established by the Peace Corps," said Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez. Could inadequate screening have been partly to blame? Mr. Obert's resume, which he had submitted to the Peace Corps in support of his application to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, showed that he had repeatedly sought and obtained positions working with underprivileged children. Read what RPCVs have to say about this case. |
| Why blurring the lines puts PCVs in danger When the National Call to Service legislation was amended to include Peace Corps in December of 2002, this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. Read the story of how one volunteer spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia in Joanne Marie Roll's op-ed on why this legislation may put soldier/PCVs in the same kind of danger. Latest: Read the ongoing dialog on the subject. |
| Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000 strong 170,000 is a very special number for the RPCV community - it's the number of Volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps since 1961. It's also a number that is very special to us because March is the first month since our founding in January, 2001 that our readership has exceeded 170,000. And while we know that not everyone who comes to this site is an RPCV, they are all "Friends of the Peace Corps." Thanks everybody for making PCOL your source of news for the Returned Volunteer community. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Peace Corps
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Panama; Directors - Vasquez
PCOL32440
12