Under Nation’s guidance, the women successfully sold their wares in area boutiques, an entrepreneurial effort that was featured in a Moroccan magazine. “To go from never having done any type of business to having their goods on the cover of the fanciest magazine in Morocco was an incredible confidence-building experience,” she says. “It was such a joy to feel like you were changing things, that you were doing something.”
Lea Nation served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Azilah in Morocco, where she taught local women how to turn their weaving talents into a profitable enterprise
Peace Corps
by Nancy Henderson
[Excerpt]
Lea Nation, 61, jumps up from the kitchen table in her Chattanooga, Tenn., home, and returns with a handful of brightly colored fabric place mats. She plucks one from the stack and smoothes it with her palm.
“The women in Morocco have incredible skills for weaving,” says Nation, who, as a Peace Corps volunteer, helped a cooperative of women in the town of Azilah market the place mats to tourists, starting in 2000. “They made $3 in profit for each one, which doesn’t sound like much, but these were women who had no way of making any money. Three dollars would buy them vegetables for a week.”
Nation is one of a growing number of boomer-age volunteers who are channeling a lifetime of experience into helping others through the Peace Corps. Many teach or provide medical care, while others share valuable business skills.
Like many who were inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1961 call to action—“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”—Nation considered joining the Peace Corps in the 1960s, but instead got married and ran a company that manufactured products for the sail-making industry.
In 2000, when her youngest son left for college, the then-divorced 53-year-old Nation sold her house and business and signed up for a stint in Zimbabwe, where for six months she helped women plant trees, before being evacuated because of political instability. She was then assigned to Azilah in Morocco, where she taught local women how to turn their weaving talents into a profitable enterprise.
A few months later, Nation launched another co-op, this time in the southern Moroccan town of Sidi Ifni. She points to a photo of herself, with seven other women, holding up a sheer, tie-dyed wrap in shades of chocolate, lime green and navy. “I knew nothing about making garments,” she says. “But when I saw this fabric, I said, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do something with that.’”
Under Nation’s guidance, the women successfully sold their wares in area boutiques, an entrepreneurial effort that was featured in a Moroccan magazine. “To go from never having done any type of business to having their goods on the cover of the fanciest magazine in Morocco was an incredible confidence-building experience,” she says. “It was such a joy to feel like you were changing things, that you were doing something.”
Nation feels her age provided an edge, partly because people of other cultures tend to revere the wisdom of elders, and partly because of her life experiences. “The (young volunteers) would be really thrown by some of the cultural things, whereas if you’ve lived 50 years, you adapt,” she says. “Your ability to fit into their society is far greater, I think, because you’ve had to fit into lots of situations throughout your life.”
