2006.04.04: April 4, 2006: Headlines: Fellows Programs: Peace Corps: Maryland boasts three Peace Corps Fellows/USA programs
Peace Corps Online:
State:
Maryland :
The Peace Corps and Maryland:
2006.04.04: April 4, 2006: Headlines: Fellows Programs: Peace Corps: Maryland boasts three Peace Corps Fellows/USA programs
Maryland boasts three Peace Corps Fellows/USA programs
Nowhere has the Fellows/USA programs made a more significant impact than in Baltimore, a metro area that benefits from having three programs. The Peace Corps Fellows/USA program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing nearly doubled participant numbers, from 23 in 2005 to 45 in 2006. Meanwhile, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Shriver Peacemaker program announced new programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education late last year. The University of Maryland's Baltimore campus is also a Fellows/USA partner, having launched its program in 2004.
Maryland boasts three Peace Corps Fellows/USA programs
Peace Corps' Fellows/USA Programs Expanding to Meet Needs of Local Communities
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 4, 2006 – Two years ago, Peace Corps volunteer Michael DeFranco honed his Spanish in Guatemala while teaching the local people about the environment and its importance. Today, a Peace Corps fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, DeFranco has put his Spanish skills and his Peace Corps experience to work back home as he participates in community outreach as part of the university's nursing program.
"My experience thus far in the Fellows/USA program has only fueled my desire to play my part in helping solve some of the world’s problems," said DeFranco, who currently works with Programa Salud and the International Rescue Committee at the Baltimore Resettlement Center to provide assistance to Somali refugee groups in the Baltimore area.
Peace Corps has seen continued growth and significant advances in its Fellows/USA programs since the program began in 1985. Begun in a partnership with Teachers College, Columbia University, the Fellows/USA program now assists hundreds of communities centered around programs at over 40 U.S. universities.
While the Fellows/USA program has recently expanded in the Carolinas, New York, and Colorado, nowhere has the Fellows/USA programs made a more significant impact than in Baltimore, a metro area that benefits from having three programs. The Peace Corps Fellows/USA program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing nearly doubled participant numbers, from 23 in 2005 to 45 in 2006. Meanwhile, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Shriver Peacemaker program announced new programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education late last year. The University of Maryland's Baltimore campus is also a Fellows/USA partner, having launched its program in 2004.
All three programs are representative of the opportunities available to Peace Corps volunteers upon their return from service abroad. Partnerships among universities, local communities and the Peace Corps provide communities with much-needed services, while furthering the education and experience of volunteers who have served in the field.
Additionally, the programs have found opportunities to assist the community together. Students from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County work in community centers run by the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, and students from all three programs are working side by side in the International Rescue Committee at the Baltimore Resettlement Center, where DeFranco is completing his fellowship work.
"After working with vulnerable populations abroad, the students come to the school well-equipped to work with vulnerable populations in their own backyard," said Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing program coordinator and faculty member Lori Edwards. In 16 years, the School of Nursing has graduated 229 returned Peace Corps volunteers from the baccalaureate program.
At the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, the newest programs — through a partnership with the Center for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education (STEM) — renew the Shriver Center's mission of preparing citizen leaders. Participants come from a range of backgrounds and bring their Peace Corps and varied experiences into the classroom while completing a one-year master’s of arts in teaching. Overall, over 80 returned Peace Corps volunteers have graduated from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County program since 1994.
An example of the work being done through the Shriver Center is Carrie Wilson's project. Formerly a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea and now a Shriver Peaceworker, Wilson is earning a master’s degree in economic policy analysis. Meanwhile, she also serves at Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore, focusing on projects supporting micro-enterprise development as a path out of poverty.
"We have Peaceworkers doing good works throughout the Baltimore region," said Joby Taylor, director of the Shriver Peaceworkers Program. "In my humble opinion, the program is without doubt the city's best unknown force for positive social change."
Although the University of Maryland-Baltimore has only been a Fellows/USA partner since 2004, it already has five fellows. Jennifer Will and Laurel Smith, two of the fellows, are currently also interning with the International Rescue Committee at the Baltimore Resettlement Center. Their projects include providing services to newly arrived refugees, including teaching clients how to cash checks and use public transportation; assisting clients with medical appointments, grocery shopping, and school; and providing cultural orientation training.
"Overseas, volunteers learn self-reliance, how to navigate systems, and how to communicate with people with whom they may have very little in common. These skills are essential in social work," said Lane Victorson, University of Maryland-Baltimore Fellows/USA program coordinator and alumnus of the Shriver Peaceworker Fellows program.
"Returned Peace Corps volunteers bring excellent cross-cultural communication and program planning skills from their prior experience. More importantly, they have been the strangers in a land where they could not understand the language, the culture or the systems. They use the coping skills they learned to help refugee families integrate," said Ann Flagg, International Rescue Committee Resource Developer.
Nationwide, there are currently 351 returned Peace Corps volunteers pursuing graduate degrees through Fellows/USA, a record high in the program's 20-year history. Since 2004, the Fellows/USA program has added 11 new campuses, each in a different state, to its roster. For information on these and other Fellows/USA programs, please visit the Fellows/USA section.
When this story was posted in March 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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; Fellows Programs
PCOL32366
15