Category Archives: Corps & Coalitions

04.22.09
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Access to Outdoor Service and the Utah Conservation Corps

Today is Earth Day and Keep America Beautiful‘s “Great American Clean Up” takes place every year from March 1 Great American Cleanupthrough May 31, with partners like Service Nation and Volunteer Match.

“In 2008, an estimated 3 million volunteers and attendees donated more than 6.7 million hours in clean, beautify and improve more than 17,000 communities during more than 30,000 events in all 50 states and beyond.”

National service programs are working to engage members and volunteers of all abilities in service opportunities outdoors. For example, for the past three summers, the Utah Conservation Corps (UCC) Access to Service Inclusive Crew has conducted accessibility surveys and transition plans for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest and worked to design and construct an Continue reading →

04.22.09
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Peace Corps for the Over 50 Crowd

50+For people who were alive to hear President Kennedy’s call to serve in 1961, but couldn’t join Peace Corps back then — there’s still hope!

Peace Corps’s mini website for 50+ applicants offers resources and support especially for people whose main concerns about joining Peace Corps include staying in touch with the grandkids (not grandparents), and how it will affect their social security (not student loans).

The 50+ site includes a Frequently Asked Questions section with topics like health and financial matters. It also includes stories (including audio) of senior Volunteers.

Warning: if you are sentimental about service, the slideshows and voice overs might inspire tears.

While the average Peace Corps Volunteer is 27, the program has no upper age limit. In my mid-20s, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China alongside mid-career, retired, and even elderly U.S. citizens. Chinese students and faculty enjoyed inviting Continue reading →

04.21.09
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More Peace Corps Legislation Could Enable More to Serve Abroad

As the Serve America Act becomes law, it offers no support of Peace Corps. Legislation to increase the capacity of Peace Corps was introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this year.

A fish farming family

A fish farming family

In mid-February, Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) introduced H.R. 1066, the Peace Corps Expansion Act of 2009. The legislation calls for gradually increased funding for Peace Corps (up to $750 million in 2012), enabling more Volunteers to serve, and increasing the amount of the readjustment allowance Volunteers receive at the end of their service term.

13,011 Americans applied in 2008 to volunteer their service in the Peace Corps, a 16 percent increase over the 11,246 applications received in 2007. While applications to Peace Corps and other service corps are seeing record numbers, Peace Corps has funding for 400 fewer Volunteers this year (compared with 2008), and is reportedly offering one-year deferrals to candidates.

(In 1966, according to the Boston Globe, 15,000 Peace Corps Volunteers served in the field.)

According to the Boston Globe article about Peace Corps from this past weekend, former Peace Corps Country Director Mark Gearan said, “We spend more on the military marching bands. …This is 1 percent of 1 percent [of the federal budget]. There’s Continue reading →

04.16.09
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Young Professionals of the Indian Diaspora Contribute Skills and Time to India

picture-101The Indian service program that recruits people of Indian family background, from all around the world, has launched a program to offer shorter-term opportunities specifically for young professionals.

Indicorps invites young Indian professionals to commit their time and skills to India through the Young Professionals Initiative (YPI), a new sabbatical program that allows people to meaningfully bring their knowledge and talents to India.

YPI, still in pilot phase, offers new experts in a variety of fields the opportunity to participate in half-year, goal-oriented service projects that can have an enormous impact for good on Indian communities.

The program will run between July 1 and December 1, 2009.

Associates will take on these projects (see full project descriptions):

04.15.09
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The Return of Peace Corps Rwanda

Map of Rwanda32 Peace Corps Volunteers will be sworn-in today in Kigali, marking the return of the Peace Corps Rwanda program after a 15-year absence.

According to the Peace Corps, its presence in Rwanda ended 15 years ago when “the the civil unrest that resulted in the genocide” began. (Read more about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.)

The new group of Volunteers, who have been in pre-service training in Rwanda since January, will work on health and community development assignments, including collaborating with the Rwandan government and its U.S. government partners  to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Like the United States, every Peace Corps host country has its unique history and psychological scars from past Continue reading →