How Does the Peace Corps Help the World?
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Understanding the Peace Corps
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The Peace Corps is a United States government agency. It has sent American volunteers to almost 200 foreign countries throughout the world. In 1960, former President, John F. Kennedy promoted the idea of improving world peace through service in low income and developing countries. Since the Peace Corps was created, nearly 200,000 Americans have served as volunteers.
Peace Corps volunteers come in all sizes, races and creeds. When the Peace Corps began, most volunteers were recent college graduates. Now Peace Corps volunteers come from many age groups, including retirees and mid-career professionals. Today, the Peace Corps even accepts married couples for overseas assignments.
What the Peace Corps Does
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These volunteers help communities in developing countries plan and manage social service and community development projects in education, sanitation, agriculture, technology and many other vital areas. These projects help communities overcome challenges that affect the quality of life. Many Peace Corps projects help people in developing countries improve their life expectancy by helping them reduce health risks from poor nutrition, lack of prenatal care and preventable illnesses.
Often, the host country's government and major donors like the World Bank and the United Nations do not have sufficient funding to reach all the communities in need. Peace Corps projects are designed to be learning and training opportunities. These projects don't just give people a hand out. The ideal Peace Corps project helps a community use existing skills and learn new skills to expand its capacity to meet critical needs.
Peace Corps volunteers live in the communities that they serve. Therefore, they experience the same challenges that their assigned community does. They travel washed out roads or trek for several miles to get clean water. They may build a school from the ground up or they may be teaching English to community residents who are illiterate in their own native language. They might repair community latrines or provide gender sensitivity training or HIV awareness education. The Peace Corps and the volunteers work with every community to assess its needs, it resources and its priorities.
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Peace Corps Rewards
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Peace Corps volunteers give America a face that few people overseas know. The work of volunteers helps people develop different ideas about the American people and the United States.
The Peace Corps helps expand the potential for world peace because each successful volunteer leaves a good impression about Americans on many people. This results in countries and communities developing a more balanced view of an American government they have only seen represented on TV or other media.
The Peace Corps experience helps to create new leaders for America as well. Peace Corps volunteers return to the United States with superior leadership and management skills. The Peace Corps experience informs their lives and expands their understanding of international relations. Many previous volunteers pursue careers in public service and government. Former Peace Corps volunteers have served our nation in education, business, media, the arts, state and local governments, Congress and the State Department.
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Comments
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rolotamassy
Sep 15, 2009
Its true, Peace Corps helps in all these ways. I believe that Peace Corps' makes a global impact, one person at a time. In some cases, the impact doesn't pay off until years later. By reaching out to poor and isolated people throughout the world, Peace Corps volunteers are creating positive connections with people who rarely have contact with Americans. A volunteer can influence the way Americans are viewed for years and years after his/her service. Time after time, I have heard about how an American tourist was treated well in a foreign country because the people there have had prior contact with a Peace Corps volunteer.
