"If there is ever to be peace in this world," says Jean Miller of Chicago, Illinois, "people have to learn to know people in other countries." Miller, fifty-six, isn't philosophizing; she's explaining what impelled her to spend two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, a tiny land-locked country encircled by South Africa.
More than 3,000 Americans leave each year for Peace Corps the world. Volunteers work in project areas where the host country has requested help, including farming, small business development, health care, education, urban development, and forestry. The work is hard, the living conditions are "basic", and the pay covers food and lodging and little else. Still, 90 percent of the returned volunteers say that they would do it again - including Miller, now a Peace Corps recruiter in Chicago.
The Peace Corps was born in the idealistic days of the early sixties, created by an executive order from President John Kennedy and authorized by Congress as a government agency. Its purpose is to "promote world peace and friendship" through volunteer service around the world. A major goal, ever relevant, is to increase mutual understanding between Americans and the peoples of other nations.
More than 122,000 volunteers have worked for the Peace Corps during its twenty-eight years of operation. At this moment, more than 6,300 are working on projects in sixty-six nations in the Americas, the eastern Caribbean, Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific. In September, a cadre of 65 volunteers will begin teaching English in Hungary, marking the first time Peace Corps volunteers have served in a central European country. (Hungary, like other countries in transition, puts a premium on fluency in English, since it is the international language of commerce and technology.)
The Reward Of A Life Time
With advances in technology and new developments in the world's demographics and economic structures, the demand for more highly skilled volunteers is increasing. Among many needs, countries asking for Peace Corps assistance particularly want math, science, and special education teacher; skilled tradespeople (carpenters, plumbers, masons, electrician); agricultural experts; and health professionals. Also needed are people to teach English and work on small business development.
One way the Peace Corps is meeting the need is by actively recruiting older citizens, whose expertise and maturity is respected by the people in the countries where they serve. Currently, citizens over fifty makeup about 10 percent of the volunteers. Jean Miller is typical of the middle-aged and older citizens who, with children grown and financial needs decreased, are signing up for what many call the adventure - and reward - of a lifetime.
When Miller applied to the Peace Corps, her journalism degree and years of experience in management and personnel mattered, but what caught the recruiter's eye was her experience on the family farm in Ohio. Expertise in raising animals and growing healthy crops is much sought after in most Peace Corps host countries. Miller was signed on in 1986 as an agricultural extension volunteer. (A Peace Corps environmental awareness program was started in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency after Miller's tenure.
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