Peace Corps

[close] A group for all of the Peace Corps Macedonia volunteers who are part of the Sci-Fi & Fantasy book club!

[close] This group examines literature relating to community capacity building and development. Members are encouraged to explore the role of the development worker and the different pieces and directions of the development process.

[close] Whether or not voracious readers in the states, many PCVs find themselves with plenty of time on their hands and end up making their way through an impressive number of books. Therefore, this group is a place for current Peace Corps Volunteers, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, or just PC-wannabes/fans to connect over common interests of reading & crazy/life-changing experiences abroad. Since its initiation on March 1, 1961, Peace Corps has served in 139 countries and all 200,000+ volunteers are welcome.

[close] “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” - Lilla Watson Peace Corps and International Development is problematic, and as a returned volunteer, I have been wanting for some time to critically re-examine my overseas experience, to think through its explicit and implicit power dynamics. How do issues of race, class, gender, colonialism, and geopolitics inform the "do-gooder" mentality of volunteer and paid international development work, and what does that mean for its impact on volunteers, host communities, and others? Change begins with learning, and that is why I wanted to start this group where we could read, discuss, and share centered on thought-provoking books that bring a more critical perspective to Peace Corps and ID organizations. One goal is to create a syllabus to be shared with future or returned Peace Corps Volunteers as well as others, something akin to Ibram X. Kendi's anti-racist syllabus for Ralph Northam. What would we imagine for Peace Corps and ID organizations if we incorporated a true grappling with our place in the world, this work, its dynamics, and discourses of improvement?