Peace Corps

There are billions of people in this world who are living in poverty and squalor. These nations many times don’t even have basic medical services for their people and they live with rampant disease. Almost all are in need of clean drinking water, agriculture help, and education. Therefore in 1960, president John F. Kennedy challenged students at the University of Michigan to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing nations. From that inspiration the modern Peace Corps was created and since its inception in 1961, more than 190,000 volunteers have served in more than 139 host countries helping to improve education, health, and environmental conditions.

The Peace Corps website at www.peacecorps.gov is an excellent reference for hundreds of stories of everyday Americans following this call to civic service around the world. The site gives you the ability to picture yourself abroad and what you can expect. Furthermore, the site shows you what you can offer to developing nations desperately in need of your help. It’s extremely instructive and strongly influences the reader to promote peace, friendship, and aid worldwide.

On April 10, 2008, Travis Axton, a regional recruiter from the San Francisco Regional Peace Corps Recruitment Office came to California State University, Chico to further explain the goals of the Peace Corps and his personal experiences within the organization. Travis spoke about his previous assignment in Zambia where he served from 2002 to 2004. He had been placed in a remote village where he was sent to set up neighborhood health committees and educate the people about diseases and how to prevent them.

Travis had to experience a new country where he knew neither the language nor the culture. Yet at the same time he had to develop trust and a partnership with the local people. Overall he said the experience was life changing and it gave him an overwhelming sense of pride to know he was there helping these people. He also spoke about how difficult it could be a times, but as he developed a bond with the local people, it overcame the difficulties and left him with the most enriching experience of his life.

Stories like Travis’s are the framework of John F. Kennedy’s dream for America and show our compassion and good will to developing nations around the world. The Peace Corps represent all that is good in American society and it allows ordinary citizens to give back to their nation and help developing countries in their pursuits of education, agriculture, and environmental conditions. This kind of exchange is the foundation of American society and is an amazing way to increase a positive reputation in a world that has gradually come to hate us.