Peace Corps Community Resources: An interview with Erica Burman and Molly Mattessich of the National Peace Corps Association

Molly Mattessich

The New Service podcast from Idealist.org features the national group of Peace Corps alumni. Listen here.

As Peace Corps nears it’s 50th Anniversary in 2011, applications are on the rise, fewer Volunteer positions are getting funded, the Senate just confirmed a new agency director, and the number of Peace Corps  alumni is nearing 200,000.

Helping connect the dots among the agency’s fiscal needs, and Volunteers past, present, and future is the National Peace Corps Association—the independent organization of former Peace Corps Volunteers, known as Returned Peace Corps Volunteers or RPCVs.

The National Peace Corps Association offers the Peace Corps community tools and resources to stay informed and engaged, and advocates for Peace Corps funding and support.

Today’s guests are Erica Burman and Molly Mattessich of the National Peace Corps Association. Erica Burman is the Director of Communications at NPCA, and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in The Gambia in the late 80s. Molly Mattessich manages the Africa Rural Connect project at NPCA, as well as the Peace Corps Connect online social network. Molly served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali from 2002-2004.

I talked with Erica and Molly about NPCA’s initiatives like the More Peace Corps Campaign, Africa Rural Connect, the RPCV Mentoring Program, and Global Teachnet.

We also talked about the new online social network for the Peace Corps community Peace Corps Connected, the Peace Corps Polyglot blog, and World View magazine.

Finally, we discussed the new Peace Corps director — and departing NPCA board member — Aaron Williams, and how online communication tools are changing the Volunteer experience.

Africa Rural Connect Wants You to Collaborate, Share and Strengthen Ideas

A contest of ideas to change African lives — deadline to vote is tomorrow at noon EDT!

A new collaboration and idea aggregator site called Africa Rural Connect launched recently, with the mission of improving lives in sub-Saharan Africa by connecting rural farmers of sub-Saharan Africa, members of the African Diaspora, development practitioners, scholars, technology innovators, returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and anyone who cares about Africa.

Developed by the National Peace Corps Association — the independent group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers — the site offers anyone a platform for proposing ideas for Africa, and for endorsing and/or helping to develop the ideas that others have proposed. According to project director Molly Mattessich, the project was the brain child of returned Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Africa and developed energy and ideas to create sustainable change in their communities.

The contest

According to contest guidelines, people who care about rural poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and the importance of agricultural development can submit, rate, and comment on ideas, proposals and analyses, all of which will form action

Aaron Williams’s Peace Corps Director Confirmation Could Come Quickly

Update August 7th, 2009: RPCV Aaron Williams (Dominican Republic 67-70) has been confirmed to become the 18th Director of the Peace Corps.  The United States Senate unanimously confirmed his nomination today in one of its final actions before a five week recess. Read more.

This post is by Erica Burman of the National Peace Corps Association, and originally appeared on The Peace Corps Polyglot blog.

Aaron Williams at his confirmation hearing yesterday

It was an exciting afternoon on Capitol Hill as [Returned Peace Corps Volunteer] Aaron Williams (Dominican Republic 67-70), President Obama’s nominee to be the next Director of Peace Corps, went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  The meeting was chaired by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), who also served in the Dominican Republic.

Both Dodd and Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) expressed support for Williams.  Dodd said he is excited at the prospects of working with Williams, while Isakson added “I commend the President on your appointment.”  Dodd says he plans to speak with Senate leadership to see if the confirmation can be completed before Congress breaks next week for its August recess.

The hour-long hearing included a question and answer session in which Williams indicated he wants to engage in a listening tour to engage the Peace Corps community, a “very rich and diverse population.”

Williams noted he wants to look at every possible process Peace Corps is involved in, and conduct a wide-ranging

RPCVs: Find a Mentor, Be a Mentor

Recently-returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) can find focused readjustment support, networking help, and even career guidance through a mentoring program established by the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA).

Almost 30 NPCA affiliate groups have signed on to help facilitate the RPCV Mentoring Program which matches pairs of individuals, calling on RPCVs who’ve been back longer to actively engage one-on-one with recent returnees who are currently facing the many challenges of readjustment. NPCA member groups all around the world have been a source of support and assistance for returning Volunteers since the organization’s founding.

RPCVs who would like to mentor, or to become mentees, each fill out a compatibility questionnaire to determine common interests. Once matched, the mentorship lasts at least four months, where the pair is encouraged to meet up or chat over the phone three times or more.

Mentors receive an electronic toolkit, including a Career Resource Manual, list of Peace Corps’ medical, psychological, financial and administrative resources, relevant story-telling material from Country of Service Trainer’s Kit and much more.

Mentees receive tailored guidance about readjustment, career, education, and networking issues.

Learn more about the National Peace Corps Association, the RPCV Mentoring Program, and Peace Corps’s services for Former Volunteers. Connect with the larger Peace Corps community through the NPCA’s social networking site Connected Peace Corps.

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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

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

National Peace Corps Association Looking for Several New Interns

The independent organization of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, based in Washington, D.C., is recruiting several interns.

The National Peace Corps Association is seeking the following interns:

An advocacy intern, responsible for supporting and building the network of NPCA advocates, assisting with Capitol Hill advocacy actions, website editing and general advocacy campaigning, including and especially our More Peace Corps campaign.

An assistant to the president (intern) working closely with the president of NPCA to write and edit grant proposals, fundraising letters, and articles for publication, as well as help in the development of organizational projects.

A membership and group relations intern responsible for coordinating and communicating with member groups, identifying and highlighting best practices, marketing and program administration.

And finally a communications/social media intern to work closely with the Director of Communications to help write and edit pieces for the NPCA website, blog, e-newsletter and Worldview magazine, as well as to help manage the NPCA accounts on Web 2.0 sites including Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin, and Flickr.

The internships are unpaid, but the organization’s staff is enthusiastic, wise, and caring. Deadline to apply is April 15th.

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How to Talk about Your Service Term during a Hiring Process

A recently returning China Volunteer wants to know how to discuss her experiences during the job search. These are my two cents.

Talking about your experience in a service corps in the first year — or five — after completing your term, you may notice a wide range of responses among your listeners: anything from the dazed-over blank stare, to the nervous, fidgety “please change the subject now” glare.

To avoid either response while you are building your professional network or chatting in a job interview, prepare ahead of

Peace Corps Week

This week is Peace Corps Week!

This week, Feb. 23-March 3, is Peace Corps Week. A time to reflect on 48 years of international service by almost 200,000 U.S. Volunteers, and for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to speak about their experiences in the corps with schools and community groups across the United States.

Check out Peace Corps Week events going on in your region. Also find out how the National Peace Corps Association — the independent group of RPCVS — is celebrating. Read what the national service Resource Center has on tap for Peace Corps Week, too.

I’ll be in Boston tomorrow and Washington Friday, talking about service at the Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fairs. If you ask nicely, I’ll tell you all about my time in Peace Corps China. Also check out these Idealist podcast shows on Peace Corps: with Bonnie Thie, China Country Director; and Eileen Conoboy, former Director of the Office of University Programs.

For information about joining the Peace Corps, call 1-800-424-8580 (press 1) to speak to a local recruiter. To learn more about Peace Corps Week, call 1-800-424-8580 (press 2, then ext. 1961) or email pcweek [at] peacecorps.gov or visit the Peace Corps website.

Brookings calls for More Peace Corps

Coalition on international volunteering calls for support of the More Peace Corps petition.

The Building Bridges Coalition — a project of the Brookings Initiative on International Volunteering and Service —asks today that all U.S. citizens “who believe that Peace Corps is an important part of our outreach to the world” sign the petition urging President-Elect Barack Obama to double the number of Volunteers serving through Peace Corps, as well as to support Peace Corps in specific ways.

The petition will be presented to Obama in a little over a week. Sign it here.

According to National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) President Kevin Quigley:

More Peace Corps means having the resources to respond to the more than 20 countries  that have requested programs for which Peace Corps has insufficient funds. It also means having the resources to give the many highly qualified Americans who would like to serve overseas the chance to do so.

More Peace Corps does not mean a simple expansion of the numbers of Peace Corps volunteers, although that is part of it.

More Peace Corps may mean revising the Peace Corps model in ways to take better advantage of the significant technological and demographic changes that have occurred in the 46 years since Peace Corps was launched.

More Peace Corps will consider how to make Peace Corps so much more
effective at addressing the problems of poverty. This will probably require
significant innovation and some risk.

The Building Bridges Coalition works to double the number of volunteers serving internationally by 2010 and includes groups such as Idealist.org and the NPCA (the independent group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers).

One of the Coalition’s policy recommendations is to double the number of Peace Corps Volunteers, something President-Elect Obama also included in his pre-election stance on service. (Their other policy recommendations include the Global Service Fellowship and permanent authorization of Volunteers for Prosperity.)

To learn more, check out the More Peace Corps website, and read Ten Times the Peace Corps, a paper by Quigley and Brooking’s Lex Rieffel.

To sign the petition, go here!

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RPCVs to March in Inaugural Parade

The National Peace Corps Association, the independent group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, has been invited to march in the 2009 Inaugural Parade.

RPCVs — specifically members of NPCA — are asked to read the details of what marching will entail before submitting a formal request to march. Marchers will be selected by random lottery. (The NPCA’s Peace Corps Polyglot blog warns interested RPCVs that the flags weigh in at 5 pounds, the day will be long, and the weather may be bad.)

200 RPCVs will represent Peace Corps host countries with flags during the event.

See details here! Deadline to put your name in the mix is Dec. 15.

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On the Hill, RPCVs in, RPCVs out

The Peace Corps Polyglot—the blog of the National Peace Corps Association, the independent group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV)—announced last week that RPCV Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) was defeated Nov. 4.  Shays served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji (1968-70).

The blog post also follows the fate of other RPCVs up for election this fall.

Shays has been an active proponent of national service in the House and participated in the Service Nation Summit September 12th in New York. He co-founded the bi-partisan Congressional National Service Caucus in 2004.

On the topic of national service, from his Congressional web site:

I believe national service is one of the wisest and least costly investments our government can make. For example, AmeriCorps volunteers provided:

• 3.8 million CNCS program participants;
• 216 million hours of service;
• Recruiting and/or managing 1.8 million volunteers.
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, 72 percent of AmeriCorps members continue to volunteer in their communities after their term of service ends and 87 percent of former AmeriCorps members accept public service employment.

National service benefits both the recipient and the giver. Volunteers not only address an immediate need, they lead and teach through example, and through that example they learn the value of serving and helping others.

I still remember how I felt as a 14 year-old watching the 1960 Presidential election between Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John Kennedy. I felt energized listening to Senator Kennedy when he spoke of the Peace Corps and making the world a better and safer place. I wanted to be part of his vision. Years later, that dream was fulfilled when my wife Betsi and I served two years in the Peace Corps.

The same powerful emotion, the same sense of energy, eagerness and anticipation we felt in the sixties, is alive today.

Read the independent Peace Corps Online story about Shay’s loss.

Support for LGBT Peace Corps Volunteers and applicants

Group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers offers support to LGBT applicants, and help for Peace Corps recruiters, too.

Living two years in a developing country is rough — homesickness, language, culture, infrastructure, lack of creature comforts, etc. For people who are gay or lesbian, the experience can be even more challenging in cultures where same-sex relationships are hidden due to intolerance or fear of punishment.

So for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Peace Corps applicants, a lot of questions can arise that have tough answers. Questions like “Will I have to be celibate for two years?” or “How am I going to get myself back in the closet after working so hard to get out of it!?” And the mother of them all, “Can my partner and I serve together?”

In 1991 Mike Learned founded LGB RPCVs, one of many chapter groups affiliated with the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) — the support and advocacy organization for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs).

Most NPCA chapter groups are based on the U.S. region where RPCVs live now — for example Boston Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers— or else they are based on the country of service — for example Friends and RPCVs of Guyana.

LGB RPCVs is unique in that it unites returned Volunteers who served across the world, and who also now live across the globe. Its web site presents articles and Frequently Asked Questions for people considering Peace Corps service. The group also issues regular newsletters and features resources for Peace Corps staff to better understand policies that pertain to future Volunteers who are LGBT.

The Mentor Program — the groups’ “most successful outreach and recruitment project” — connects these future Volunteers with LGBT returned Volunteers in order to discuss life in Peace Corps.

Several years ago my friend Kate Kuykendall, then a Peace Corps recruiter, was interviewed for the LGB RPCV web site. In that interview she answers some of the questions posed above, and elaborates on the challenges of talking about the Peace Corps experience and sexual orientation with LGBT applicants.

Kate now works as a Peace Corps public affairs specialist for Peace Corps in Los Angeles and is a lesbian and a newlywed. I asked her if new state laws legalizing gay marriage affect the ability of gay couples to serve together in Peace Corps.

She said, “The recent changes to certain state marriage laws do not affect the Peace Corps’ policy of not placing [LGBT] couples together.  This is because, as a federal agency, the Peace Corps must abide by the federal definition of marriage, which is limited to the marriage between a man and woman.  The Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, is the law that prohibits any other interpretation of marriage.”

And for now at least unmarried couples cannot serve together in Peace Corps. Even siblings and other family members are turned down if they want a guarantee they’ll be posted to the same country, assignment, site, etc.

To find other groups of RPCVs, see the list on the National Peace Corps Association web site.

Building strong ties to local college career centers

Your service corps program and your Corps members can benefit from a good relationship with local college and university career services offices.

This afternoon I have the honor of working with directors of Oregon’s AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps*VISTA programs around the topic of career transitions for Corps members. One message I want to drive home is that developing ties to local career centers can help both with recruitment of new Corps members, and also helping current members with their next steps. Here are some ideas:

Getting Started: Invite career center staff from local colleges and universities for a brown bag lunch in your office to share resources and compare complementary needs. Some schools are part of a consortium that hold regular meetings; you could ask about presenting at one of these meetings. Some career centers have a counselor who focuses on public service; when you make your first call, you might ask for that person.

Be a presence (not just a flyer) on campus when it’s time to recruit: Staff tables at the school’s career fair, and let the career counselors know that you are available to speak at panel and round table discussions. Ask if there is a way to post your general and recruitment information on the career center’s website or resource library, or to staff a general information table on campus. (Idealist.org also organizes nonprofit career fairs hosted by career centers on college campuses throughout the United States.)

Be a resource on national service: Work with the career counselors to put together a panel on national service opportunities for college students. Help find current or former AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, and NCCC members, Jesuit Volunteers, Jewish Coalition for Service program participants, Peace Corps Volunteers, Teach For America, Public Allies, or City Year Corps members (seek people from a variety of service programs) to speak on a panel discussion, to help clarify college students’ options and understanding of the differences among the programs. Students may not understand how to apply to a program, or may be confused about the de-centralized application process for some programs. Be ready to offer guidance at least for your program!

Educate counselors about the benefits of national service: Let career counselors know that for some graduating or even gap-year students, doing a year of national service is a really good way to serve your community in a more concentrated, intense way than you may be able to through traditional, episodic volunteering. It’s also proven to be a  launching point for a public service career. Students looking for a year of work experience before going to graduate school will benefit from serving – often with a high level of autonomy, challenge, and responsibility – for an organization that doesn’t expect a long-term commitment. If they can think of the term-of-service as a fifth and/or sixth college year – during which the students serve the community, learn tuition-free, and may not have to pay student loans – the investment makes more sense. Not to mention the networking and the educational benefits!

Exchange career transitions support: As you develop relationships with career centers in your area, you might:
•    Ask if Corps members can attend resume and other workshops at the career center.
•    Arrange for college students to shadow Corps members for a day; establish a list of members who would be open to informational interviews and share it with career office contacts; invite college students on community service projects.
•    Offer for you and your Corps members to play the “employers” for mock interviews with college students – it is a great exercise for your members to be on the hiring side of an interview process.

Find more career resources for national service members on Encorps’s Beyond the Service Year and What’s Next, and on Idealist.org through the career center, career guides, and Term-of-Service page.

This blog post has been adapted from a section of the forthcoming Service Corps Companion to the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers, due out this coming spring from Idealist.org.