A Call to Peace - Civic Enterprises

women who reported feeling unsafe as the number ofwomen in the Peace Corps rose dramatically from the1960s to the 2000s. Volunteer demographics changedfrom two-thirds male in the 1960s to two-thirds femaletoday. There was an increase in the number of femalePeace Corps Volunteers who report that safety was amajor concern for them (from 2 percent in the 1960s,gradually climbing to 6 percent in the 1980s, and to8 percent in the 2000s). Just 1 to 3 pecent of menthe across five decades report concerns about safetyand security.Nearly all RCPVs (98 percent) would recommend thePeace Corps to their child, grandchild, or close familymember. Although not expressly asked in the contextof safety, it could still be interpreted that if safety fearswere prevalent among RPCVs, they would have secondthoughts about sending their children, grandchildrenor close family members in harm’s way. And whenasked to describe in an open form question the “worstthing” about their Peace Corps experience, 15 percentidentified illness and getting sick, 9 percent said lack ofsupport or leadership from Peace Corps staff, 8 percentmentioned loneliness and isolation, and 6 percent saidmissing friends and family at home or not being able tocommunicate with friends and family. Safety concernswere not mentioned.Notwithstanding these encouraging findings aboutthe safety and security of Peace Corps assignments,vigorous efforts must be undertaken to reduce concernsaround safety and security as much as possible, andany percentage, however low, is cause for concernwhen lives are at risk or Volunteers are in harm’s way.Figure 20: Safety and SecurityUNFINISHED BUSINESSSargent Shriver’s report to the President in February1961 laid a clear foundation for the agency its foundersenvisioned; however, that vision was lost over thesubsequent years. It is our belief that the originalframework is even more relevant today and points theway forward for the agency’s next 50 years, if the PeaceCorps is to continue to grow and evolve to meet itsfull potential.According to the 1961 founding report, the Peace Corps’role was to “reinforce existing private and publicprograms of assistance and development,” as wellas, “to initiate new programs requiring Peace Corpsmanpower.” 12 “The resources, energy, and experienceof our non-governmental institutions, including collegesand universities, foundations, trade unions, businesses,civic groups and religious bodies must be tapped. Thismust be a cooperative venture of the whole Americanpeople.” 13When President Kennedy launched the Peace Corps in1961, he wondered if the skeptics’ prediction of failurewould be its fate. But by August 1962, when he sentoff some 600 Volunteers, the Peace Corps was widelyacclaimed as a success. The Volunteers had shownthey were up to the challenge. After the ceremony onthe South Lawn of the White House, he came back tothe Oval Office in high spirits with his then SpecialAssistant Harris Wofford, who was about to leave tobecome the Peace Corps special representative in Africaand director of the 300-strong Ethiopian program. ThePresident said: “The Peace Corps will be truly seriouswhen 100,000 Americans are serving abroad eachyear–-one million over a decade. Then, we will have amore informed U.S. foreign policy.”12 Shriver, S. (1961). Summary Report to the President on the Peace Corps. Office of the White House Press Secretary.13 Ibid.We recommend that Shriver’s original plan for thePeace Corps to send Volunteers through five channelsshould be reviewed and reconsidered, as one of theways Kennedy’s hope can be fulfilled. The original planforesaw the Peace Corps operating throughfive different channels:1. Through grants to international service programscarried out by private agencies: This would expandexisting voluntary programs and encourage otherprivate organizations to undertake projects as wellas promote variety and experimentation;2. Through agreements with colleges, universities, orother educational institutions: Already in 1960, 57universities had contracts with the InternationalA CALL TO PEACE SEPTEMBER 201125|