PEACE CORPS

Report measures PCV tmpact
The Cornell Pem Report is the sto~
of 50 Peace Corps Volunteem and
what they accomplished—and didn’t
accomplish—in the Andes.
It is also a story of 15 villages and
what happened to them because of the
Peace Corps,
The r=earchers, who were well acquainted
with community life in the
Andes long before the Peace Corps
arrived, carefully measured every aspect
of Volunteer life over a period
of two years, 1962-64.
The Volunteem were under a social
science microscope from tbe time they
entered training for Peru 111 in the
summer of 1962 to the time they completed
sewice, and the communities
where they labored were assessed before,
during, and after their tours.
The result is a detailed and scholarly
329-page work titled “Measurement of
Peace Corps Program Impact in the
Peruvian Andes. ”
A major conclusion of the report
is that Peace Corps communities
developed at a rate almost three
tire= s f~t as communities without
Volunteem,
The revert finti that “the Peace
Corps pr;gram in tbe Peruvian Andes
did achieve a memurable impact upon
i~ target communities the Volunteers
fulfilled one of tbe three missions
defined for the Peace CoIps by tbe
Congress in establishing tbe organization,
by contributing to the development
of a critical country in the South
American re~on that is one key to the
future course of world history.”
The research project was contracted
by the Peace Corps to the Department
of Anthropology at Cornell University.
The anthropologists had long
been familiar with many of the Indian
villages in the Peruvian Andes through
their Corne!l Peru Proiect which began
I4 years ago. ‘
Dr. AlIan R. Holmberg, chairman
of the Department and one of tbe
three authors of the repofl, w% the
architect of the community development
proflam in VicOs, Pem (see
Page 10), which became famous
throughout btin America.
The contract representatives were
involved from the be~nting of the
Peace Corps project not only as o~
sewers but as staff advisers and consultant
to the Peace Corps country
staff and to Volunteers themselves.
Their “participant obsewation” involved
detailed research through interviewing,
personal obsewation, use of
questionnaires, and photography.
Holmberg and four other members of
the faculty and staff at Cornell were
assisted hy a large staff of Peruvians,
including many anthropology students,
who did extensive field investigation.
Frank Mantiewicz, Latin America
Regional Director, calls the report
a “landmark in community development
research.
“The 50 Volunteers
were among the
In the Andean village of Pisac, Molly Heit teaches children to embroider tapestries, using their own ideas for design.