On July 10th, Megan Keil a regional volunteer who served in the Peace Corp (PC), addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua regarding the Peace Corps and Rotary International CoOp. She, herself, has been in the Peace Corp. She has a BS in Biology. She has just completed her term as Rotary President in Dover, NH.
Currently, the PC has 1300 plus volunteers and over 240,000 have served since inception. It started in 1961 under President Kennedy to promote world peace and friendship by promoting 3 goals: 1) to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women, 2) to help promoted a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served and 3) to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. Ages of volunteers range from 20-88. Currently they are in 51 countries being served. About half are in Africa. Volunteers work in different areas of need: Education, health, youth development, agriculture, community development, environment.
General a volunteer program is 2 years in length, but there are some special Peace Corp Response placements are 3-12 months. Usually, they are more technically focused.
Her experience was in Tanzania, on east coast of Africa, south of Kenya. She went with 60 other volunteers to an all-girls school. The first 3 months was spent learning Swahili with groups of 6. It was taught all day in a school format for first 3 months during which they lived with host families. At the start of her tour, she took the same us Pledge as President – to preserve, protect and defend the US Constitution. For the remainder of her tour, she lived on the school compound. She was happy to have had electricity (usually) and running water and a Western style toilet. She did not have a refrigerator nor oven and only had a one burner stove.
Classrooms had blackboards and desks, very few texts. British school system format, which has different Forms (levels). Form 1(elementary school) is taught in Swahili, Form 2 (middle school) and up is taught in English. Form 3,4 5 are high school and college level. She taught sciences in advanced form 4,5. She also taught gender equality courses.
She worked with an NGO to provide period kits for girls so that they can attend school during their menstrual period. While in Tanzania, she met Jane Goodall of chimp and ape research fame.
She recommends the PC for those interested and the application process is quite involved and lengthy. She recommens working on improving your sharable skills in advance. Many PC volunteers become Rotarians, as a continuing new avenue of public service. There is also an official recognition and collaboration between Rotary and the Peace Corps. There is no age limit to joining the PC. Some volunteers extend their stay beyond the usual 2 years.
A brief Q & A followed.