 |
|
World to Peace Corps: Skilled volunteers needed
Debate is brewing over how the agency can attract greater numbers of older, more experienced volunteers. One key target group: retiring baby boomers.
By Nicholas Benequista | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 25, 2008 edition
Page 1 of 2
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - If the Peace Corps wishes to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS, it needs to send expertise, not just youthful zeal. That was what Ethiopian officials politely told Peace Corps country director Peter Parr when he approached them last summer with a proposal to send a batch of volunteers to work on the pandemic.
"[HIV/AIDS] is serious business and requires serious people with commitment and capacity," says Meskele Lera, deputy director of the Ethiopian agency overseeing efforts to stop the spread of AIDS, who attended that first meeting with Mr. Parr.
Despite Parr's best efforts, however, about half of his volunteers are straight out of college and still need to be told not to arrive at the office in flip-flops.
But this may be changing. The Peace Corps is no longer just dispatching Americans abroad to teach English or help in the fields. It is tackling more complex issues, like HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation, which creates an impetus for the Peace Corps to professionalize. Now debate is brewing over how the agency can attract greater numbers of older, technically skilled volunteers.
Those skilled volunteers may come from the droves of retiring baby boomers.
The Peace Corps has already moved to welcome them, most recently under director Ronald Tschetter, who has tried to attract this demographic by making the medical screening less onerous, and by recruiting from both the AARP, and the retired teachers' association. The number of applications from people over 50 has risen by 60 percent since Mr. Tschetter began actively pursuing retirees in September, according to Joellen Duckett, a Peace Corps spokesperson.
"You can't replace that experience," Tschetter said in an interview in Addis Ababa. "The same kind of passion that these young people have, these people have … but they have 30 years of experience to bring along with it."
These steps may not go far enough, according to Kevin Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association for former volunteers. Mr. Quigley advocates more drastic reform to attract older volunteers: breaking with the tradition of sending volunteers to the field for 27 months.
Quigley says he would be delighted to serve the Peace Corps again in Thailand, but, like many others, he cannot afford two years away from work. He envisions changes that would allow older professionals to travel to the field intermittently over the course of several years, while the rest of the time providing guidance to local partners via e-mail, phone, and Skype. Quigley says he has growing support among lawmakers for a significant reform of the Peace Corps in time for the agency's 50th anniversary in 2011.
"We absolutely are at a historic moment for the Peace Corps," says Quigley.
That historic moment has come later for the Peace Corps than for some of its counterparts. Once identical agencies from Japan and Britain have since overhauled their operations and re-focused their attention on making measurable contributions to development.
Japan's overseas volunteer program was incorporated about a decade ago into its international aid agency after receiving criticism that the program was more helpful to its volunteers than to the beneficiary countries. Now Japanese volunteers work alongside paid Japanese professionals.
RSS feed
