Laura Joseph is an Assistant Director in the Center for African Studies, and she gave a presentation on her experience and other OSU students’ experiences in the Peace Corps. I have now had the opportunity to hear about the Peace Corps from Laura on two occasions because she visited my International Affairs Scholars seminar class last year in person, and her presentation gave me inspiration to become more involved with UNICEF at Ohio State this year and international humanitarian aid work in the future. She served in the Peace Corps in West Africa in Benin, assisting with education. The Peace Corps has six areas that volunteers work on throughout the world; they are agriculture, youth in development, education, environment, health, and community economic development. Her experience and the experience of another OSU graduate in the education field during their time in the Peace Corps really interested me because I have always wanted to teach english to children abroad.
In 2019, OSU was ranked 6th in the nation for number of alumni accepted and serving in the Peace Corps, which is definitely a ranking that makes me very proud to be a buckeye. I would love to volunteer for the Peace Corps someday or volunteer for an organization like the Peace Corps once I get my nursing degree.
Pre-COVID, the countries that the Peace Corps served were located in central and south america, western, eastern, and southern africa, east asia, and some of eastern europe. Up until the outbreak, the Peace Corps consisted of living and working with a community overseas for two years, integrating into a host country culture where you learn a new language and work on projects ranging from education to business development. Something I found interesting, but also extremely sad, was the fact that for the first time ever, the Peace Corps had to force all of its volunteers to leave their post and go back home because of the pandemic. For some volunteers, the evacuation meant leaving adopted pets, surrogate families, friends and co-workers and not knowing if or when they would be able to return.
The Peace Corps relates to International Affairs in almost every way imaginable. It was founded by JFK as a way to bring the message of democracy and free markets to the world, especially to the Soviet Union and to China. The mission/fundamental experience of peace corps has not changed. The Peace Corps is still focused on promoting world peace and friendships with the mission and major strength being soft diplomacy and power of personal relationships. The goal of the Peace Corps is for americans to understand the rest of the world and for the rest of the world to understand americans.