Welcome!

Welcome to our Peace Corps Blog!  The Peace Corps has been the positive influence throughout the world since May 1st 1961 by president John F. Kennedy and has expanded its role to 77 different countries.  There are thousands of volunteers in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.  Volunteers teach children and inform the communities about technology and business development. They also sponsor HIV/AIDS prevention.  The Peace Corps is made of volunteers, people just like you and me, who have a desire and drive to make a positive impact on some of the worlds most impoverished and devastated areas.  Peace Corps volunteers spend 27 months oversees providing support to those who need it the most.

The Peace Corps recent activities stretch throughout the globe.  Most volunteers are students and younger persons with a caring disposition.  The Peace Corps offers a wide range of benefits including insurance, travel and living expenses, and a payment upon completion of service.  Most volunteers are not in it for the money, however.  They just want to make a difference in the word, while they travel and experience the world.

The Peace Corps is a government agency.  Unlike other volunteer organizations, the Peace Corps does not charge a fee to join.  The Peace Corps provides valuable skills, education, and memories that will last a lifetime.  In the short term, the Peace Corps will provide "scholarships, reduced tuition, internships, and stipends through participating schools."  It is also a kind of career builder.  The Peace Corps can provide training "in a foreign language, technical skills, and cross-cultural understanding."  In short, the Peace Corps not only helps the struggling, it also helps the volunteers.

Thank you for visiting our Peace Corps blog.  To the left you'll find links to various sources of information about the Peace Corps, as well as news from the Peace Corps RSS feed.  To the right we have recent news articles relating to the Peace Corps.  Below you'll find Peace Corps You Tube Videos, a slideshow, a Peace Corps Map, and a video we made with the help of Xtranormal as fun way to deliver the FAQ from the Peace Corps website.

Interview with The Peace Corps of Chicago

Today I spoke with a receptionist from The Peace Corps of Chicago, by the name of Adam Pezeinski, who has hands on, field experience, when it comes to working for the Peace Corps. To my surprise the information he gave me was absolutely amazing. I pretended as if I was on his journey, imagining the wild quest, Peace Corps volunteer’s experience, as he explained his wonderful adventures as a volunteer.

Adam began volunteering at the Peace Corps from 2003 to 2009. One of his first assignments was when he volunteered in Vanuatu, a tiny nation of islands, in the South Pacific, between Australia and Fiji. He volunteered as a teacher, he taught children, Basic English, reading, and mathematics. Adam claims” I volunteered in the Peace Corps because I wanted to help people, travel, and learned new things about different cultures”. He also said his personal experience in the Peace Corps “was like taking a vacation on the discovery channel, but in real life”. He has seen the origins of bungee jumping, sailed across the Pacific Ocean, while eating freshly caught sushi! He really loved that! He has also climbed two volcanoes and brags about “only almost falling into one”!

According to Adam, two years customer service experience, a flexible time schedule, and three months training, is required in order to volunteer at this organization. Also educational, environmental, being able to go with the flow of things, willing to experience new things, and the ability to be open to being out of your comfort zone, is the key to becoming a successful Peace Corps volunteer.

The Peace Corps has three goals and they are, to help people in other countries improve their skills, teach people in other countries about Americans. Adam stated “because of Movies, Soap Operas, and TV shows, these people have the wrong impression of the people in the U.S, only because of how Americans are portrayed on television”. Last but not least, taking what they have learned from other cultures, and teaching it to Americans, once they have returned home, is one of the goals they are accomplishing on a daily basis.

Adam has helped a lot of people, while volunteering in the Peace Corps, and has met with people who have received help from the Peace Corps since the 1990s.  Adam claims, “They said that they were happy to have had the opportunity to receive assistance, and appreciate the skills they have learned!”  Adam told me stories about one of his own students, who wasn’t a good student, and wanted to play soccer instead of going to school.  That student took an American exam, and to his surprise he did very well. Adam said that at this moment he knew he made a difference in someone’s life, and this is one of the main reasons why he volunteered for The Peace Corps of Chicago.

The Peace Corps has three main goals they maintain in every mission, helping others, educating, and making a better world through friendship. This is what the world needs in order to fight poverty, world hunger, and other issues that will affect us all.