Discussion Activity
Purpose: To promote discussions within the Peace Corps community about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Download the Discussion Activity for Many Faces of Peace Corps Video
Many Faces of Peace Corps features personal stories and reflections of eight Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) who identify as members of under-represented populations in the Peace Corps community. The stories, gleaned from oral history interviews, shed light on challenges faced by Volunteers of color, low-income, and LGBTQIA+ Volunteers serving throughout the world. The RPCVs candidly discuss improvements needed in Peace Corps operations going forward while emphasizing numerous benefits of cross-cultural relationships among individuals and communities at home and abroad.
We urge members of the Peace Corps community, including National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) affiliate groups, to consider showing the 19-minute video as a prompt for discussion of issues relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion in Peace Corps and elsewhere.
Discussion questions can include:
- What did you learn from the video about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Peace Corps?
- Describe the feelings evoked by these stories.
- What issues do the RPCVs in the video raise related to:
- The recruitment of Black, Indigenous and People of Color and other under-represented Volunteers and staff?
- Training of all Volunteers?
- Volunteer pre-service, in-service, and post-service supports and benefits?
- Training of Peace Corps staff, in the U.S. and host countries?
- What suggestions for change do the RPCVs in the video make?
- What recommendations are included in the Peace Corps Connect to the Future report?
- What can our affiliate do to address these issues?
Contact
Questions about the discussion activity and video can be sent to:
Peace Corps Oral History: oralhistoryproject@peacecorpsconnect.org
Museum of the Peace Corps Experience: contactus@peacecorpsmuseum.org
Many Faces of Peace Corps is a project initiated by the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. The video – Many Faces of Peace Corps: 60th Anniversary – was released March 1, 2021 and produced by the RPCV Oral History Project in partnership with the Museum for the exhibition Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Volunteer Experience.
Entire interviews from the Many Faces of Peace Corps Project are in the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History collection of the University of Kentucky Nunn Center for Oral History.
Related Research: Jonathan Zimmerman on Black Volunteers in Africa
In the early 1990s, historian Jonathan Zimmerman conducted a series of research interviews with Black Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Africa between 1961 and 1971. The interviews formed the basis of his article, “Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961–1971,” published in the Journal of American History (Vol. 82, No. 3, December 1995).
Thirty-five of these interviews are archived in the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Zimmerman himself served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and his own oral history interview is archived in the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History collection of the University of Kentucky Nunn Center for Oral History.
Zimmerman’s research is an independent project and is not affiliated with OHAP or the Many Faces of Peace Corps video, but we are glad to highlight his important work here.