Talk:Peace Corps

Criticism

Should the peace corps rape scandal/murders be in a separate section?

Why? It's not all that significant from other criticisms with the exception the publicity is simply recent with respect to the ABC News report. However, a separate section could made to reference those lost in servering the Peace Corps. There is a list of names somewhere of all the volunteers that have died serving their country and I think that certainly has merit worth mentioning. --Eglue (talk) 17:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Out of Honduras, potentially Guatemala and El Salvadore

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16300070 --Hands8down7 (talk) 13:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Budget changes

They've had their budget cut recently fyi. http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=about.fastfacts--Eglue (talk) 20:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Crime

Crime is an issue in the Peace Corps. According to their last report in 2008 there were 1,500 incidents of crime over just 7,800 volunteers. Should there be a section on this?

http://multimedia.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/volsafety2008.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.102.211.222 (talk) 01:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

There should also be some coverage of recent safety issues for women -- http://abcnews.go.com/blotter/video/peace-corps-gang-rape-12613898&tab=9482931§ion=10268699&playlist=1299636 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/parents-slain-volunteer-peace-corps-error-led-murder/story?id=12607274&page=1

Added some information about a murder of a peace corps volunteer in the 1970's. Maybe I should expand that section to be about violence against women found in the peace corp, or crime in general? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.94.209.197 (talk) 00:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

All of this has been already addressed and cited. It doesn't need it's own section.--Eglue (talk) 20:30, 13 November 2011 (UTC) Discussions of 3 years ago should be removed no? --Eglue (talk) 06:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC) It's been covered! Why add more information here? Besides, this is the peace -corps-, it's not vacation. They're being sent into regions of the world that most people would never consider staying over night, much less working for two years, and they know this well in advance. Do we cite the murder rate of our enlisted troops on U.S. Army pages? Not really. Someone explain why insisting that this is relavant, other than it got in the news cycle in 2011? --Eglue (talk) 18:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Aptitude Test

The main article says that applicants in the early 1960s had to pass an aptitude test before they could join. What kind of an aptitude test was administered? 216.99.201.199 (talk) 19:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Peace Corps no longer in Bolivia

As of September 2008, Peace Corps no longer operates in Bolivia: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.wherepc.southAmerica.bolivia

Someone who knows how to edit maps: please change Bolivia's color in the map to reflect the suspension of peace corps in this country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.16.236.190 (talk) 22:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Peace Corps now in Ethiopia and Rwanda

I do not know how to update the map, but could we please change the color to reflect the change in Ethiopia and Rwanda status as an active country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jzs2003 (talk • contribs) 18:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Obama and Peace Corps

I was fixing some awkward wording when I noticed that the source for Obama's promise to double Peace Corps was from a blog article which called this proposal potentially "unconstitutional." I replaced this with a reference to the relevant campaign factsheet containing this promise. However, a quick Google indicates that this doubling has not yet happened, which might be worth a mention. Also, the claim that this was done to in order to give the newly unemployed a chance to get skills training seems slightly dubious (Peace Corps does NOT usually like to be seen as a "last ditch" alternative for when you can't find a job, even though it sometimes is, and I doubt the President would encourage this perception given his otherwise highfalutin' rhetoric on national service). Are there any sources for this or was it just a previous editor's assumption? Stuffisthings (talk) 03:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Cleaned up the section a bit more to make the narrative clearer, and added citations (particularly to support the quotes). I *think* I found the Harvard Review article referred to in the last paragraph, but it was published in 2007 not 2006. TBH I only scanned the first page and didn't read the entire thing to make sure it supports the summary so someone may want to review that. More importantly, I removed the quote from "Joseph Kennedy." From what I can find this quote is NOT in fact from the Senator, but from his 25-year-old son, who was serving as a volunteer in the Dominican Republic. [1] It's a nice quote, but I don't really see the need for the opinions of random PCVs (even if they are JFK's great-nephew) in this section, and I think explaining its tangential notability properly would just disrupt the flow of the article. If you disagree with this edit, please add the quote back in rather than reverting my changes, as I made several other important changes. The quote, as per the above article, was: "Obviously the American reputation has taken a hit in the last couple of years," he said. "The need for the Peace Corps couldn't be more urgent. The Peace Corps shows what is best in America, the generosity of spirit." Stuffisthings (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The Peace Corps is very competitive, I don't see how anyone would consider applying there as a last ditch alternative to finding a job. The edits look good though. --Eglue (talk) 20:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Peace Corps map

I think The USA should be a different colour on the map to indicate that it's the 'home country' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.221.201.125 (talk) 23:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Russia and Kazakhstan are colored as current, but neither is listed in the text of current countries. Which is correct?Kdammers (talk) 05:27, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

My mistake: they are colored as past.It's okeh.Kdammers (talk) 06:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Peace Corps name etymology

For most of the people in the world who do not have english as a first language the word "Corps" is rarely used and it can be confusing. I thought that "Corps" means "Corpse" like a dead body. Maybe a sentence should be added to explain the meaning of "Corps" with a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps Corps. Then people will not think that "Peace Corps" means anything about a "piece" of a "corpse". Especially since the Peace Corps exists in many countries where people do not speak english as their first language. --41.135.16.125 (talk) 16:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

That would be a good edit. --Eglue (talk) 18:03, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Corp derives from the Latin word corpus, meaning a body or a group. A corporation is derived from the same word, as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.87.104.62 (talk) 02:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

hunger?

I think something is missing from this sentence in the introduction: Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. I think I understand what is meant, but I'm not sure what was the original text. --Dia^ (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Origins

Reading this article you'd think the Peace Corps arose out of a vacuum, and was the idea of Kennedy and those involved with the feasibility study. There's no mention of the British organisation Voluntary Service Overseas, founded in 1958 (ie well before the Peace Corps), which was part of the inspiration behind the Corps. Not American editors' revisionism of their own history to emphasise their own exceptionalism, surely? (I've seen this before in other Wiki articles, where American events with their roots firmly in other countries and cultures (eg earlier versions of the Band Aid/Live Aid; 'We Are the World/Do They Think It's Christmas? articles for example) are presented as a whitewashed version where the impetus was all American, and American alone.) By the way, the VSO is now the largest independent (non-governmental) volunteer-sending organisation in the world. Let's have some balancce and a real account of the origins of the Corps. 81.156.175.154 (talk) 07:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Couple problems here...first, we assume Good Faith here. Making accusations and inflammatory remarks is not welcome, and not likely to persuade anyone. Secondly, the existence of a similar organization does not prove a link between them. My guess is there is one, but we can't just say that, you need to find reputable sources that indicate that. Instead of just lodging a complaint and hurling accusations, the more productive thing to do would be to find some sources, make your argument rationally.204.65.34.145 (talk) 13:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, most such omissions are made out of ignorance, not malice; the most helpful thing to do is simply fill in the missing info. Though reading Voluntary Service Overseas, it looks like it was started after the first proposals for a Peace Corps-like organization in 1951. Are you sure the VSO wasn't inspired by the discussions in the U.S.? It would be helpful to have a professional historian's perspective on this, if anyone can dig up some sources. -- Beland (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Updates to the Country Lists/Map

I think that the country lists and map should be updated to reflect latest information from peacecorps.gov: The Kazakhstan and Niger programs are suspended (the former most certainly permanently), and Mali is "temporarily suspended". Presumably these programs are listed as "suspended" rather than closed because of some budgeting procedures, as they have been shut down in the past half year or so.

Also: the "Eastern Caribbean" is an administrative unit within Peace Corps, but not a country. According to the |Peace Corps Wiki page, it actually covers six countries: Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Grenada and St. Vincent & the Grenadines.

If you make these adjustments, the total country count should equal 71. Tunisia is also scheduled to reopen the Peace Corps program there this year, so that might be worth adding in as well.Konchevnik81 (talk) 18:05, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistent dates/numbers

" The program began recruiting in July 1962." But elsewhere, 1961 is given as the year volunteers were first in-country. Also, the figures on numbers/percents of volunteers are not supported in the link (5% vs. 7% for over-50s at present; no information on 1961 over-50s -- given here as 1% -- is on the PC page linked to as a source.

Map Updated

I did some work to update the map and bring it in line with current country programs as of December, 2012, per the Peace Corps website.

I would like a recommendation to switch the map style to the world map template used, for example, in International Recognition of Kosovo article. The proposed revised map is a bit less detailed, but more clearly shows and labels small island states, a disproportionate number of which host or once hosted Peace Corps programs.

Simplified map | here. If there are no objections I would like to make the switch.Konchevnik81 (talk) 21:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC) I agree with changing to the new map! It looks much nicer! 128.252.159.17 (talk) 21:10, 12 March 2013 (UTC)