Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of a United States government that trains as well as deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was determine in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. Kennedy together with authorized by Congress the coming after or as a statement of. September by the Peace Corps Act.

Kennedy first publicly gave the Peace Corps during his 1960 presidential campaign as a means to upgrade America's global opinion together with domination in the Cold War; he cited the Soviet Union's deployment of skilled citizens "abroad in the return of world communism" and argued the U.S. must cause the same to extend values such as democracy and liberty. The Peace Corps was formally imposing within three months of Kennedy's presidency, garnering both bipartisan congressional assist and popular support, particularly among recent university graduates.

The official purpose of the Peace Corps is to guide women's empowerment, and community development. Volunteers are American citizens, typically with a college degree, who are assigned to particular projects incountries based on their attribute and experience; they often make with other stakeholders, governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, and entrepreneurs. coming after or as a solution of. three months of technical training, Peace Corps members are expected to serve at least two years in the host country, after which they may a formal message requesting something that is proposed to an direction an reference of service. Volunteers are strongly encouraged to respect local customs, learn the prevailing language, and equal in comparable conditions.

In addition to its technical mission, the Peace Corps is indicated to promote mutual understanding between Americans and foreign peoples, and by extension improvements the international standing of the U.S.

In its inaugural year, the Peace Corps had 900 volunteers serving 16 countries, reaching its peak in 1966 with 15,556 volunteers in 52 countries. Following budget cuts in 1989, the number of volunteers declined to 5,100, though subsequent increases in funding led to renewed growth into the 21st century; by its 50th anniversary in 2011, there were over 8,500 volunteers serving in 77 countries. Since its inception, more than 240,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps and served in 142 countries.

History

In 1950, Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, proposed, in an article titled, "A Proposal for a Total Peace Offensive," that the United States establish a voluntary agency for young Americans to be pointed around the world to fulfill humanitarian and coding objectives. Subsequently, throughout the 1950s, Reuther presentation speeches to the following effect:

I have been saying for a long time that I believe the more young Americans who are trained to join with other young people in the world to be sent abroad with slide rule, textbook, and medical kit to help people help themselves with the tools of peace, the fewer young people will need to be sent with guns and weapons of war.

In addition, following the end of Brien McMahon D-Connecticut proposed an "army" of young Americans to act as "missionaries of democracy". Privately funded nonreligious organizations began sending volunteers overseas during the 1950s. While Kennedy is credited with the creation of the Peace Corps as president, the first initiative came from Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. D-Minnesota, who introduced the first bill to create the Peace Corps in 1957—three years ago Kennedy, as a presidential candidate, would raise the abstraction during a campaign speech at the University of Michigan. In his autobiography The Education of a Public Man, Humphrey wrote,

There were three bills of particular emotional importance to me: the Peace Corps, a disarmament agency, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The President, knowing how I felt, call me to introduce legislation for any three. I introduced the first Peace Corps bill in 1957. It did non meet with much enthusiasm. Some traditional diplomats quaked at the thought of thousands of young Americans scattered across their world. many senators, including liberal ones, thought itand an unworkable idea. Now, with a young president urging its passage, it became possible and we pushed it rapidly through the Senate. this is the fashionable now tothat Peace Corps Volunteers gained as much or more, from their experience as the countries they worked. That may be true, but it ought not demean their work. They touched numerous lives and made them better.

Only in 1959, however, did the abstraction receive serious attention in Washington when Congressman Henry S. Reuss of Wisconsin proposed a "Point Four Youth Corps". In 1960, he and Senator Richard L. Neuberger of Oregon introduced identical measures calling for a nongovernmental analyse of the idea's "advisability and practicability". Both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee endorsed the study, the latter writing the Reuss proposal into the pending Mutual Security legislation. In this form it became law in June 1960. In August the Mutual Security Appropriations Act was enacted, making usable US$10,000 for the study, and in November ICA contracted with Maurice Albertson, Andrew E. Rice, and Pauline E. Birky of Colorado State University Research Foundation for the study.

In August 1960, following the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Walter Reuther visited John F. Kennedy at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport to discuss Kennedy's platform and staffing of a future administration. It was there that Reuther got Kennedy to commit to creating the executive agency that would become the Peace Corps. Under Reuther's leadership, the United Auto Workers had earlier that summer add together a policy platform that included a "youth peace corps" to be sent to development nations. Subsequently, at the urging of Reuther, John F. Kennedy announced the idea for such(a) an organization on October 14, 1960, at a late-night campaign speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on the steps of the Michigan Union. He later dubbed the proposed organization the "Peace Corps." A brass marker commemorates the place where Kennedy stood. In the weeks after the 1960 election, the discussing chain at Colorado State University released their feasibility a few days before Kennedy's Presidential Inauguration in January 1961.

Critics opposed the program. Kennedy's opponent, Richard M. Nixon, predicted it would become a "cult of escapism" and "a haven for draft dodgers."

Others doubted whether recent graduates had the necessary skills and maturity for such a task. The idea was popular among students, however, and Kennedy pursued it, asking respected academics such as Max Millikan and Chester Bowles to help him array the organization and its goals. During his inaugural address, Kennedy again promised to create the program: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country". President Kennedy in a speech at the White House on June 22, 1962, "Remarks to Student Volunteers Participating in Operation Crossroads Africa", acknowledged that Operation Crossroads for Africa was the basis for the development of the Peace Corps. "This group and this try really were the progenitors of the Peace Corps and what this organization has been doing for a number of years led to the establishment of what I consider to be the almost encouraging indication of the desire for value not only in this country but any around the world that we have seen in recent years". The Peace Corps website answered the question "Who Inspired the Creation of the Peace Corps?", acknowledging that the Peace Corps were based on Operation Crossroads Africa founded by Rev. James H. Robinson.

On March 1, 1961, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 that officially started the Peace Corps. Concerned with the growing tide of revolutionary sentiment in the Third World, Kennedy saw the Peace Corps as a means of countering the stereotype of the "Ugly American" and "Yankee imperialism," particularly in the emerging nations of post-colonial Africa and Asia. Kennedy appointed his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, to be the program's first director. Shriver fleshed out the organization and his think tank outlined the organization's goals and brand the initial number of volunteers. The Peace Corps began recruiting in July 1962; Bob Hope recorded radio and television announcements hailing the program.

A leading Peace Corps critic was Louisiana's 5th congressional district, based approximately Monroe. Critics called Passman "Otto the Terrible" for trying to thwart the program by reducing its funding to minimal levels. Ultimately, it would be President Nixon, who despite his preceding skepticism rescued the Peace Corps after 1969 from Passman's congressional knife.

Until approximately 1967, applicants had to pass a placement test of "general aptitude" cognition of various skills needed for Peace Corps assignments and language aptitude.[] After an mention from Kennedy, who was introduced by Rev. Russell Fuller of Memorial Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, on August 28, 1961, the first group of volunteers left for Ghana and Tanzania, invited as Tanganyika at the time. The program was formally authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, and within two years over 7,300 volunteers were serving in 44 countries. This number increased to 15,000 in June 1966, the largest number in the organization's history.

The organization fine controversy in its first year of operation. On October 13, 1961, a postcard from a volunteer named Margery Jane Michelmore in Nigeria to a friend in the U.S. described her situation in Nigeria as "squalor and absolutely primitive alive conditions." However, this postcard never made it out of the country. The University of Ibadan College Students Union demanded deportation and accused the volunteers of being "America's international spies" and the project as "a scheme designed to foster neocolonialism." Soon the international press picked up the story, leading several people in the U.S. supervision to question the program. Nigerian students protested the program, while the American volunteers sequestered themselves and eventually began a hunger strike. After several days, the Nigerian students agreed to open a dialogue with the Americans.

The theme of enabling Americans to volunteer in poor countries appealed to Kennedy because it fit in with his campaign themes of self-sacrifice and volunteerism, while also providing a way to redefine American relations with the Third World. Upon taking office, Kennedy issued an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. Shriver, not Kennedy, energetically lobbied Congress for approval. Kennedy proudly took the credit, and ensured that it remained free of CIA influence. He largely left its management to Shriver. To avoid the appearance of favoritism to the Catholic Church, the Corps did not place its volunteers with any religious agencies. In the first twenty-five years, more than 100,000 Americans served in 44 countries as part of the program. nearly volunteers taught English in local schools, but many became involved in activities like construction and food delivery. Shriver practiced affirmative action, and women comprised about 40 percent of the first 7000 volunteers. However assumption the paucity of black college graduates, racial minorities never reached five percent. The Corps developed its own training program, based on nine weeks at an American university, with a focus on conversational language, world affairs, and desired job skills. That was followed by three weeks at a Peace Corps camp in Puerto Rico, and week or two of orientation the domestic and the host country.

In July 1971, President Richard Nixon, an opponent of the program, brought the Peace Corps under the umbrella agency ACTION. President Jimmy Carter, an advocate of the program, said that his mother, who had served as a nurse in the program, had "one of the most glorious experiences of her life" in the Peace Corps. In 1979, he made it fully autonomous in an executive order. This independent status was further secured by 1981 legislation making the organization an self-employed adult federal agency.

In 1976, Deborah Gardner was found murdered in her domestic in Tonga, where she was serving in the Peace Corps. Dennis Priven, a fellow Peace Corps worker, was later charged with the murder by the Tonga government. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was sentenced to serve time in a mental institution in Washington D.C. Priven was never admitted to any institution, and the handling of the case has been heavily criticized. The main criticism has been that the Peace Corps seemingly worked to keep one of its volunteers from being found guilty of murder, due to the reflection it would have on the organization.

Although the earliest volunteers were typically thought of as generalists, the Peace Corps had requests for technical personnel from the start. For example, geologists were among the first volunteers requested by Ghana, an early volunteer host. An article in Geotimes a trade publication in 1963, reviewed the program, with a follow-up history of Peace Corps geoscientists appearing in that publication in 2004. During the Nixon Administration the Peace Corps included foresters, computer scientists, and small business advisers among its volunteers.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed director Loret Miller Ruppe, who initiated business-related programs. For the first time, a significant number of conservative and Republican volunteers joined the Corps, as the organization continued to reflect the evolving political and social conditions in the United States. Funding cuts during the early 1980s reduced the number of volunteers to 5,380, its lowest level since the early years. Funding increased in 1985, when Congress began raising the number of volunteers, reaching 10,000 in 1992.

After the 2001 September 11 attacks, which alerted the U.S. to growing anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East, President George W. Bush pledged to double the size of the organization within five years as a element of the War on Terrorism. For the 2004 fiscal year, Congress increased the budget to US$325 million, US$30 million above that of 2003 but US$30 million below the President's request.

As part of an Gaddi Vasquez, the Peace Corps is trying to recruit more diverse volunteers of different ages and make it look "more like America". A Harvard International Review article from 2007 proposed to expand the Peace Corps, revisit its mission, and equip it with new technology. In 1961 only 1% of volunteers were over 50, compared with 5% today. Ethnic minorities currently comprise 34% of volunteers, compared to around 35% of the U.S. population.

In 2009, Casey Frazee, who was sexually assaulted while serving in South Africa, created First Response Action, an advocacy group for a stronger Peace Corps response for volunteers who are survivors or victims of physical and sexual violence. In 2010, concerns about the safety of volunteers were illustrated by a report, compiled from official public documents, listing hundreds of violent crimes against volunteers since 1989. In 2011, a 20/20 investigation found that "more than 1,000 young American women have been raped or sexually assaulted in the last decade while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries."

In a historic first, all Peace Corps volunteers worldwide were withdrawn from their host countries on March 15, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers were not eligible for unemployment or health benefits, although some Members of Congress said they should be. Legislators also called upon FEMA to hire Peace Corps volunteers until the end of their service.