Stories from the field

Peace Corps is proud to highlight the service of older Americans and recognize their contribution in international development and cultural appreciation. Peace Corps celebrates the unique role of older Americans who serve as volunteers overseas. Older volunteers put their experience and expertise to work in a variety of assignments around the world. Currently, 423 volunteers, six percent of all serving as Peace Corps volunteers, are over the age of 50. Volunteers who are well into their eighties have served and continued to serve.

Dolores Johnson Bou-Eid, RN

Nepal
Health Education Volunteer
Hometown: Brandon, FL

After several short trips to the Caribbean as a health volunteer, Dolores Johnson, 66, decided to take early retirement and commit two years of her life to volunteering in the Peace Corps. " I love people, diversity, and cultures. I knew I wanted to help make a difference somewhere in the lives of people less fortunate. I decided to take early retirement while I was still in good health and join the Peace Corps family, helping to fulfill the Peace Corps mission, living and working in a developing country that is striving to provide sustainable healthcare to its people."

Dolores works as a instructor and clinical supervisor at a hospital for first and second year nursing students. Dolores also mentors her Nepalese counterparts at the hospital. Together, they develop new teaching strategies and organize curriculum activities. In addition to her teaching responsibilities at the hospital, Dolores works with the Matron of the Cancer Hospital in staff development and preparing procedure manuals.

Upon her arrival, Dolores found a need for the organization and repair of the college facilities. Because she arrived during the summer and classes were not in session, Dolores spent several weeks designing an organizational system for the classrooms and demonstration labs, as well as repairing and sanitizing the facilities. Her much-needed efforts were appreciated by the existing staff, and many of the college's departments sought her help and advice in preparing their own classrooms for the upcoming year.

Joan Michaels, RN

Nepal
Health Education Volunteer
Hometown: Bellevue, WA

A recruiting session for the newly formed Peace Corps at Carroll College in Helena, MT, in the 1960s first peaked Joan Michaels' interest in the Peace Corps. In 1989, Joan's daughter joined and volunteered in Sierra Leone. After a five week visit with her daughter in West Africa, Joan was once again interested in Peace Corps service. Finally, nearly forty years after first learning about the Peace Corps, Joan finds herself in Nepal as a Peace Corps health education volunteer. Joan works with a local non-governmental organization providing HIV/AIDS education and outreach.

As a hospital staff nurse in the United States, Joan had years of experience caring for HIV/AIDS patients. She witnessed the changes in treatment from the epidemics onset in the early 1980s and hopes her experience will make her just as effective in working with Nepalese counterparts on prevention of the disease.

At the age of 62, Joan has found that adjusting to the lifestyle changes has been relatively easy despite her limited command of the Nepalese language. "Being a senior has its advantages. The "best seat in the house" sort of treatment is the norm. The warmth and kindness and generosity of the Nepali people is amazing."

Eileen McCarthy

Turkey/Gabon
Health Education Volunteer
Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Eileen McCarthy had her first Peace Corps experience in 1965-1967 when she volunteered in Turkey. After returning from Turkey, she spent thirty-five years as a social worker in San Francisco before retiring and beginning her second tour in the Peace Corps in the African country of Gabon at the age of 66. Eileen works with local men and women providing them with health education. She also volunteers at a local hospital assisting in the women and children's clinic. She works to expand the health education services provided by the hospital.

As an experienced volunteer, serving decades after her first tour, Eileen finds she has a more balanced opinion of her service. She is able to maneuver the highs and lows experienced by many volunteers with the vantage point of a lifetime of experience. Eileen often shares her perspective with younger volunteers and mentors them. "I feel as if my current experience incorporates a lot of my previous one, perhaps as I relive it through my young colleagues. When I talk with them about it, I am struck by the universality of the experience. And I sure am glad I came for a second time around."

Donald Weaks

Togo
Small Business Development Volunteer
Hometown: Naples, FL

One month after completing training as a water and sanitation volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire, Don Weaks, 57, was evacuated from his post due to civil unrest in the country. Don was one of 28 volunteers from Cote d'Ivoire who opted to be reassigned to another country. In October 2002, Don was assigned to a another West African nation, Togo.

Don's experience as an architect and property developer made him eligible to become a small business development volunteer. Don works with a cooperative of farmers providing training in basic accounting and organizational skills. Don was also able to call upon his previous training in Cote d'Ivoire, and with the help of other volunteers, began a project to collect and dispose of trash and construct courtyard latrines for his community.

Don encourages older Americans to volunteer saying, "The experience has given me a new appreciation for volunteerism and what can be done to further the cultural exchange between people who volunteer and their host countries. Older volunteers have great deal to offer their host countries in terms of technical expertise, and they also have a great deal to offer to the younger volunteers regarding real life business experience."

Anna L. Martin

Liberia/Ukraine
Education Volunteer
Hometown: Oklahoma City, OK

Anna Martin celebrated her 50th birthday in Liberia, West Africa, where she worked as a education volunteer teaching classes in the Teacher's Extension School and acting as a consultant to guidance counselors at a local high school. Anna worked at the country curriculum center developing resource material for teachers and worked with contacts in the United States to have books shipped for distribution in village schools.

Twenty years later at the age of 72, Anna is on her second assignment for the Peace Corps. This time Anna is working as a TEFL teacher trainer at a university in Ukraine. In addition to teaching at the university, Anna also organizes a video night for students and serves as part of a team teaching civic education classes. Anna holds weekly teacher seminars attended by secondary school teachers, university faculty, and university students. With the help of a Ukrainian counterpart, Anna organized a "summer school" program for secondary school teachers funded with an SPA grant. At the end of the four-day program each teacher received a package of library materials, including materials on writing, civic education, and a copy of the Ukrainian Constitution in English.

Anna has also contributed to several resource books to be used as supplemental materials by university professors and secondary school teachers throughout Ukraine. The first, titled Getting America Wise through Writing, will be published this June. The book contains innovative exercises in the communicative approach to teaching English. The exercises were constructed from biographical sketches, American cultural components, and examples of writing Anna was asked to contribute.

John Zvosec

Ukraine
Environment Volunteer
Hometown: Washington, DC

After extending his service in the Ukraine twice, John Zvosec, 74, is now in his fourth year a Peace Corps volunteer. John works for the Department of Ecology in a small northwestern town in Ukraine. John's experience as a architect and city planner made him a valuable addition to the department. John was given an assignment to recommend restorations to the town square. Unfortunately, after presenting his findings, the city did not have the funds to complete the project. John took it upon himself to raise the money for the restoration. Through friends and family in the United States, John raised three times the projected cost of the renovations, allowing them to expand the scope of the work. The square was equipped with newly paved walks, realigned steps, new light fixtures, and benches. The walls were rebuilt, grass turf was replaced, and flowering trees were introduced.

John also works with many different non-governmental groups trying to obtain grants to improve their services. John worked with a local hospital, orphanage, and youth center to get grants to purchase things such as computers for a computer training center that provides computer technology and English courses, as well as legal and physiological aid to patients and campsites for the local youth group.

John serves on the Board of Directors of the Hurley Ministries. The group operates a soup kitchen, and a small medical and dental clinic for the underpriveledged. John recently finished a design for a 3,000 square meter medical clinic which will be entirely funded by private contributions from American foundations and individuals. The clinic will be equipped with state of the art medical technology, and serve as a comprehensive diagnostic and treatment center.

Eyda B. Bennett

Guatemala
Small Business Development-Youth Program Volunteer
Hometown: Wilkesboro, NC

Eyda Bennet, a 63 year old volunteer, recently reflected upon her experiences in a letter she wrote to Peace Corps Director Gaddi H.Vasquez.

"As a Peace Corps Volunteer, my primary duties consisted of working with my Host Country Agency and the Board of Directors of Empresarios Juveniles in Jalapa to help them implement the program of Fundamentos Empresariales and Compañías Juveniles in the public schools. To do so, I had the responsibility of locating local business people and teachers and training them on these programs to serve as local service advisors. During my service, over 1,000 children have been trained by the local service advisors who have become role models for the youth. These children have shared with their families the basic business principles these programs offer."

Cristina Bailey

Haiti
rural Health Education Volunteer
Hometown: Vernal, CA

Cristina Bailey is a 52-year old volunteer who was born in Argentina and immigrated to the US in the 1970s. She is a 1996 anthropology graduate of the University of Utah. Cristina, a rural health educator in a village in western Haiti, began her assignment as part of her pre-service training practicum. Working in a rural dispensary four days a week, she provides nutritional information to pregnant women and new mothers. In her spare time, Cristina organizes English language classes and clubs in six surrounding schools. Her goal is to build an HIV/AIDS education and training curriculum into the language classes, leveraging her role as a rural health educator.

Edith Sloan and Rel Davis

Bulgaria
Education Volunteer/Community Service Volunteer
Hometown: Okeechobee, FL

Bulgaria is a world away from South Florida where Edith Sloan, 61, and Rel Davis, 66, lived before joining the Peace Corps in June 2001. The couple now lives in a small agricultural town on the Thracian Plains in southeastern Bulgaria. It is a town where donkey carts outnumber automobiles, flocks of sheep wander down the cobblestone main street on the way to pasture and holidays are celebrated with traditional costumes, singing and dancing. Edith, a retired school administrator and teacher, and Rel, a former minister and journalist, came to Bulgaria hoping to make a difference in the world and willing to go wherever the Peace Corps needed them.

Joyce and Mervyn Alphonso

Guyana
Education/Community Health Volunteers
Hometown: Springboro, OH

Joyce and Mervyn Alphonso are a Guyanese American couple whose lives have recently come full-circle while serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in Guyana. As naturalized Americans, Mervyn and Joyce Alphonso appreciate both the benefits of American life and the need to reach out beyond our borders. They "consider it a tremendous honor as Guyanese Americans to be able to return to our native land as representatives of our adopted country."

Joyce, 57, and Mervyn, 61, live and volunteer in a northeastern city of Guyana. Formerly a banking professional, Mervyn is a life skills teacher and guidance counselor at a local secondary school. Having years of experience as a nursing professional, Joyce works as a community health educator in the Maternal and Child Health Clinic at the regional hospital.

More stories from the field