| The Peace Corps Essay, Research Paper
The Peace Corps
October 14, 1960 2:00 am at Michigan University ran into a serious realty
check. Presidential Candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the students
attending there with an impromptu speech challenging them to give two years of
their lives to help people in countries of the developing world. Inspired by the
speech, students form “Americans Committed to World Responsibility” and
organize a petition drive asking for the establishment of such a program; within
weeks, more than 1,000 Michigan students had signed it.
The Peace Corps was officially established on March 1, 1961. It all
started over one speech that changed the lives of many Americans (noted in
previous paragraph). The Peace corps was established because America
wanted to make a difference in other peoples lives that less fortunate than
themselves. Volunteers in the Peace corps visited places like: Afghanistan,
Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, China, El Salvador, Mongolia,
Morocco, Niger, etc. In these places they wanted to help the people in these
countries and areas by meeting their needs and to spread awareness of
Americans on the part of the peoples served; and to give a better understanding
of other peoples on the part of Americans.
These Americans visited over one hundred and thirty four countries. With
sixty one percent of the volunteers being female and thirty nine percent being
male. Ninety two percent of them were single and eight percent of them were
married. There was on average about14 percent minorities of Peace Corps
volunteers. The average person to volunteer was twenty nine years old; the
youngest were about twenty five years old. Volunteers over age fifty was seven
about percent (oldest volunteer is seventy nine). Education ranked from about
levels of eighty two percent have undergraduate degrees while thirteen percent
have graduate studies and degrees.
Here are a few quotes of taken from president speeches and a Volunteer
over the last couple of decades:
The 1970s
“The spirit of the Peace Corps springs from the
deepest wells in our culture, from the reasoned
and strongly felt impulses of our people to share
with their neighbors their caring and their
labor.”
– President Jimmy Carter
The 1980s
“Each one of us is responsible for building the
society we want. Peace Corps volunteers do that
with people-to-people exchanges, using their
energy, their spirit, and their creativity to
solve problems. This is the American way. Once we
see a need, we want to serve — even when the
neighbor we reach out to help is halfway around
the world.”
– President Ronald Reagan
The 1990s
“The Peace Corps is a remarkable tradition that
emphasizes that our country is about more than
power and wealth. It is also about the power of
our values and the power of a helping hand, the
ethic of service, and the understanding that we
have an obligation not only to our own people, to
people around the world to help them make the
most of their own lives.”
– President Bill Clinton
Here is a quote from a volunteer (also in 1990):
“My parents, who had served as Volunteers in
Kenya 25 years before I joined the Peace Corps,
had absolutely no idea how much influence they
had during their two years of service. They did
not consider themselves exceptional Volunteers;
they simply went to class, taught a variety of
subjects in the best way they knew how, and loved
the people they lived among. But returning with
me to their village so many years later, they
were struck by the undeniable realization that
they had indeed changed people’s lives.”
– Tara Elizabeth Beverwyk (Peace Corps
Volunteer, Malawi, 1995-98)
The effects are we have learned great amounts about many other
countries. We have stood on a foundation for over forty years that is still talked
about as being a movement of peace and love to this very day. We have seen
that we as a nation, as a people can survive in the most rigorous environments.
We were still able to spread knowledge, truth, and helping hands to these other
coutnries that really need are help.
I feel that the Peace Corps was a great organization to be started on
March 1, 1961. It gave people of America a relief from the war and way to
make America feel great about something that they had put together for the
betters of others for once. I state this as my conclusion without the vast
movement of the Peace Corps would we really know how great of an effect that it
would have on us.
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