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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1967)
ELSEWHERE IN THE PEACE CORPS WORLD: NEW COUNTRIES AND NEW CHALLENGES Peace Corps growth took a dramatic upward spiral after the organization’s fifth birthday on March 1, 1966. In its sixth year of operations, the Peace Corps announced or implemented new programs for 13 nations and territories, including Micronesia and Polynesia reported on else where in this edition. Welcomed to the Peace Corps family of nations were: AFRICA CHAD — Once part of old French Equatorial Africa, this new* nation, carved largely out of desert, welcomed the Peace Corps in September when 33 Volunteers arrived to serve as English teachers and work in land reclamation in the swampy Lake Chad region and in a medical train ing program. The health program — aimed at retrain ing Chadian hospital personnel and ex panding a school health project — will probably require additional Volunteers late in 1967; it is presently contemplated that Volunteer candidates for this program will begin training in the fall. To man the program, the Peace Corps seeks reg istered nurses, sanitarians and liberal arts graduates, the latter to serve as public health educators. LESOTHO — Formerly the British col ony of Basutoland, Lesotho achieved its in dependence last October. Now it faces one of the most difficult development struggles on the African continent. Completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa (to which one-sixth of its 900,000 population have migrated to work as farm laborers and miners), the tiny 'mountainous nation has requested Peace Corps help in expanding its educational system and improving basic health serv ices and agricultural production. Of the 88 Volunteers requested, 50 will teach in -secondary schools and teacher training colleges. Others will work in rural development and public works such as clinics, village water supplies and anti erosion dams. A health group will staff baby clinics, work with mothers to improve their nu tritional and domestic skills and help dis tribute food supplies. A few Volunteers with agricultural backgrounds will work with credit and marketing cooperatives. The Volunteer skills required include mostly liberal arts graduates for the teach ing, rural development and health pro grams: two registered nurses and a trained health educator, and a Volunteer capable of teaching advanced agricultural science subjects. THE GAMBIA — Eighteen Volunteers, scheduled to arrive in October, will work in projects ranging from teaching in voca tional training schools and agricultural centers to establishing cattle marketing cooperatives. To meet the request, the Peace Corps needs Volunteers with at least summer experience in construction, repair of heavy diesel and farm equipment, carpentry and furniture-making. Other special skills required include a veterinary laboratory technician to train apprentice Gambian veterinarians, a Vol unteer to set up an electrical repair shop and to train electrical repairmen, and a Volunteer to supervise a rinderpest inocu lation campaign. Training begins this sum mer. MAURITANIA — With 13 Volunteers. Mauritania now has the smallest — and one of the newest — Peace Corps country program anywhere. But expansion is seen likely later this year. The new project, as currently planned, will concentrate on health problems and complement the Volunteers now working in the rural public works programs scat tered through the Saharan, Arabic-speak ing former French territory. The Volunteer health workers will staff AFRICA: Lesotho's chill mile-high uplands make gaily colored blankets necessary. maternal and baby clinics, and work gen erally in child welfare. Present plans arc for training to start in late summer or early fall. Manpower requirements: Volunteers with liberal arts backgrounds or some knowledge of health matters. UPPER VOLTA — The landlocked West African nation gels its first contingent of Volunteers later this year with the ar rival of 51 Volunteers trained to help ex pand established rural development and health programs in the former French territory. The Volunteers will be mainly liberal arts graduates, with some trained health personnel included. They will concentrate on three basic programs: well construction and agricultural extension; general rural development, and a public health education campaign that will improve diagnostic services and extend general hygiene and infant and maternal care services to vil lages near rural health centers. LIBYA — With its oil exports increas ing rapidly, Libya faces problems of mod ernizing a highly traditional society that must cope with material wealth derived from oil which has appeared in a few short years. The first croup of IK Volun teer teachers is providing English instruc tion in high schools throughout the nation. BOTSWANA — Faced with urgent manpower needs in all areas of national development, this new Republic last year requested Peace Corps Volunteers to as sist with educational and community de velopment programs. Three months after Botswana had exchanged its colonial iden tity of Bcchuanaland for the new role of independent nation — September 30, 1966 — 57 Volunteers were at work in the sparsely settled country. Volunteers are presently teaching in secondary schools and teacher training in stitutions, providing technical supervision for a major self-help public works program and helping to improve the management and production of cooperatives. -BLACK STAR ASIA: Students at Seoul in South Korea. ASIA CEYLON — After a three-year ab sence, Volunteers this year will resume work in this populous island nation off the southern coast of India, assisting Ceylon to attain self-sufficiency in food production. Peace Corps training for the program starts in August and will produce about 80 Volunteers scheduled to arrive abroad in November. Trainees will be recruited from among farmers, young persons with farming experience, liberal arts graduates and agricultural and home economics majors. The Volunteers will take part in a na tional effort to expand irrigation projects and bring more land under cultivation. They will aid Ceylonese farmers in im proving cropping methods, using better seed' and proper fertilization, and better feeding and management of livestock. Women Volunteers will help village women to improve their nutrition and health practices, particularly for children. Others will work in school-lunch and garden projects. SOUTH KOREA — Peace Corps Vol unteers — 93 of them — entered South Korea for the first time last fall and began teaching at high schools and technical, agricultural and fisheries schools through out the nation. This group will be in creased by an additional 236 Volunteers later this year. Training programs to begin this sum mer will prepare Volunteers — most of them liberal arts graduates — for assign ments in education and a pilot health project. About 175 will serve as English teachers in secondary schools; another 61 will establish an experimental health pro gram on Cheju Island off the southern coast. The latter group will staff local health sub-centers on the island, train Korean health personnel, compile health statistics for use in the long-range planning of health programs, and encourage residents to use the center facilities. The Volunteers also will promote home sanitation and rodent control programs, help set up village water supplies and work generally to sharpen community awareness of health problems. A similar program for mainland areas is expected to enter the training stage later in the fall. LATIN AMERICA: Bullock cart ploda peat presidential palace, Aaunclon, Paraguay. LATIN AMERICA PARAGUAY — The most recent South American nation to get Peace Corps help is a land where three-quarters of the people make their livelihood by farming and rais ing cattle. The first contingent of about 30 Volunteers arrived early this year to conduct agricultural extension and home demonstration projects and to develop further the activities of 4-H type clubs throughout the country. GUYANA — Volunteers first entered the former British Ciuiana a few months after it became independent in May 1966. More than 40 Volunteers work under the supervision of the Ministry of Works and Hydraulics in road-building, hydro electric, construction, irrigation and other development projects, and teach in second ary and technical training schools.
