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.