Archive for the 'Peace Corps' Category
The Friends of Cameroon has designed a stunning, multilingual “pagne” (the six-meter length of African cloth) that incorporates the Peace Corps logo, the continent of Africa, and the names of all the countries where Peace Corps has ever been active in Africa. FOC is now taking orders for the cloth for imediate shipping.
Each piece is enough cloth for one woman’s outfit or 2 to 3 men’s jumpers. The cloth also makes a creative table cloth, window curtain, wall decoration, and more. The pagne project helps to fund development projects in Cameroon, including four HIV/AIDS education projects that FOC funded in 2006.
We arranged for another printing of the pagnes in Cameroon and have a limited number available. Since they sold out last time, do not delay to place an orders. Normally, the price is $38 plus $6 shipping per piece.
Ordering information
To order the cloth, which will ship immediately, send a check for the number of pieces you would like made out to “Friends of Cameroon.” Please send payment to:
FOC Pagne
13201 Stravinsky Drive
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Since the organization was established in 1987, the Friends of Cameroon has funded more than two dozen village-based development projects in Cameroon, valued at more than $30,000. Projects have been located throughout the provinces of Cameroon, and have included a foot bridge in Kumba in the South West, a safe for Maga Health Clinic in the Extreme North, a beekeeping project in Njinikom in the North West, and a school for the deaf in Yaounde. Projects typically are in the health, education, and community development sectors.
The most recent projects funded were four community-based development projects worth 1.589.670 CFA ($3,117) FCFA, were located in Makak in the Center, Mvangan in the South, Batouri in the East, and in Yagoua, Extreme North Provinces, and focused on HIV/AIDS education and outreach. The projects were selected for the various methods proposed to reach out to local communities and educate the populations about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and how to protect against the deadly disease. The proposals were submitted by local organizations working in concert with Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to the areas.
FOC projects have included:
FOC support of $621 to the Club des Jeunes Aveugles Rehabilites du Cameroon helped the group, made upof blind and vision-impaired persons, expand their poultry business in Yaounde with the purchase of a freezer for their store.
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In 2004, FOC funded the purchase of a cassava grinder for the Neyokoty Ariey Cooperative in the Acha Etemetek village. The grinder, purchased for $820, helped the village group to expand its business while making the grinding of cassava more easily availableto the local community.
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One of FOC’s earliest projects was the construction of a footbridge crossing the Kumba River, easing the travel of villagers to the main market in Kumba. FOC contributed $1000 towards the construction of the bridge.
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In the Eastern Province, FOC support of $1,000 helped to purchase a mixed gas and electric refrigerator for the health clinic in Sokamalam, shown with the health center chief Nguel Isiclure. The fridge is used to store vaccines and allow the clinic to reach more people. The project was guided by PCV Jennifer Goldman.
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FOC supported the “Modern Beekeeping Project” of the Boyui Young Farmer’s Club in the North West, which allowed them to purchase needed equipment to improve their hives (such as the one under the arrow) and expand their honey production and group income.
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FOC project requirements
In order to be eligible for FOC funding, the applicant must live in Cameroon, be Cameroonian and/or working in Cameroon with either a private, non-profit organization, a cooperative or registered non-profit, or a village-based organization for by villagers for a communal purpose. The majority of the members of the applicant organization or the majority of the beneficiaries must be Cameroon citizens. It is required that the applicant is planning to provide, in cash or in kind, a minimum of one-fourth of the total cost of materials and/or labor of the project(s) supported by FOC funds.
The Friends of Cameroon was established in the United States in 1987, and the group’s members include persons who worked and lived in Cameroon as Peace Corps Volunteers, staff of the U.S. Embassy, USAID, and missionaries. The primary function of the organization is to keep members informed about Cameroon, continue to link those who served there, and to support small, community development projects in the country.
Published Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
For most recent college graduates, living in over 100-degree temperatures with no air-conditioning, television or fast food in sight would not be a top choice, but Kate Donovan, 24, chose to do exactly that when she graduated from Boston College in 2006.
Donovan is one of the thousands of Peace Corps volunteers who have enlisted with the organization every year since its creation by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Donovan felt that “this was an experience that only came around once,” and that this was the best time in her life for it.
So, rather than returning to Sarasota, where she was born and raised along with her sisters, Patricia and Deirdre, and her brother, Sean, she packed her bags and flew, drove and rode to Mayo-Oulo, a small village in a northern province of Cameroon, Africa. Donovan has already completed 15 months of her commitment, and will return to Cameroon soon to finish her last year.
In her time in Mayo-Oulo, Donovan has been hard at work teaching elementary students about basic hygiene and high school students about the importance of HIV/AIDS prevention and testing, and doing prenatal consultations with expectant mothers.
In addition, she recently completed a project to build latrines at the local elementary school where previously there were 900 students and 12 teachers, but no bathroom facilities, save a garbage pile behind the school.
After returning to the village, Donovan will begin planning her next project: repairing three wells in low-income areas of the village and four in “the bush,” with construction beginning in February.
Without these wells, villagers have had to walk three kilometers each way to get to the nearest water source. Donovan hopes that the repairs will allow the wells to provide water during the dry season, which usually lasts from December to March. In the last year, Donovan has become a teacher, a nurse and a civil engineer
But she said she was most excited to return to the United States to begin her next chapter as a law student and fiancée to Brian Pennington, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis.
By Mark Wineka
Salisbury (NC) Post
12/26/07
To reach the extreme north region of Cameroon, where Salisbury’s Ryan Lesley works as a Peace Corps volunteer, count on almost a five-day trip.
It takes two days of air travel, one day on a train, a 10-hour bus trip, then catching a ride on a market (flatbed) truck for several more hours to his village of Hina.
Lesley, 24, lives daily without running water or electricity and depends on a pit latrine for a bathroom. He takes bucket baths to stay clean, and his meals consist of Hina staples such as fried bean paste and onions, native sauces and grilled meats.
The next nearest Peace Corps member is 52 kilometers away.
For transportation, Lesley relies on his feet, a mountain bike, motorcycle taxis or a market truck. He stays in a two-room, concrete-block house, different from most of the mud huts with thatched roofs that dominate the rest of Hina, a village of about 5,000 people.
For entertainment, Lesley goes to the home of a friend with a generator and joins others in watching Champions League soccer on television.
At night, the friend also shows videotaped movies. Lesley thinks he has seen every Kung Fu movie ever made.
Lesley has adapted to a “solar schedule,” waking at sunrise as the prayer call sounds for the mosque at the end of his street.
Concentrating on agri-forestry, he has followed three other Peace Corps coordinators before him in serving as an extension agent — a stretch, when you consider his background as a history graduate from Wake Forest University.
But it fits with Lesley, who studied a semester in Nepal; is an experienced summer landscaper, backpacker and Eagle Scout; and has always had an interest in the outdoors and other cultures.
In Cameroon, Lesley has worked with nurserymen in propping up their businesses and helping with orchards, alley cropping and wood lot plantings. He’s all about creating something that will be sustained long after he closes out the Peace Corps program in Hina next year.
Since his arrival in Hina, some 5,000 trees have been planted — a way to fight desertification, or the advancement of the Sahara. He often works with a close friend and nurseryman, Djoulde.
In addition, Lesley’s “very open job description” has him teaching and tutoring English. (Fufulde is the predominant language of the Grand North, and French is favored second.)
Lesley also participated with other Peace Corps volunteers in this northern region in a 125-kilometer bike tour through six villages to raise AIDS awareness.
The tutoring and a separate needs assessment he completed for Hina has led Lesley to create a special Peace Corps project aimed at putting more text books in the high school.
Typically, he says, the students have one book per 100 students. Lesley has written a proposal, which is on the Peace Corps Web site, that is trying to raise $4,251 toward a text book library and scholarships for three girls to continue their high school education.
His goal is to provide the high school with 300 additional textbooks, so there are at least 10 books per class. Each student would pay a small fee to use the textbook library, and those fees would be reinvested to buy more school materials.
In his teaching, Lesley also has discovered that girls are vastly underrepresented in the Hina high school. Of 800 students, only 50 to 60 were girls, Lesley says. For financial reasons or because a girl may have to get married, few women complete high school or even reach that level.
On another front, Lesley is writing a new proposal to build bore wells to provide drinking water for three different communities. About 4,000 people would benefit from the three wells. The communities have to raise about $400, and a non-government organization would provide the rest of the funding.
Lesley also is trying to raise funds for Abdoulaye, a 21-year-old graduate of the high school who has just finished his first semester at university.
“The community is outstanding,” Lesley says of Hina. “They’re so supportive, nice and caring. They accepted me so quickly, and they love the Peace Corps and everything we’re doing.”
It’s not that Lesley hasn’t faced challenges, however.
He lost 30 pounds while trying to cope with the diet changes and sickness. Over the first seven months, he dealt with six staph infections, although he feels fortunate that he hasn’t suffered the intestinal problems often common with other Peace Corps volunteers.
Lesley has done his best to ward against malaria and typhoid fever, which are common in a place where the temperature can reach 140 degrees and the rainy season swells rivers and makes any significant travel almost impossible.
Lesley says the people in Hina have such a different perspective on life than Americans, and that’s not necessarily bad. “Your job isn’t everything,” he says.
And while the people in this Third World region may seem impoverished by U.S. standards, they are generally happy and care deeply for one another, Lesley reports.
“The sense of community is something I’ve learned a lot about,” he adds.
Several months ago, a friend told him to quit wasting his money on food for dinner and eat instead with him and his wife. The wife prepares food much better than he did, Lesley acknowledges.
Lesley, son of Debbie Lesley of Salisbury and Jason Lesley of Georgetown, S.C., recently returned to Salisbury for the first time since leaving for Cameroon some 15 months go. He’ll head back in early January, and will be closing out the Peace Corps commitment to Hina next fall.
Lesley says he realizes that Peace Corps volunteers arrive in far-off places such as Hina and have “visions of grandeur,” believing they are going to be a force for great change.
But the reality is they enter places such as Hina with many challenges — rainy seasons, incredible temperature swings, lack of water, diseases, limited educational resources, meager medical facilities, no electricity and more.
And you learn quickly, Lesley says, that you make progress and create something sustainable in small increments. That’s OK with him, and the new friendships alone are an incredible bonus.
“There’s not many times in your life you can drop everything and take two years to do something like this,” Lesley says.
If you want to contribute to Lesley’s Peace Corps project for the textbook library and high school scholarships for three women, go to www.peacecorps.gov. A link on the left side of the Web page will say “Donate Now.” It will link you to the various volunteer projects. Go to the African link and scroll down to Cameroon, “R. Lesley of NC.” Donations are tax-deductible. The ADK teachers’ sorority in Rowan also has adopted Lesley’s projects.
http://www.PeaceCorpsWiki.com is now up and running. Peace Corps Wiki is a collaborative project whose goal is to create a free, interactive and up-to-date source of information about serving as a volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps. Anyone is welcome to edit, add, or change any entry, or start a new one. The beginning entries and original outline of Peace Corps Wiki were copied directly from the official Peace Corps website. Also, the Welcome Books for each country were turned into a wiki as the starting point for each country. (Both the Peace Corps website and Welcome Books are in public domain in the United States and outside of copyright, as they are the work of the United States Federal Government.)
Tschetter Unveils Bust of Former President John F. Kennedy at U.S. Embassy Event
Ed. note: The Friends of Cameroon made a donation towards the creation of the JFK bust. During his speech, Ambassador Marquardt acknowledged FOC and its contribution (the entire speech is further below):
“The Peace Corps initiative, and the hope it represented for mutual understanding and peace across cultures and nations, obviously captured my heart and my imagination — as well as that of many others. As a returned volunteer, I am in elite company – since 1961, almost 190,000 fellow Americans have also served as volunteers in some 140 countries around the world. Of these, over 2,900 have served in Cameroon during the past 45 years, forming the core of an interest group – the so-called “Friends of Cameroon” – who continue to work hard to advance the bilateral relationship. This group joined our corporate sponsors to help finance this bust.”
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON - June 21, 2007 - Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter today unveiled a bust of former President John F. Kennedy at a U.S. Embassy ceremony held to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of the Peace Corps in Cameroon. Since 1962, over 3,100 Peace Corps Volunteers have served here promoting peace, friendship and a better understanding of America.
The outdoor ceremony, hosted by U.S. Ambassador Niels Marquardt, was attended by over 100 people ranging from currently serving Peace Corps Volunteers to high ranking Cameroonian government officials, many of whom were taught by Peace Corps Volunteers.
In his remarks, Tschetter quoted former President Kennedy’s famous speech, “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
Tschetter continued, “As I have traveled around Cameroon, I have seen countless examples of our Volunteers and the people of Cameroon working together, and that’s what the Peace Corps is all about. Whether it is in education, agro-forestry, small enterprise development, or community health, our work can not be effective without a ‘working together’ relationship. And these bonds of trust, understanding and caring will absolutely contribute to the freedom of man President Kennedy talked about at his inauguration 46 years ago.”
U.S. Ambassador Marquardt, who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda in the late 1970’s, said in his opening remarks, “With Director Tschetter’s visit and today’s ceremony, we also commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ uninterrupted presence in Cameroon. This record of continuous, unbroken presence since the very first Volunteers arrived in Cameroon, in September 1962, is matched in only two other countries on earth.” He further stated that the Peace Corps, “has done more than any other American initiative to promote peace, mutual understanding, mutual respect, and social development around the world, and perhaps most especially in Africa.”
Today’s ceremony marks the end of Director Tschetter’s five day visit to Cameroon; he is the first Peace Corps Director to visit Cameroon in 26 years. While here he met with the 39 new Peace Corps Volunteer-trainees in Bangangte, where he also stayed one evening with a local Cameroonian family. Additionally, he visited many of the 99 currently serving Volunteers throughout the country, traveling as far as the West Province of Bafoussam and the North Province of Garoua. He also met with Peace Corps staff, various high ranking Cameroonian government officials and local leaders to thank them for their long standing support of the Peace Corps.
Since 1961, more than 187,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have helped promote a better understanding between Americans and the people of the 139 countries where Volunteers have served. During its 45 year history, over 3,150 Volunteers have served in Cameroon. Peace Corps Volunteers must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. Peace Corps service is a 27-month commitment.
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Remarks by Ambassador R. Niels Marquardt
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Bronze Bust Unveiling
Visit of Peace Corps Director Ronald A. Tschetter
On the U.S. Embassy Grounds
Thursday, June 21, 2007, 9:00 – 10:00
Your Excellency Minister of State, Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter and Mrs. Nancy Tschetter, Your Excellencies Ministers, the Government Delegate of Yaounde, Your Excellencies Ambassadors, Peace Corps staff and volunteers, colleagues, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you all for joining us here at the U.S. Embassy in Yaounde on this historic occasion, the unveiling of a bronze bust of late President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I would like to express my deep appreciation for the presence of such a distinguished delegation from the Government of Cameroon, led by His Excellency Minister of State Bello Bouba. You honor us greatly with your presence here today.
This event started as a suggestion from former Cameroon Peace Corps Country Director Robert Strauss. In our first meeting, in 2004, he pointed out that Yaounde’s best-known street, Avenue Kennedy, would be a wonderful location for some sort of memorial to President John F. Kennedy, or JFK as he is affectionately known, in his role as founder of the Peace Corps.
Both Robert and I are returned Peace Corps volunteers from the late 1970s – he in Liberia and I in Rwanda — and the idea really resonated with us both. Although two years passed, the idea remained alive. The challenge was to find the right artist, to raise the necessary funds, and to see what the municipal government thought.
Early this year, everything came together. My friend the Ambassador of the Order of Malta, who is here today, introduced me to a fine Bamoun sculptor named Abdou Tapon, who is also here and who agreed to take on the project. We started a fundraising drive that eventually bore fruit, as major American companies in Cameroon, among others, contributed to the effort. We then went to Avenue Kennedy with the Mayor of Yaounde, Government Delegate Gilbert Tsimi Evouna, and his staff. They liked the idea and informed me that it fit into their ongoing rehabilitation plans for Avenue Kennedy, as part of the urban renewal of Yaounde, which are currently underway.
I would like to say thank you to Government Delegate Tsimi Evouna for his support, and I’m sure we will have the occasion in a few moments to applaud the artist for his work.
And I would also like to thank our many corporate donors for making this project possible. It is among several major projects to be completed over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of the official American presence in Cameroon, which began in 1957.
Of course, the other element driving this ceremony is the visit of Peace Corps Director Ronald A. Tschetter. Ron Tschetter is another returned volunteer, having served in India in the late 1960s. Of the 17 Directors Peace Corps has had since Sargeant Shriver, JFK’s borther-in-law, launched the agency in 1961, Ron Tschetter is only the third to have served previously as a volunteer, but he is the first and the only one to have done so with his wife, who was also a volunteer. Mrs. Nancy Tschetter is with us here today. I am delighted that Director and Mrs. Tschetter both accepted my invitation to visit Cameroon before we leave next month. Adding to the historic aspect of this ceremony is the fact that this is the first visit to Cameroon of a Director of the Peace Corps in over 20 years. Again, welcome to both of you, and to your staff, including Africa Regional Director Henry McKoy, who is back for a third visit.
It is the presence of Director and Mrs. Tschetter in Yaounde today that set the date for this ceremony. Another ceremony will follow by the end of the year, to take place on Avenue Kennedy itself, once the site is ready to receive its permanent new resident.
With Director Tschetter’s visit and today’s ceremony, we also commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ uninterrupted presence in Cameroon. This record of continuous, unbroken presence since the very first volunteers arrived in Cameroon, in September 1962 is matched in only two other countries on earth. This fact makes the Cameroon Peace Corps program very special indeed.
These anecdotes explain the evolution of this project and of the ceremony today, but they do not adequately explain why such a monument is important or necessary. I speak now very much as a product of my age, as a member of the generation that first began to acquire its social and political consciousness during JFK’s presidency. My first political memories are all of events bearing JFK’s name and signature, some good and some bad: the election campaign of 1960, including the first televised presidential debates in American history; the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which increased the frequency of the so-called “duck-and-cover” drills performed in schools across America at that time and which were highly emblematic of the grave dangers of the Cold War; the early beginnings of our fateful involvement in Vietnam; the solemn challenge of being the first country to reach the moon; and the President’s famous call to service in his inaugural address. Few words have had a more lasting impact than JFK exhorting an entire nation to “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your country.”
Just six weeks after his inauguration, in an effort to give concrete reality to his famous call to action, President Kennedy announced on March 1, 1961, a bold new initiative: the creation of what he chose to call the Peace Corps. He was not the first to propose such a service – others in the House and the Senate had introduced legislation doing just that – but it was his leadership and his commitment that saw this idea through to realization. That the Peace Corps has stood the test of time, that it has prospered in both Republican and Democratic administrations, that it is now well into its fifth decade despite enormous geopolitical changes along the way, all bear testimony to the broad and bipartisan support this institution enjoys among virtually all Americans.
Still, Americans and foreigners alike will always associate the Peace Corps with JFK, and vice versa … and for just cause: there would have been no Peace Corps without John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The Peace Corps initiative, and the hope it represented for mutual understanding and peace across cultures and nations, obviously captured my heart and my imagination — as well as that of many others. As a returned volunteer, I am in elite company – since 1961, almost 190,000 fellow Americans have also served as volunteers in some 140 countries around the world. Of these, over 2,900 have served in Cameroon during the past 45 years, forming the core of an interest group – the so-called “Friends of Cameroon” – who continue to work hard to advance the bilateral relationship. This group joined our corporate sponsors to help finance this bust.
In my three years in Cameroon, I have often heard testimony and seen evidence of the profound impact of these 3,000 Peace Corps volunteers. It is as if these 3,000 people managed to touch the lives of every single Cameroonian! I say this because the Cameroonian who does not have a personal story to tell about the impact of the Peace Corps on his or her life is indeed the exception.
But the reverse is also true, and even more so: Cameroon and its people have had a profound impact on all volunteers who served here. Through the volunteers’ personal experience of service Cameroon has become a household name to their families, their friends, and to America. Here let me invoke the memory of the recently deceased economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who served as JFK’s very distinguished Ambassador to India. I recall reading in his memoirs the account of his meeting with Prime Minister Nehru at which Ambassador Galbraith first proposed a Peace Corps program in India. Nehru was receptive, obviously, as volunteers like Ron and Nancy Tschetter can attest. But, in response to Galbraith’s assertion that volunteers could contribute to changing India, Nehru said wryly that he hoped we would not be too disappointed if instead it was the volunteers themselves who would emerge changed from the experience. I think he was right on the mark on that one.
I want to say that this very much has been the case here in Cameroon, and that the benefits of the Peace Corps definitely flow back to the United States and to our people. For that I would like to say thank you, Mr. Minister of State. I also want to thank you and all Cameroonians for the warm welcome your wonderful country has always given our volunteers, and for all they have learned during their service here.
Before closing, I should also highlight the very special relationship that President Kennedy enjoyed with Africa. He served in the United States Senate as Africa came of age in the late 50s. In that role, he was one of the first American political leaders to recognize the significance of the emerging free nations of Africa. JFK had the courage to be the first American Senator to stand up for independence for Algeria. He welcomed the entire Continent’s march toward independence and the end of the colonial era as both inevitable and desirable. He insisted on the creation of an Africa Sub-Committee in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and served as its first Chairman. He welcomed countless African leaders to Washington, and he chided the State Department into vastly increasing its presence – our presence – in Africa. It was indeed under pressure from Senator Kennedy that we opened our first consulate in Yaounde on July 5, 1957, exactly fifty years ago in two weeks. And, in his famous public launch of the Peace Corps idea in an impromptu speech at 2 a.m. on October 14, 1960 before an enthusiastic throng of 10,000 University of Michigan students, Senator Kennedy challenged our nation to abandon the comforts of America …. to serve in Ghana. Less than one year later, Ghana became the first country on earth to welcome a Peace Corps program.
In my opinion, the idea he launched on that fateful day has done more than any other American initiative to promote peace, mutual understanding, mutual respect, and social and economic development around the world, and perhaps most especially in Africa. So we stand here today in Yaounde, Cameroon, just a few short weeks after President Kennedy’s 90th birthday, to honor this leader and his bold vision with a fitting monument that will serve as a lasting reminder of his lasting contributions. Thank you again for presence here today, and for your attention.
I would now like to invite to the podium Mr. Peter Briger, President of Hydromine Inc. Hydromine was one of several firms which contributed importantly to this project, along with AES-SONEL, COTCO, and others which will be duly recognized at our July 4 celebration. Again, we are most grateful to all contributors for their collective generosity. But the particular reason for inviting Mr. Briger to speak is that he began his long career as a member of the Kennedy administration. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Peter Briger….
Thank you, Mr. Briger. It is now my pleasure to invite the Director of the U.S. Peace Corps, The Honorable Ron Tschetter, to deliver his remarks.
Thank you, Director Tschetter. It is now my great honor and privilege to introduce and to welcome to the podium His Excellency Minister of State Bello Bouba Maigari. Your Excellency…..