What does the Peace Corps do?

Since I will be eat, sleep and breathing Peace Corps for the next 27 months I thought I should give people an insight into who I work for and why it is so important.

The Peace Corps was founded by President Kennedy with projects in Costa Rica begining in 1963.

The mission of Peace Corps is to promote world peace and friendship by:
1. Helping people of interested countries meet their need for trained men and women.
2. Help promote better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served.
3. Help promote a better understanding of other poeple on the part of Americans.

Development is the first goal of PC, but their is a difference between what the industrialized world and America (in general) thinks of development and Peace Corps philosophy. In many ways development is seen as purely economic (writing a check), building a product through raising infrastructure or modernization of an underdeveloped region. This is a partial picture, but not how Peace Corps chooses to promote development. Yes, money is needed to create projects and needed to fund the Peace Corps, but where other organizations use money as their resource for development, Peace Corps uses people.

Peace Corps is a grassroots, people to peaple and relationship centered organization. It facilitates activities by creating sustainable projects that passes education, skills, and ownership of projects to the people they serve so development can continue long after the volunteer is gone.

My role in the Peace Corps is as a TEFL Volunteer or Teacher of English as a Foriegn Language. This is a pioneer program not seen in Costa Rica for generations of Ticos. It is an experiment in teaching and learning for both Peace Corps and Costa Rica that will hopefully expand and continue until it is no longer needed.

RIGHT NOW:
October 5-9: The group of Tico 21 volunteers (my group) has been in Tres Rios for a Pre-ServiceTraining introduction to the Peace Corps, volunteering and living in Costa Rica. Within the volunteers I am orienting with their are 2 groups-TEFL (me) and CED (Community Educational Development)
October 9-December 17:  All volunteers move from the Pre-Service Training to In-Service Training where, based on our level of Spanish language ability and program (TEFL or CED) we are put into small clusters and into host families for 3 months. We will be in intensive language sessions, security training and for TEFL volunteers, English job training.
Dec 17: Officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer and the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
Dec 18, 2010-Dec 17, 2012: I move into my perminent community. There will be three schools I am responsible for where I interact with elementary, high school, technical high schools or a combination of all three. I work with teachers already present in schools to teach or improve their English. I then work as a co-teacher in their classrooms. The hope is that the Tico teacher will learn the skills to effectively and correctly teach English to their students. In some cases schools may not have an English teacher. In those instances I may become the primary English teacher, but must work with other educators so that once I leave, someone in that community will have the ability to take my place.

I am also responsible for creating a community project where I address a specific need not covered in my daily role as a TEFL Volunteer.

Although I have only been a Peace Corps volunteer all of 3 days, I have learned a tremendous amount about the organization and its global impact that I cannot do justice to in words. This will be an extremely personal experience where the relationships I form with communities and my intigration into Costa Rica will determine my success. Although I still have 3 months of training before I have students, I feel love for them already.

There is so much to say it is hard for me to sum up this experience.

My next blog will be, Why is Peace Corps still in Costa Rica? I got that question a lot before I left and didn't have a great answer for it...but now I do!