Peace Corps Goals 2 and 3

In 1961, President JFK established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship through three underlying core goals:

Goal 1 To help the people of interested countries meet their needs for trained men and women.
Goal 2 To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
Goal 3 To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

While Goal 1 deals more with the work carried out at site (assessment of communal needs; sustainable, capacity-building development), Goals 2 and 3 underscore a different vision: the promotion of bicultural exchange, sharing, and understanding between the volunteer/his or her culture and the culture of the community served.

My first several months in-country and first few months at site, I was admittedly fixated on Goal 1. Immediately after carrying out needs assessments of my community, I had my workplan planned out in my head; I sought for tangible results. I've learned over time, however, that some of the best work I can accomplish while in Uganda are not tangible, the things that can't necessarily be touched or felt. Hence Goals 2 and 3.

This blog, while subjective because it provides a glimpse of Ugandan culture through only one lens, is intended to, in part, achieve Goal 3.

Blogging aside, how else can Goals 2 and 3 be accomplished in the next 17 months?

* By pairing my S3 English and Geography class (equivalent of 10th/11th grade) with a middle school class (similar in reading level) in the U.S. to create a "pen-pal"/postcard exchange of communication back and forth. I was psyched when a number of my students asked for American "pen-pals." What better way to promote bicultural exchange, sharing, and understanding than from the students themselves!

* By continuing to share my Peace Corps experiences with American friends and family back home through email, phone, and mail correspondences, as well as through pictures.

* By hopefully serving as a good ambassador of the United States.

Since Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary was celebrated last month, I am ending this post with Barack Obama's 2007 call to "double" the number of Peace Corps volunteers serving abroad, and ultimately, to mirror JFK's vision of world peace and friendship:

"To restore America's standing, I will call on our greatest resource - not our bombs, guns, or dollars - I will call upon our people. We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity...."