Cultural traditions and customs influence many aspects of society, including gender norms and roles. In many cultures, men and women are perceived as equal due to the influence of feminism. However, in some cultures, patriarchy is still prevalent, and both men and women are expected to conform to certain gender roles. Knowledge of cultural norms and relations concerning gender can help to ensure safety and promote successful integration.
For example, when traveling to countries famous for their strict Muslim traditions, it is recommended that women avoid wearing revealing clothes. Being aware of and respecting local traditions with regards to gender can also help visitors to be more confident because they will be able to take part in more activities and discussions without feeling excluded. In order to understand gender norms and relations that may affect the success of my work, I intend to rely on three strategies.
First of all, reading about gender in Islamic culture would help me to avoid saying or doing things that upset other people. For example, readings can highlight behaviors that are perceived to be inappropriate for both men and women and refrain from them. Secondly, I will also try and connect with local residents, including my counterparts. People from the local culture can be a valuable source of knowledge about gender norms and traditions that affect their society.
Thus, I could ask them for advice when faced with a challenging situation or ask them general questions about gender roles. Thirdly, I could also discuss gender norms with other Peace Corps Volunteers and share knowledge. This would be useful, as they might have different background knowledge and experience. Sharing information would help to create a solid knowledge base that would be beneficial to all partaking volunteers.
The four goals of human behavior in the EPIC model are to provide empowerment, create protection, facilitate integration, and generate connections. Empowerment is achieved through delivering encouraging support and controlling daily challenges successfully.
Protection against illness, harassment, and prejudice relies on learning about safety and gaining access to available resources, such as doctors or law enforcement. Integration occurs when a person generates sufficient knowledge about local culture and customs, which enables them to become a part of the school and the local community. Finally, connectedness requires establishing positive and friendly relationships with the host family, local counterparts, the community, and other PCVs.
One of the main adjustment challenges for me was the lack of integration. In order to manage it, I tried to learn more about local culture and traditions. For instance, I read about local celebrations and places of worship to visit them in my free time. This made me feel integrated because I met new people and established connections in the local community. Another adjustment problem was the lack of connectedness.
I resolved it by talking more to people, including hosts, staff, and other local residents. To feel protected, I familiarized myself with information about local protective structures, such as the police, and notified my family and friends of my location when possible. Lastly, to feel empowered, I usually write a detailed to-do list for the day and follow it. Although the actions on the list are small, completing them boosts my self-esteem and makes me feel empowered. Overall, I believe that my methods of handling adjustment challenges are helpful and comply with the EPIC model.
Every day, millions of citizens around the world feel a need to channel their social and moral values through occupation. Some of them choose professions connected with helping people. Others participate in social movements or become members of charitable and nonprofit organizations. Sociologists define this sort of social commitment (altruism) “as behavior that is motivated primarily out of a consideration another’s needs rather than one’s own” (Kallman, 2015, p. 73). Founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, the Peace Corps volunteer program unites about 240,000 Americans, who are driven by the idea to change the life of millions of people in the world for better promoting social and economic development through technical assistance.
The Peace Corps is an agency run by the United States government that train and send volunteers to work and live in communities worldwide. According to the report made by Curt Tarnoff (2016), volunteers “serve at the grassroots level in villages and towns across the globe to meet its three-point legislative mandate of promoting world peace and friendship by improving the lives of those they serve” (p.1). Since 1961, over 240,000 volunteers have served in about 140 countries. Currently, volunteers are engaged in six sectors: agriculture, environment, community economic development, health, education, and youth in development.
Agriculture volunteers aim at helping small-scale farmers to increase production and food security. They assist farmers in introducing technologies that prevent soil erosion, minimize the use of pesticides, and replenish the soil. Concerning environmental goals, Peace Corps volunteers teach principles of ecological awareness to members of local communities, encouraging them to conserve the local environment.
Peace Corps members are also engaged in helping communities to create economic opportunities. Volunteers frequently teach business owners to develop and market their products. Promotion of basic hygiene, nutrition, water sanitation, maternal and child health in communities is the highest priority as well. The Peace Corps organization introduces HIV/ AIDS education and prevention projects. At the same time, there are programs created to support community members who have been already affected by HIV/ AIDS (Glass, Cochran & Davidson, 2015, p. 1150). The most significant program area of the organization is education. Peace Corps’ teachers work in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools.
In addition to their primary work, volunteers get involved in other work activities in the communities, such as teaching English and youth sport. Peace Corps volunteers have been assigned to library projects throughout the history of the program. Researchers claim that “in the early years, professional librarians were recruited and assigned to work in public and academic libraries in such places as Botswana, Colombia, Fiji, and Morocco” (Constantinou, Miller, & Schlesinger, 2016, p.148). As cross-cultural and intercultural skills are vital for successful Peace Corps service, recruiters and placement officers estimate the suitability of potential candidates for the service, as well as evaluate if they can live and work abroad for twenty-seven months.
The Peace Corps is an organization with a long and significant history. For many years, thousands of Americans have been trained to participate in volunteer activity, which encourages and enables the growth, development, and well-being of millions of people across the globe. As the work of the Peace Corps members covers almost all vital social spheres, their efforts are of great importance and cannot be overestimated.
References
Constantinou, C., Miller, M.J., & Schlesinger, K. (Eds.). (2016). International Librarianship: Developing professional, intercultural, and educational leadership. New York, NY: SUNY Press.
Kallman, M. E. (2015). Material, emotional and professional dynamics: Idealism, commitment and self-regulation in the Peace Corps. In: FX. de Vaujany, N. Mitev, G.F. Lanzara, & A. Mukherjee (Eds.) Materiality, rules and regulation. Technology, work and globalization. (pp. 73-99). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tarnoff, C. (2016). The Peace Corps: Current issues. (CRS Report RS21168). Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
There are a number of different programs funded by the government of the USA. The purposes of such programs and agencies may be absolutely different, like various science foundations, nature and environment protection agencies, transportation and agricultural agencies, pieces foundations, etc.
Federal funds are distributing to all those foundations depending on the main idea of the agencies and the contribution they make to the society. The US Peace Corp agency has been created with the intention to promote peace in the world and help people support friendly relations.
The main purpose of this evaluation synthesis is to consider the main idea of the US Peace Corps Agency, its needs and program, check the program assessment and its rating by administration, analyze the achievements the agency managed to reach via the evaluation of the prior periods of the agency functioning, and analyze the subsequent budget proposals the Peace Corps agency managed to get.
The needs for Peace Corps’ programs
The main idea of the Peace Corps is highlighted in the mission of the agency. Thus, being an agency founded in 1961 by John F. Kennedy, the ex-President of the USA, the Peace Corps tries to promote the following mission.
It is aimed at helping countries to train people in the fields they really need, at helping people better understand Americans on the parts where they serve, and vice versa, at helping Americas better understand other nationalities on the part of Americans (Peace Corps). One of the main ideas of this organization is to provide a volunteer help for people in the developing countries.
Thousands of volunteers work all over the word in different spheres of human needs, like health promotion, HIV/AIDS help, environmental protection, information technology implementation, development of agriculture and business.
The Peace Corps has created projects which could help people in different countries collaborate by means of volunteers who learn the language and the traditions of the country they go to (“PEACE CORPS” 499).
The opportunities the Peace Corps offers for students are rather exciting. Different loans during deferment periods may be interesting for those who want to continue studying and help the organization on the volunteer terms.
There are numerous programs which offer students to incorporate their service hourly (Service Based Scholarships 12; Dunaj-Kullman). The Peace Corps functions worldwide and it is obvious that the organization needs a lot of additional volunteers to deliver a peaceful message to people.
The volunteers of the Peace Corps try to notice the needs of the people they live with and provide those with the necessary facilities. Thus, Elizabeth Spencer while servicing in La Lomota noticed that people there wanted their children spend more time on learning and socializing.
Searching for the appropriate decisions, Elizabeth Spencer decided to build a library in the area (Sood par. 2). This is the main idea of the Peace Corps, not only live in another country and to collaborate with people, but help those by means of specific actions.
The Peace Corps’ program theory
The mission of the Peace Corps mentioned above is considered to be the basis for the company vision. Still, one should remember that the mission of the company provided above was established fifty years ago. The world is changing and the goals of the agency are changing as well.
Thus, the Peace Corps should pay more attention to the development of the innovative technologies and their use in the work they do. It is not just enough to come to the country and to work with people without being trained. There are a lot of different universities which deal with teaching volunteers to be the leaders.
Moreover, working in many countries in the world, the Peace Corps send their volunteers only to the places where they will be able to provide real help and will cope with the assignment, for sure. The Peace Corps is not the only organization which functions in this direction. So, the competition is high.
To be able to achieve the set goals, the Peace Corps should make sure that the federal funding is enough for them. To make sure, the agency should recruit the best volunteers which perform their task in the world on the highest quality (The Peace Corps: A Comprehensive Agency Assessment 2).
To increase the federal funding, the Peace Corps has to review the program it has. Here are the assignments the agency has put before it:
Improve the strategies for recruitment and the process of selection of the best highly skilled volunteers.
Provide training medical care courses for the volunteers and the staff of the agency.
Adjust volunteer placement with the purpose to meet the US interests and the needs of another country.
Work successfully with other international assistance organizations.
Lower termination rates.
Increase monitoring other volunteers’ work by means of management strengthening.
Improve the quality of independent evaluation.
Ensure that the actions provided by the Peace Corps effectively use the resources of the government (The Peace Corps: A Comprehensive Agency Assessment 3).
Thus, it may be concluded that Peace Corps agency tries to meet its mission by means of providing numerous goals. Increasing its influence, the agency should care of the number of volunteers which should be enough for coping with the tasks put before the Peace Corps.
What PART rating did Peace Corps receive from the administration?
Such big organizations like the Peace Corps which function by means of federal funding are usually thoroughly evaluated and assessed. This is one of the ways to monitor whether the organization managed to direct the resources properly or not. There have been created a Program Assessment Rating Too which was aimed at evaluating the federal programs and assessing those.
The motto of the tool is “expect federal programs to perform well, and better every year” (Program Assessment). Having considered the mission and vision of the organization, the administration gave an effective PART rating for the agency for its performance. Considering the Peace Corps assessment details, it is necessary to cast light on the following.
Supporting international volunteerism, the Peace Corp operates all over the whole world sending its volunteers to support people in different developing countries in various fields, like education, health care, agriculture etc. The volunteers of the agency are perfectly trained in the specific spheres.
The assessment administration also paid attention to the level of cooperation between Americans and people all over the world (Program Assessment).
Dwelling upon the rating, it should be explained that stating that the performance of the agency is effective, the PART administration gives the highest rating to the Peace Corps any program can achieve. This rating highlights that the agency has put ambitious goals and managed to achieve the effective results.
The program is well managed and the efficiency is improving. Still, it is important to consider some specific reasons why such a high rating was given for the agency. The administration provides some specific examples which support their decision.
How was the PART rating justified by the administration?
The administration points to three main reasons for such high PART rating. Firstly, the Peace Corps agency wanted to increase the number of volunteers up to 7,920 volunteers by September 2007. It should be noticed that the number of volunteers increased in the agency up to 8,079 till the end of 2007.
This number points out to the fact that the services offered by the Peace Corps are extremely necessary. Secondly, the agency has exceeded its purposes of skill transfer. Moreover, the cross-cultural understanding has improved as well. The volunteers, having returned from different countries, reported that they had managed to collaborate with other nationalities and transfer the knowledge they had in different fields to them.
Thirdly, the development of the Coverdell World Wise School website was a significant step ahead as the agency received an access to the classrooms. The predicted number of visits was about 1.3 million while the real web visits managed to reach 2.1 million in 2007 (Program Assessment).
The federal administration has positively assessed the work of the organization, still, it is impossible to bring to perfection everything as the world development and the emergence of different innovative technological facilities creates new and new goals which should be achieved.
Is the rating consistent with prior evaluations of the program found in other sources?
Having considered other evaluations of the program, it may be concluded that the PART rating is consistent. After the thorough analysis of the Office of Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to Congress, it may be concluded that the understanding between Americans and other people has improved. There are a number of violent cases occurred several years before the PART rating.
The appearance of those cases and their absence now may be a good example of the change in understanding between each other (Americas and other peoples).
Thus, according to the report 206 total violent cases have been there, among which 16 attempted assault cases, 1 attempted burglary, 2 cases of attempted rape, 48 cases of burglary with volunteer present, 3 incidents of death, intimidation (36), 3 kidnappings, 12 major and other physical assaults, 5 major sexual assaults, 12 protect acts, 14 rapes and 65 robbery incidents (Semiannual Report to Congress 23).
Moreover, the Office of Inspector General’s dwells upon the results of their work which had been done by 2008-2009 fiscal year. The training courses were estimated as the results had been seen. The leadership qualities of the staff had been noticed as well as they helped organize the work on the post.
The positive results had been achieved in the health case sphere, and in President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in particular. Thanks to this plan HIV/AIDS activities had been implemented better.
Moreover, the report represents the results of the independent audit which stated that the financial information represented in the Peace Corps reports was fair. The resources were used properly with generally accepted accounting principles (Semiannual Report to Congress 10).
Analysis of the budget proposals for the program
Analyzing the fiscal year 2009 report and considering the information known about fiscal year 2010, it may be concluded that 2010 is considered to be the year when the Peace Corps agency has received the highest financial support ever. The Gross Costs of the program was $ 327,233 in 2009.
Considering the main sources of the financing, it may be concluded that the program is financed by general funds, special or trust funds, deposit funds, and general fund receipt accounts. According to the performance and accountability report, cashier imprest funds were $1.6 million.
On the 30th of September 2009 the agency owned the checks on the sum of about $8.4 million (The Peace Corps Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2009 68). Having no real personal quality, the agency’s financial report is rather positive.
Still, the amount of money given to the Peace Corps in 2009 cannot be compared with those in 2010. The funding of the program has increased by $33 million in 2010 in comparison with 2009 (The Peace Corps Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2009 65).
In conclusion, the Peace Corps agency is a federal funded foundation which is aimed at providing the peace all over the world.
The main mission of the organization is provided by its goals, to train people all over the world with the skills they need, to increase the collaboration between Americans and other nationalities both on the territory of the USA and beyond its borders. The agency has been highly assessed by the government. It is also proved by the amount of financial resources the government gave for the Peace Corps functioning.
Even though the results of the work conducted by the Peace Corps agency was positive assessed by federal administration, and the efficient results of its work were noticed, there is always the goals one should try to achieve. Thus, the federal administration offered a kind of improvement plan.
The administration offered the Peace Corps to identify and to set new strategic objectives which could be aimed at aligning the agency’s mission statement. These objectives with outcome-oriented targets could measure the level of how the Peace Corps meets the stated mission.
The federal administration also offered for the Peace Corps to conduct a research and to create a number of baselines which would measure results of the volunteers work in the countries where the Peace Corps operates. This data would also help understand the level of the promotion of Americans on the countries they served in (Program Assessment).
Besides of the assessment program offered by the federal government, the Peace Corps agency has created a strategic plan (2009-2014) and performance plan (2009-2011). In accordance with this plan, the following recommendations should be stated. Firstly, the agency should increase the number of the similar organizations which can be helpful for the Peace Corps in skill needs.
Secondly, the understanding of Americans in different parts of the world should be better promoted by volunteers. Thirdly, to promote more outreach directed at Americans and their attitude to other people on the territory of the USA.
Fourthly, the volunteers in the host countries should better understand the technological needs of people there and meet those needs. Finally, to meet the Peace Corps’ mission by means of implementing better health service, effective management of resources and security support in the host countries (The Peace Corps Strategic Plan 5).
Works Cited
Dunaj-Kullman, Diana. “Peace Corps offers ASU students global opportunity.” Arizona State University News 21 Sept. 2007. Web.
Peace Corps. 2008. Web.
Program Assessment. “Peace Corps: International Volunteerism”. ExpectMore.gov. 2010. Web.
“PEACE CORPS.” United States Government Manual (2007): 499.
“Semiannual Report to Congress October 1, 2010 – March 31, 2009.” Peace Corps Office of Inspector General. 2009. Web.
“Service Based Scholarships: Military, Peace Corps, Teach For America, Americorps, and City Year.” Sitemason.vanderbilt.edu. Web.
Sood, Kiran. “Peace Corps volunteer in need of help.” McClatchy – Tribune Business News 29 July 2010 ABI/INFORM Complete, ProQuest. Web.
“The Peace Corps Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2009.” Report. 2009. Web.
“The Peace Corps Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2009 – 2014 and Performance Plan Fiscal Years 2009 – 2011.” The Peace Corps. 2009. Web.
“The Peace Corps: A Comprehensive Agency Assessment.” Final Report. June 2010. Web.