Latest news with #PeaceCorps'
New York Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
The Peace Corps, under review by DOGE, is said to plan ‘significant' staff cuts.
The head of a Peace Corps alumni group said on Monday he had been informed that the agency was planning to reduce the number of full-time staff who support volunteers overseas. The official, Dan Baker, president and chief executive of the National Peace Corps Association, said he had heard the news the same day from Cheryl Faye, who is the Peace Corps' acting deputy chief executive. He said he was told that the cuts were planned at the behest of Elon Musk's cost-cutting team, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign-aid agencies. The Peace Corps confirmed in a statement that the Musk team was assessing its operations and 'working to identify additional efficiencies in our staffing structure.' 'The agency will remain operational and continue to recruit, place, and train volunteers, while continuing to support their health, safety and security, and effective service,' the Peace Corps said. Mr. Baker said he had been told that the Peace Corps would not close any offices in foreign countries or reduce the numbers of volunteers it takes per year. The agency, which operates independently within the executive branch, was founded under President John F. Kennedy. It has about 3,000 volunteers who serve for two years in one of 60 developing countries. 'The Peace Corps has received guidance that they're not going to cut volunteers and countries, but the staffing impact is going to be significantly stressful for their operations,' Mr. Baker said, recounting the conversation. The Peace Corps has about 970 full-time American employees who recruit new volunteers and oversee their training, health care and security. Of those employees, about 790 work in the United States. Mr. Baker said he was not told how many of those jobs the Peace Corps intended to cut. To begin the reductions, Mr. Baker said, the agency on Monday offered employees a chance to take 'early retirement,' to be paid through the end of this year. The agency confirmed in its statement that staff members had until May 6 to apply for the administration's 'deferred resignation' offer.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - The US needed a Peace Corps in the '60s — it still needs one today
We're just three months into President Trump's second term, and already the Peace Corps is on the chopping block. While he touts solutions of tariffs and 'government efficiency,' he shatters our alliances and our hard-won moral authority abroad. By contrast, less than a month before winning his election in 1960, John F. Kennedy announced his vision for a 'Peace Corps' at the University of Michigan. In the six and a half decades since, nearly 240,000 American volunteers have responded to Kennedy's inspiring call, 'Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.' The Peace Corps experience is now more relevant to the United States than ever. In 1984, the Peace Corps sent me to a place I could hardly find on a map. I was assigned to Sierra Leone to teach farmers how to improve their rice yields in swamps. I lived in a peaceful rainforest village with 40 rice-farming families in mud-brick homes on the edge of the country's diamond fields. During my early days there, the farmers taught me how to gather the necessities for living: food, water, medicine and mail. I developed habits and routines that firmly anchored me in the community and found meaningful and enduring connections in a society that generously welcomed me. Until this immersive experience, I was naively oblivious to the bitter history that Sierra Leoneans themselves had shared their agricultural expertise with their enslavers, thus enabling them to cultivate rice in the swampy lowlands of the Carolinas and Georgia. The U.S., with its growing disparities in health, education and wealth, and a government that is discounting many of its citizens' needs, increasingly resembles some of the countries where Peace Corps volunteers serve. Americans, like so many abroad, are struggling with broken systems and are unable to respond to dislocated workers, children's educational needs and inadequate healthcare. Peace Corps volunteers have lived in places where injustices such as these, sustained by corruption and disenfranchisement, have exploded into brutal and prolonged civil conflict. Four years after my departure, this happened in Sierra Leone. We cannot let it happen in the United States. The Peace Corps is often portrayed as a rugged experience for privileged college graduates or as a community of change agents willing to endure hardships for a benevolent outcome. Yet, the enduring success of the Peace Corps consistently counters these stereotypes and offers a vision for America now. Volunteers have demonstrated that building and supporting collective agencies for good is the essential work of social cohesion in any nation. The Peace Corps expands this definition of volunteerism to create partnership-oriented cultural systems that foster mutual respect, one person and one community at a time, which bridges people and nations in a fraught and trembling world. Energized Americans are once again answering President John F. Kennedy's call: What can I do for my country? With Democratic traditions and government supports formerly taken for granted and under siege today, we are all the Peace Corps now. According to the National Peace Corps Association, funding the Peace Corps costs each American a mere $1.26 annually — a bargain that extends hope and acknowledges our interdependence. By fostering a global culture of mutuality, we enhance the well-being of everyone. We create a safer and more harmonious world that addresses humanity's shared concerns. We can ill afford to imperil this under-appreciated agency within the U.S. Department of State. Betsy Small is the former executive director of Creating Friendships for Peace and is the author of the new book, 'Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
19-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
The US needed a Peace Corps in the '60s — it still needs one today
We're just three months into President Trump's second term, and already the Peace Corps is on the chopping block. While he touts solutions of tariffs and 'government efficiency,' he shatters our alliances and our hard-won moral authority abroad. By contrast, less than a month before winning his election in 1960, John F. Kennedy announced his vision for a 'Peace Corps' at the University of Michigan. In the six and a half decades since, nearly 240,000 American volunteers have responded to Kennedy's inspiring call, 'Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.' The Peace Corps experience is now more relevant to the United States than ever. In 1984, the Peace Corps sent me to a place I could hardly find on a map. I was assigned to Sierra Leone to teach farmers how to improve their rice yields in swamps. I lived in a peaceful rainforest village with 40 rice-farming families in mud-brick homes on the edge of the country's diamond fields. During my early days there, the farmers taught me how to gather the necessities for living: food, water, medicine and mail. I developed habits and routines that firmly anchored me in the community and found meaningful and enduring connections in a society that generously welcomed me. Until this immersive experience, I was naively oblivious to the bitter history that Sierra Leoneans themselves had shared their agricultural expertise with their enslavers, thus enabling them to cultivate rice in the swampy lowlands of the Carolinas and Georgia. The U.S., with its growing disparities in health, education and wealth, and a government that is discounting many of its citizens' needs, increasingly resembles some of the countries where Peace Corps volunteers serve. Americans, like so many abroad, are struggling with broken systems and are unable to respond to dislocated workers, children's educational needs and inadequate healthcare. Peace Corps volunteers have lived in places where injustices such as these, sustained by corruption and disenfranchisement, have exploded into brutal and prolonged civil conflict. Four years after my departure, this happened in Sierra Leone. We cannot let it happen in the United States. The Peace Corps is often portrayed as a rugged experience for privileged college graduates or as a community of change agents willing to endure hardships for a benevolent outcome. Yet, the enduring success of the Peace Corps consistently counters these stereotypes and offers a vision for America now. Volunteers have demonstrated that building and supporting collective agencies for good is the essential work of social cohesion in any nation. The Peace Corps expands this definition of volunteerism to create partnership-oriented cultural systems that foster mutual respect, one person and one community at a time, which bridges people and nations in a fraught and trembling world. Energized Americans are once again answering President John F. Kennedy's call: What can I do for my country? With Democratic traditions and government supports formerly taken for granted and under siege today, we are all the Peace Corps now. According to the National Peace Corps Association, funding the Peace Corps costs each American a mere $1.26 annually — a bargain that extends hope and acknowledges our interdependence. By fostering a global culture of mutuality, we enhance the well-being of everyone. We create a safer and more harmonious world that addresses humanity's shared concerns. We can ill afford to imperil this under-appreciated agency within the U.S. Department of State.
NBC News
06-04-2025
- Business
- NBC News
DOGE staff arrives at Peace Corps headquarters, signaling possible cuts
Representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency initiative have arrived at the Peace Corps' headquarters, the agency confirmed Saturday, signaling possible cuts to a volunteer mission that has long enjoyed bipartisan support. 'Staff from the Department of Government Efficiency are currently working at Peace Corps headquarters and the agency is supporting their requests," the Peace Corps' press office said, without specifying what work DOGE is undertaking or how the agency is accommodating its requests. The National Peace Corps Association said a DOGE representative arrived Friday and additional staff were expected through the weekend. The nonprofit organization, which supports the agency's mission, told members it was on watch for news of any funding cuts. "These visits at other federal agencies have led to major funding cuts," the association said in a post to Facebook. "We don't yet know the full impact, but we're watching closely." The White House and DOGE did not immediately respond to NBC News' requests for comment. The Peace Corps has struggled to meet its staffing goals in recent years, with its "fill rate," a measurement that reflects its ability to accommodate requests for volunteers, dropping from 94% in fiscal year 2019 to 63% in fiscal year 2023, according to agency data. Funding for the Peace Corps amounts to less than a tenth of a percent of the total federal budget and costs the average taxpayer under a few dollars a year. The Peace Corps' budget in the 2024 fiscal year was $430.5 million, according to a recent financial report. The Biden administration requested the agency receive $479 million this fiscal year, but Congress has yet to pass a funding authorization following President Donald Trump's election in the fall. Le gislation to expand resources for the agency, including by allowing volunteers to receive larger payments after their service, has received bipartisan support in previous years, but has failed to garner enough support to become law. The Peace Corps is not a foreign aid agency, but it engages in international development and assistance, with volunteers working in sectors that include education, health, youth development, community economic development, environment and agriculture. The Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees oversee the agency's activities and programs. The Peace Corps only restored its geographic footprint to pre-pandemic levels in the last fiscal year, with more than 3,300 volunteers serving in 61 countries. The agency planned to expand its work into the Indo-Pacific region this year, but it is unclear if those plans will continue. The Peace Corps was established through executive order by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961 and formally authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961. Over 240,000 Americans have served in the agency since it was founded, and trainees were deployed recently to Armenia, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
