Peace Corps Volunteers example essay topic

The Peace Corps October 14, 1960 2: 00 am at Michigan University ran into a serious realty check. Presidential Candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the students attending there with an impromptu speech challenging them to give two years of their lives to help people in countries of the developing world. Inspired by the speech, students form "Americans Committed to World Responsibility" and organize a petition drive asking for the establishment of such a program; within weeks, more than 1,000 Michigan students had signed it. The Peace Corps was officially established on March 1, 1961. It all started over one speech that changed the lives of many Americans (noted in previous paragraph).

The Peace corps was established because America wanted to make a difference in other peoples lives that less fortunate than themselves. Volunteers in the Peace corps visited places like: Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, China, El Salvador, Mongolia, Morocco, Niger, etc. In these places they wanted to help the people in these countries and areas by meeting their needs and to spread awareness of Americans on the part of the peoples served; and to give a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. These Americans visited over one hundred and thirty four countries.

With sixty one percent of the volunteers being female and thirty nine percent being male. Ninety two percent of them were single and eight percent of them were married. There was on average about 14 percent minorities of Peace Corps volunteers. The average person to volunteer was twenty nine years old; the youngest were about twenty five years old. Volunteers over age fifty was seven about percent (oldest volunteer is seventy nine). Education ranked from about level of eighty two percent have undergraduate degrees while thirteen percent have graduate studies and degrees.

Here are a few quotes of taken from president speeches and a Volunteer over the last couple of decades: The 1970's "The spirit of the Peace Corps springs from the deepest wells in our culture, from the reasoned and strongly felt impulses of our people to share with their neighbors their caring and their labor". - President Jimmy Carter The 1980's "Each one of us is responsible for building the society we want. Peace Corps volunteers do that with people-to-people exchanges, using their energy, their spirit, and their creativity to solve problems. This is the American way.

Once we see a need, we want to serve - even when the neighbor we reach out to help is halfway around the world". - President Ronald Reagan The 1990's "The Peace Corps is a remarkable tradition that emphasizes that our country is about more than power and wealth. It is also about the power of our values and the power of a helping hand, the ethic of service, and the understanding that we have an obligation not only to our own people, to people around the world to help them make the most of their own lives". - President Bill Clinton Here is a quote from a volunteer (also in 1990): "My parents, who had served as Volunteers in Kenya 25 years before I joined the Peace Corps, had absolutely no idea how much influence they had during their two years of service.

They did not consider themselves exceptional Volunteers; they simply went to class, taught a variety of subjects in the best way they knew how, and loved the people they lived among. But returning with me to their village so many years later, they were struck by the undeniable realization that they had indeed changed people's lives". - Tara Elizabeth Beverwyk (Peace Corps Volunteer, Malawi, 1995-98) The effects are we have learned great amounts about many other countries. We have stood on a foundation for over forty years that is still talked about as being a movement of peace and love to this very day. We have seen that we as a nation, as a people can survive in the most rigorous environments. We were still able to spread knowledge, truth, and helping hands to these other coutnries that really need are help.

I feel that the Peace Corps was a great organization to be started on March 1, 1961. It gave people of America a relief from the war and way to make America feel great about something that they had put together for the betters of others for once. I state this as my conclusion without the vast movement of the Peace Corps would we really know how great of an effect that it would have on us.