Open Query to the Peace Corps Training Materials Development Leader

Dear training tool developers,

Bankass, région de Mopti, 1999

I am an RPCV from Mali ('97-'99, Farafina nyenafin be n na) and am wondering what concrete steps have been taken to genuinely include and retain non-white, and/or non-heterosexual PCVs? For instance, little in our training addressed 'race' in Africa and made it so invisible that actual white American volunteers began using language that equated American with 'white', even to the faces of their non-white PCVs. Worse, the official training material discouraged queer PCVs from coming out, and warned that we could be endangering ourselves. As a PCV then, and as a social researcher now, that official rhetoric was inappropriate, flat and incorrect. So those are just two instances and institutional failure, while there are examples of success. For example, one PCV from our era organized and got support for a Black-American summit with Malian students and teachers. The local office itself, and it seems the Peace Corps in general, still had not learned to institutionalize diversity beyond tokenism. At this most crucial time when the US administration acts favorably toward the Peace Corps, while our nation engages in battle on three fronts abroad, and while xenophobia grows at home, the role of this organization is ever more pressing and central to building peace. So, in what concrete ways has the Peace Corps become more inclusive, and is this change measurably reflected beyond the rainbow Facebook pix?

Diepiriye: Constructing Global Citizenry