Sophomores, Natalia Dorantes, Senet Kidane, and Arlette Amuhi volunteer at the Peace Corps Pop-Up on Tuesday at the Tempe campus's North Stage. The volunteer group provided musical entertainment, cornhole games information to interested passersby on volunteering around the world for the Peace Corps. Such events will be popping up across all four local ASU campuses throughout the week. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)To commemorate John F. Kennedy’s creation of the Peace Corps in 1961, students are getting the unique opportunity to see what international volunteer service in the Peace Corps is like.
The University will be holding events including daily campus visits and a film screening of the “Girls Rising” documentary, which global heath and economics junior Pooja Dalvi, an impact liaison for ASU’s Peace Corps partnership, said increases student interest in the Peace Corps.
“Peace Corps Week is just about bringing together the ASU community for people who have interest in serving the community, but don’t necessarily know how to get involved,” she said. “We use Peace Corps Week to teach people about issues they can help solve while increasing interest in global issues.”
However, recruitment is not the week’s primary focus, ASU career services associate director Amy Michalenko said.
“We’re not about giving people the sales pitch on Peace Corps,” she said. “This is to give people an opportunity to experience what it’s like to be in Peace Corps … to expose students to that opportunity and what you would be getting to do and what impact you would make.”
Michalenko said this exposure is crucial because some citizens have never heard of the international volunteer program.
“It’s amazing how many people have actually never even heard of the Peace Corps or don’t exactly know what the Peace Corps is,” she said. “I think that maybe a lot of these people may have heard of the Peace Corps, but just don’t realize the amount of training and opportunity it provides.”
ASU alumnus and AmeriCorps volunteer Reema Misdry discusses volunteer opportunities with Peace Corps recruiter Breanne Lott at Changemaker Central in the Memorial Union on Tuesday, March 3, 2015. This week, the Peace Corps will provide demonstrations, recruitment campaigns and "Peace Corps Pop-Up" events around all ASU campuses. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)Michalenko said ASU and the Peace Corps have had a developing partnership.
“Peace Corps is really embedded on our campus,” she said. “There are so many students, and professors and faculty staff that have gone through Peace Corps and have made a high impact over the years. We wanted to create some awareness of just how much of an impact Peace Corps has had at ASU.”
Sophia Ewing, regional recruiter for Peace Corps for ASU and the Valley, said several programs are in development at ASU.
“Since ASU is the largest public university in the U.S., I think (this partnership) is extremely beneficial for students of ASU to have a global perspective because it’s going to make them stand more above the average graduate,” she said.
Programs will include the Peace Corps Prep certificate for undergraduate students to gain experience prior to service, as well as Masters International and the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows, two graduate programs to guide students during their years in Peace Corps, Ewing said.
“Peace Corps gives you this cultural experience of a lifetime,” she said. “You get fully emerged into a culture of language (while) doing two years of international development work. That’s a huge résumé builder.”
Peace Corps Week thus offers students a platform to learn about the Peace Corps’ impact on the world, Ewing said.
“If someone doesn’t know about Peace Corps yet, I hope they know or even have a curiosity of what Peace Corps is,” she said. “So many people know about it, but this is to ignite more interest (and ask), 'What can I gain from doing this?’”
Reach the reporter at aplante@asu.edu or follow @aimeenplante on Twitter.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
