A monthly newsletter of The West Cascade Peace Corps Association in Oregon's Southern Willamette Valley

In May WCPCA contributed $465 as one of the sponsors of Camp Unity West, a Peace Corps partnership project in the Chernivetska region of Ukraine. One of the camp's organizers and counselors was PCV Sarah Meher from Oregon. The camp took place July 6-13. Last month you read Sarah's account of the camp which was for high school students. This month we received the delightful photo below of two camp counselors and several student campers holding a thank you message to us.

WCPCA has also received thank you letters from three students. A few quotations from these letters will assure you of the students' enthusiasm.

"I spent wonderful time at this camp. It was excellent! We learned about discrimination, framing differences, open/close minded people, equality or inequality. I felt happy when I played different, interesting and new games for me with my team, Red Bulls!"

"This camp is a fantastic thing - I learned so many new things and met a lot of new and interesting people."

"The swimming in the river, making pinatas, and learning salsa dancing was also great!"

"My favorite thing about Camp Unity was that I improved my English."

"In Camp Unity I changed my opinions. I became more friendly, helpful, active, open for communication."

"Thank you for your kindness and money."

"We all want to stay."

You'll find a full description of the camp on the "projects" page of the website.

Laurette Garner (Madagascar, 2004-06), the new U of O Peace Corps recruiter, invites the Lane County Peace Corps community to help staff the Peace Corps booth during the fall Street Faire at the U of O, October 9-11, Wednesday morning through mid-day on Friday. She expects robust student interest in the Peace Corps and, of course, beautiful fall weather to enhance the booth experience for all.

Laurette has posted a spread sheet through Google Drive on which you may sign up for a slot. Click here to do that. If you have questions, please email Laurette at pcorps@uoregon.edu. She'll prepare a fact sheet to update RPCVs on current Peace Corps practices and attributes.

Laurette is also the recruiter for the local community and therefore is looking forward to meeting as many RPCVs as possible. Some of you might invite her to speak at a local organization. Laurette plans an active role on the WCPCA board and will attend the October potluck where she'll tell us about the Street Faire.

Supporting the U of O Peace Corps recruiter is a longstanding WCPCA activity. Let's welcome Laurette with a strong response to her request.

WCPCA board

Three WCPCA members developed a survey questionnaire to find out what kinds of new activities would be likely to engage the participation of members and friends (potential members) of the Association. An initial notice of the survey and link to the survey site was announced in the June 2013 WCPCA newsletter. Due to a very low response to this initial notice, it was decided to reopen the survey and reach out to the 370 individuals on the WCPCA email list.

New Activities respondents are most likely to participate in:

The following rank order combines "Possibly Would Participate" and "Definitely Would Participate" responses:

The top interests expressed in the survey are speaking at local schools and service clubs, mentoring RPCVs for career planning and leveraging their experience, attending regional RPCV events and meetings, and offering financial or technical support to the Peace Corps Partnership projects of Oregon PCVs. There are opportunities for the membership to pursue some of these activities immediately.

WCPCA will host the regional meeting of northwest RPCV groups in the early spring of 2014. We hope that those interested in regional meetings will step forward to help with planning and organizing the meeting. Please email WCPCA president, Julia Harvey, if you are interested in helping.

To support recent WCPCA survey results, board member, Howard Schuman, (Thailand, 1968-70; Malaysia staff, 1973) has volunteered to coordinate a mentoring program for new (and not so new) RPCVs for career development. Howard has offered international career development workshops as part of his consulting career and is author of Making It Abroad - The International Job Hunting Guide (John Wiley). He plans to work with members who are looking for ways to enhance their career options through coaching and matching them up with others in targeted job fields. He will discuss his ideas at our next potluck on October 11th. Howard will also present at a future potluck on "How To Become an International Consultant (at any age!)".

There is an article in the member section of this newsletter about an inquiry from an Oregon PCV in Mozambique who has an idea for a Peace Corps Partnership project and asks if there is someone in the Eugene area who can advise him on how to prepare a persuasive grant proposal. If you can help, please see the article for further details.

Other opportunities await volunteers to organize and support them. Members who would like to join the activities described above, place and coordinate speakers for local organizations, offer mentoring opportunities, or have other ideas for activities are invited to talk to the board about them. Board meetings are listed in the calendar of the newsletter and are posted on the website. We ask only that you notify the board president of your interest in attending so that she can organize the agenda accordingly.

WCPCA board

WCPCA will sell 100 international calendars for 2014 as a fall fundraising activity. This is the newest calendar published by the Madison, Wisconsin RPVC group. Once again, the photos are poignant, evocative, and breathtaking. The calendar lists daily holidays from throughout the world and includes a brief history of the Peace Corps connection with the thirteen host countries represented in the photographs. These calendars will be much appreciated and admired holiday gifts and a focal point for classroom discussions.

The calendars sell individually for $12 each; five or more may be purchased by a single party for $10 each. They'll be available at WCPCA gatherings this fall. If you want to buy and pick one or more up directly, let us know by emailing info@westcascadepca.org and writing "calendar" in the subject line. Someone will call you. Calendars may also be ordered through PayPal on the website for $14.50 which includes the mailing cost. The board hopes to earn about $600 from calendar sales to fund humanitarian projects. With your help we can do it.

The board is looking for a calendar sales rep who can develop and oversee our sales effort. We'd like to place calendars in local businesses. This will be a short and surely successful activity for an energetic sales person! A hundred calendars will sell fast (15 sold already). If you can help us or have questions please send an email to the address above. Thanks to all in advance for supporting this effort.

Felicia grew up in Tuscon, Arizona, and attended high school in New Jersey. As a student at Barnard College, she studied creative writing and economics but took computer science classes for fun. After graduating she became a webmaster for a Madison Avenue company and then moved on to work for an internet service provider. Felicia telecommuted to that job when she left NYC and until she joined the Peace Corps while living in Eugene.

Looking for new opportunities and inspired by a cousin working as a PCV in Uganda, Felicia applied to the Peace Corps and in 2003 accepted an assignment as an IT volunteer in Benin. Her assignment evolved into her working for a microfinance bank and also in various information sharing projects that used databases to facilitate sharing. She also repaired computers that had broken down under Benin's dusty conditions.

As was typical of PCVs working in malaria zones at the time, Felicia took Lariam/Mefloquine as a malaria prophylaxis. Early in her work in Benin she became ill with what was most likely a reaction to the drug. The Peace Corps' medical service was unable to treat Felicia adequately and, as a result, she had to leave the Peace Corps for medical reasons at the conclusion of her first year.

Felicia returned to Eugene in 2004 and, although ill, contacted WCPCA and took part in a few activities. She felt welcomed by the group and in a short time realized that the organization could use technical help. In 2006, working with the late Beryl Brinkman, one of WCPCA's founding members, Felicia posted the newsletters, then mailed in paper form, on the website. Continuing to work with Beryl and the board, she created a digitized membership database. Next came a redesign of the website and in 2008 Felicia created and for several years edited the electronic newsletter that replaced the paper version. Until recently Felicia served as the WCPCA webmaster. For the last five years she has been the organization's Communications Coordinator, overseeing all of the IT operations.

Now, some seven years after Felicia began working with Beryl, WCPCA members may think of the technical aspects of the organization as givens, but it's more accurate to think of them as creations and thank Felicia for them and much more that she has contributed. These developments allow us, for instance, to maintain the membership database efficiently, encourage those joining and renewing memberships in WCPCA to do so online through the website, sell merchandise through the website, create the newsletter and membership directory digitally and distribute them via email thus saving not only volunteer time but substantial costs. With these efficiencies and savings we keep membership dues low and can contribute more to humanitarian projects. The more efficient organization most likely enabled us to gain recognition from the IRS as a nonprofit organization. Maintaining a website gives us legitimacy in the nonprofit world and enables the board to share information quickly and easily with the Peace Corps community as a whole.

Meanwhile, Felicia has worked diligently to regain her health while lobbying the Peace Corps to be more responsive to the medical needs of PCVs and to offer alternatives to Lariam/Mefloquin for PCVs serving in malaria zones. She and like minded RPCVs, supported by the NPCA, have formed a group called Health Justice for Peace Corps Volunteers to advocate for better health care for PCVs and RPCVs. The group's mission is described on its website.

When Felicia and Joel are in Russia we'll miss not only Felicia's technical expertise but also her company as well as her other contributions to WCPCA, especially her efforts to organize the discussion group. Felicia will send us updates on her activities from time to time.

To Felicia we give our thanks for bringing us into the digital world and teaching us how to stay afloat here. We wish her and Joel much adventure and the opportunity to learn in a new land and in new digs. We'll miss them but we'll stay in touch. Bon voyage, Felicia and Joel!

WCPCA member, Shannon Micheel, is in touch with an Oregon PCV in his second year of service in Mozambique. The volunteer graduated from the U of O and attended the NOM party in 2012. He's working as a high school teacher and is interested in writing a grant proposal for a Peace Corps Partnership Project. He's asked Shannon to inquire if there is someone in Eugene who might help him develop a persuasive proposal.

If you have skills in this field and are willing to mentor a PCV, please let Shannon know. You'll find her email address in the membership directory or you can send an email to info@westcascadepca.org and write "Mozambique" in the subject line.

Thanks in advance to WCPCA members for their support.

WCPCA member, Julie Bosustow, wants the Peace Corps community to know of a fundraising activity that she's helping organize for Thembanathi (Hope with Us in Zulu), a non-profit organization that has been providing support, care, and hope for children affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa since 2004. This year the organization plans to build a new early childhood education center for vulnerable children in a community that has had no services for young children.

To support Thembanathi there will be a South African Jewelry and Craft show and sale on Sunday, November 3rd, from noon to 6pm at the Covey Lane Clubhouse, 435 Covey Lane, Eugene. The clubhouse is the first building on the left as you enter the Quail Run community.

There will be a variety of hand-crafted items made by Zulu women in employment projects in an area of South Africa struggling with one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, as well the long-standing effects of inequality, poverty, and unemployment. For further information you are welcome to contact Julie at 541-844-1954.