The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners honored the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps at the board meeting on March 17.
There are currently over 8,000 Peace Corps volunteers serving in over 70 countries across the world, helping communities become more self-sustaining.
Peace Corps volunteers spend two years living and working in a community in a foreign country. Volunteers work on a range of projects, always collaborating with local community members, from improving sanitation, to teaching English, to working in local clinics.
The board heard testimony from two county employees who have served in the Peace Corps, Erik Vidstrand and Nicole Dino. Vidstrand, a now community health educator, volunteered in a very rural area of Mauritania, at the edge of the Sahara Desert. He served as a team member in a clinic without electricity or running water, working with a nomadic population.
Vidstrand learned French and Arabic and used strory boards to communicate with clients. Vidstrand uses the skills he learned in the Peace Corps every day, incorporating community feedback, cultural sensitivity and patience in his work as a community health educator.
Dino, a nurse in the Early Childhood Program, learned Spanish when she joined the Peace Corps in her 40’s. Today, all of her clients in Multnomah County are Hispanic and she speaks Spanish every day.
Dino believes that the Peace Corps mission statement—to help people and promote cross-cultural understanding—is not so different from that of Multnomah County. Both Peace Corps volunteers agreed that global public service prepared them to serve the local community at home.
For a unique view of the Peace Corps experience, visit the exhibit “Peace Corps: 50 Years of Service”, open March 1 through June 19 at the Oregon Historical Society. To learn more about the Peace Corps, visit www.peacecorps.gov.