Peace Corps Partnership

Today, thanks to @pcorpsconnect on Twitter I came across a nice article on a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali who is bringing clean water to a community in Sikasso. This reminded me of my largely unsuccessful attempt to bring more water to my host village, Sitafoula, in Mali. And my wife knows too well the burden Malian women bear in having to rely on limited water resources.

In Sitafoula the 2 biggest needs were Education and Water, and I believe those are probably two of the biggest needs throughout much of Mali and Sub Saharan Africa for that matter. Sitafoula is in the heart of the Kayes region of Mali that is very rocky. Thus, digging wells becomes a huge challenge as my friends from Manatali who helped dig the well in Sitafoula learned. I tried during my service to make strides towards both of these, but I am not wholly satisfied with my efforts. So I am determined to find a new way to confront both of these issues in Sitafoula and hopefully beyond that. But, I'm still trying to figure out where to start....so more on that in a later post.

So for now I want to highlight the other thing that the article mentioned above reminded me of: the Peace Corps Partnership Program. It is one of resources volunteers are presented as an option for funding projects during their service. Basically, you write up a proposal which then gets submitted for approval from the Peace Corps officials in country (like any project you have to show community support and contribution). Once approved Peace Corps puts it up on their website where donors can search for volunteers by name, state, country of service, sector or region. I completed one of these myself while in Mali. Mine was to complete construction of a 3 classroom schoolhouse in Sitafoula to serve 3 villages. I successfully secured funding from 4 or 5 different donors. It's a great program as it is a way for friends and family to help volunteers and have a direct impact and participate in the volunteer's service. I'm a big advocate of grassroots development and "on the ground" sustainable projects, and that is exactly what this is. I feel like the program isn't too well known, which is unfortunate. If you think about it, this is probably one of the first places you could go online and find small projects to contribute to that you knew were making a direct impact. All your funds go to the project and it is the volunteers job to outline their use of those funds. And of course there is an approval process so you can be confident that thought was put into it and sustainability was considered.

Now there is stuff all over the place online where you can go and donate to this or that cause, which is great. Maybe it's personal bias (I am an RPCV), but I wish the Partnership Program got more attention. Why don't you hear about it more? Why haven't I found a Facebook group for it? Maybe I need to start one....

Here are some cool projects (of course I have to highlight Mali, but go to the site and search for what you like):

Children's Garden

School Construction

Women's Garden Association: Well and Fencing Project