Governor Doyle and First Lady Jessica Doyle Column: Celebrating 45 Years of the Peace Corps
Governor Doyle and First Lady Jessica Doyle Column: Celebrating 45 Years of the Peace Corps
As high school students, we were inspired by John F. Kennedy's call to service when he created the Peace Corps. President Kennedy proclaimed that "of those to whom much is given, much is required." Both of us were committed to answering this call and were honored to be selected after graduating from college.
We were sent to Tunisia, to a small village in an oasis on the edge of the Saharan desert. We taught school to young people whose families had never experienced education. While we hope we helped the village, we know those people helped us.
This week marks the 45th Anniversary of the Peace Corps. In the last five decades, more than 180,000 volunteers have served in over 130 different countries. Thousands of them have come from Wisconsinas Governor and First Lady of the state, we are honored to be among them.
We learned firsthand what it means to live with malnutrition. Finding food, finding water -- these were daily struggles of life for the people we met. After just a few days, we realized that two young people from Wisconsin -- even armed with all our good intentions -- had a lot more to learn from these people than we had to teach. Years later, we can still remember the people from that village who helped us learn how to live in those conditions.
The Peace Corps was President Kennedy's initiative to bring America's goodwill and ingenuity to developing countries. But more than that, it is about building greater understanding of one another.
Serving in the Peace Corps was one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences of our lives. Like tens of thousands of other Peace Corps volunteers, we saw firsthand the value of service and it profoundly affected the rest of our lives.
Soon after the Peace Corps, we moved to Chinle, Arizona, where we spent three years on a Navajo Indian reservation. By offering legal help and teaching young children on the reservation, we offered what service we could. But as had been the case in Tunisia, we received much more than we gave.
Through these opportunities, we both experienced the rich and wonderful diversity of life and learned that what makes people different is the most valuable thing about them. We learned to always be thankful for what we have, because so many people live with so much less. We also learned to be patient with people, with projects, with change- a lesson we apply every day as Governor and First Lady.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Anyone can be great, because everyone can serve." That universal value is at the heart of the Peace Corps.
We are proud that Wisconsin continues to be one of the nations' leaders in producing Peace Corps volunteers and we encourage the next generation to consider the Peace Corps as a pathway toward service and opportunity.
But however one chooses to servewhether by volunteering in the Peace Corps or by teaching or by being a leader in their communitywe all share an obligation to be of service to the people with whom we share a state, a nation, and the world.
The Peace Corps has made a profound impact on millions of lives in the last 45 years. And we hope that its success will continue long into the future.
http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/journal_media_detail.asp?locid=19&prid=1772