All the best for New Year 2008!

It should be challenging with presidential and congressional elections, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our stormy economic situation. It is important that we remain engaged and make our voices heard, regardless of our political persuasions.

America still needs Peace Corps!! Two recent events highlight the need for Peace Corps. In an op-ed piece, "Too Many Innocents Abroad," in the New York Times, Robert L. Strauss wrote a thoughtful piece about Peace Corps through the years. Mr. Strauss has been a Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director. He contends that Peace Corps has been more concerned about the number of Volunteers overseas rather than ensuring that they meet the needs of the country. He notes that since the early Kennedy years, ".. its leaders and many of the more than 190,000 volunteers who have served have mythologized the agency into something that can never be questioned or improved. The result is an organization that finds itself less and less able to provide what the people of developing countries need - at a time when the United States has never had a greater need for their good will." (My emphasis.) Please see full op-ed piece under letters on this website. You may wish to pass this piece onto Volunteers who have recently completed their tours. Comments are welcome.

Hope you saw the biographical documentary on Robert Sargent Shriver on the PBS program American Idealist on 21 Jan 2008. During the 1960s, Sargent Shriver founded the Peace Corps, the Job Corps, VISTA, Community Action, Head Start, Legal Services for the Poor, Youth Corps and more. He helped shape an era that dared millions of young Americans to live out their ideals, both at home and abroad, during the tumultuous times of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and serious social-economic issues at home. In the 60s, Peace Corps helped promote an image of Americans who care about people living in foreign lands. Over the years, America has benefited greatly from those Volunteers who helped other countries' peoples better understand the US. As well as bring home in-depth knowledge of these countries and cultures that so much helps our social and business enterprises and government at all levels. We really need this again, now.

Travels: George Nepert, FOI Treasurer and Editor, and his wife, Brenda, have just returned from a two-week 1500 km trip through Karnataka and Tamilnadu states. He went to his two former PC sites, Kumpta and Kolar in Karnataka and visited at least two FOI charities, South Asia Pure Water Initiative, Inc. (SAPWII) and the Ecological Development Foundation (EDF). They also stopped at Waddarahatti village where Alice and I had worked as Volunteers. More from George later.
Please see website gallery for photos.

Good Reads:
Holy Cow is a funny, irreverent and ultimately touching story written by Sarah MacDonald, an Aussie living for a while in India. (Reid Melton I 20A)

Peace Corps Week falls on the week of February 25 through March 3, 2008. Peace Corps encourages RPCVs to be involved in PC Week to call attention to Peace Corps in 2011 during Peace Corps' 50th anniversary.
Please visit www.peacecorps.gov/pcweek

Namascaram,
Jack Slattery
Email: FOIndiaSlattery@aol.com

PS, See inside for new 4th FOI Charity initiated by India 42 -Kolar Water Filters
PPS, Visit www.FOIndia.org photo gallery. Thanks to you we are adding to it all the time.